How You Successfully Clash Daily Tasks By The Right Adequate One Method
Why willpower and discipline aren’t the reasons for failure
You can’t apply a successive method when you don’t understand what holds you back.
Only two things are holding you back from moving along with your daily tasks. The first is procrastination, and it occurs whenever there is a big task ahead of you that makes you feel shattered. The second is multi-focus, which robs your energy whenever you switch a task, it takes time to concentrate and continue. Both reasons are familiar to you, maybe too familiar.
There must be a method to simplify your task tackling strategy that avoids the two leading causes of not completing your daily goals — the Ivy-Lee Method.
Error 1: Procrastination Is Not a Lack of Willpower
What’s the price of the PlayStation 5 again?
This quick research won’t take long, you open chrome and check for the latest eBay auctions. What you actually did was procrastinate because you didn’t start your task right away. Do you lack willpower or even discipline?
No, it is not about your discipline or willpower.
Whenever a task seems too large or too extensive, you get insecure.
The most logical reason is to flee into activities you are familiar with (watching YouTube, going shopping on amazon, cleaning, calling friends, checking email, etc..) to distract you.
But your actual tasks won’t vanish, they will become more and more. Even worse, you might not finish in time. A catch 22 has just started. The most crucial action you can take is to start and not worry about perfectionism.
Starting is the head-start you have against all others at this moment.
Error 2: Multi-Tasking Is Possible, Multi-Focus Is Not
Working on one thing is good, working on multiple isn’t.
Imagine working on your most important task of the day, and you constantly refresh your inbox for a new mail from your boss if he has finally approved your vacation. How concentrated will you work?
Not very concentrated.
Watching a Netflix series and cooking is possible — multi-tasking.
Working on a task and constantly refreshing your inbox isn’t — multi-focus.
Switching between two tasks is inefficient. Your brain has to switch on two completely different topics, and in this particular example, you have to intensely focus (working on your most important task) & refresh your inbox (highly emotional, thinking about the plans you have). The price you have to pay is losing concentration and using more time until the task is finished.
It takes time to get concentrated again, and you do waste time every time you interrupt yourself or get interrupted. This makes working inefficient.
Error 3: The Trap of False Importance
There is only one essential task a day.
Prioritizing is done right when you say “No.” to tasks.
It is not important to help a colleague when they ask for help.
It is not important to check your bank account immediately.
It is important to focus on the one big goal that dominates the day.
All other tasks are side characters.
It may seem important to you to check your emails in the morning before tackling your first tasks, but you are creating new tasks for the day you haven’t had on your schedule. It might seem essential to read the news in the morning, but are the information bringing you forward in your own life?
They don’t, it is additional, and to come up with a solution, you may want to understand the Ivy-Lee Method based on the two books:
- Eat That Frog — Brian Tracey: Key-Message: The Most Important First. The longer the day, the less concentration and the more chances to get distracted.
- Essentialism — Greg McKeown: Key-Message: Allow Yourself to Say No. Only if you allow yourself to focus on truly meaningful tasks, you can give your best. The less, the better.
The Solution in 5 Steps — Ivy-Lee Method
Let me summarize for you what an ideal technique should do:
- Reduce procrastination
- Avoid Inefficiency
- Meaningful prioritization
- Easily applicable
That’s precisely what the Ivy-Lee Method comprises. And the good news, it is applicable in only 5 steps:
- Brainstorm: At the end of your day, write the next 6 essential tasks you want to finish the next day. Please pay attention to big ones by splitting them up into small chunks.
- Sort: Adjust your tasks so that the most important is the number 1 and the least important is the number 6. If you got trouble deciding, go for the concentration ranking. The one that takes up the most brainpower is number 1. This will give you structure and avoid procrastination.
- Apply: In the morning of your next day, immediately start with your first task. Don’t check any birthdays on Facebook, don’t check your emails, just start and get into the first task and complete it before starting the next one. Pro-Tip: Turn your phone to silent and mute any notifications.
- Clean: Not completing all tasks of the day won’t be a problem. Assign the unfinished tasks to the next day. Fill up the list with new ones until you got 6 tasks in total. Remember to sort them again.
- Routine: Redo the entire process for each workday.
I successfully use a German planner called 21/90 Successjournal, which claims “In 21 Days To Routine and in 90 Days to Your Goal.” But I am sure you might want to use this English Ivy-Lee Planner for yourself.
No matter if you want to use your own sheets or find another planer, it might already be your most important task of tomorrow 😉
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Resources
[1] Eat That Frog — Brian Tracey [2] Essentialism — Greg McKeown
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