Work at Home Productivity Tips -

Yesterday I mentioned David Allen - author of “Getting Things Done”, and his method of planning - breaking your “to do” list into next action rather than a task list.

It may seem like a subtle difference, but the difference is actually huge.

The easier we can make it for ourself, the most likely we are to do it, simple as that. (As Anthony Robbins tells us, every one of the choices we make is based on whether or not it will bring us pain or pleasure, brain mush and muddled thinking is not pleasant! A small task that will get us the result we want is)
When we are staring at a list of things we need to do, if we can just do it without having to think it through, we are more likely to jump in instead of procrastinate. Why? I don’t know, it probably has something to do with today’s tendency to overload and brain clutter (or see above - chronic brain mush).

Why does it work? A few reasons.

It breaks down the process into small, doable steps - avoids overload or second guessing, which in itself wastes a lot of energy we could be using to “get it done”.

It allows us to do the most effective, logical “next step” instead of allowing the task to “swim in our head” until we can no longer put it off (many times at that point we are in the “hot seat”)

It “batch processes” the thinking process, we can do all of the next action thinking when we are doing our planning, it’s just plain effecient.

Try it. When you are making your “to do” list for tomorrow, don’t list “writing project” for instance - list the exact first step that you need to do - research XXXX, look up XXXX, write chapter XXXX rough copy or edit chapter XXXX.

Don’t stop there, get what you need ready for the next day when you create your list and create a project pocket of time that you will work on it.  If it’s a large project, try to make it the same time each day if you can.

See what you can do! You will be impressed with yourself :0)