Summary

The article outlines a seven-step process for effectively prioritizing daily tasks to ensure a sense of fulfillment at the end of the day.

Abstract

This article addresses the common issue of feeling unfulfilled despite having a busy day. It introduces a seven-step process to enhance task prioritization and productivity. The first step is to plan the night before, identifying the most frustrating incomplete tasks to set the stage for the next day's success. The second step involves being realistic and limiting oneself to five key tasks, with the understanding that life's unpredictability may alter plans. Thirdly, the article suggests evaluating tasks by their importance and potential to unlock future work. The fourth step is to block out a dedicated hour for focused work on these tasks, avoiding fragmented attention. The fifth step is about defending this time block from interruptions and maintaining focus on the most important task of the day. Lastly, the article emphasizes the satisfaction of ticking off completed tasks, contributing to a sense of accomplishment and allowing for relaxation in the evening. The author also encourages reader engagement and support for the writing.

Opinions

The author believes that planning the night before is crucial for setting the right expectations for the next day.
The article conveys that selecting a manageable number of tasks (five) helps in maintaining realistic goals.
Flexibility is deemed important as the author acknowledges that unexpected events can disrupt plans.
The author suggests that tasks should be chosen based on their ability to bring satisfaction if they are the only ones completed and whether they enable future work.
A significant opinion is that focused blocks of time are more effective for productivity than scattered minutes throughout the day.
The author values the importance of defending one's time against external interruptions to ensure task completion.
A strong sense of accomplishment is associated with completing tasks and ticking them off the list, which the author finds rewarding.
The author encourages reader interaction and feedback, suggesting that mutual support within the Medium community is beneficial.

Six steps to prioritising your tasks and feeling fulfilled at the end of the day

This article is for those of us who have got to the end of a busy day and still felt unfulfilled about what we managed to achieve.

It’s a horrible feeling and one that I’ve been trying to beat for a while now. You see, the truth is that there is enough time in the day for us to get our tasks done, if we’re sensible about our priorities and expectations.

Therefore, I’ve come up with the following seven-step process to allow me to sit down in the evening and feel like I’ve made progress on my own objectives during the time that I’ve been sitting at my desk.

1. Plan the night before

As with most things in life, a bit of planning goes a long way. Personally, I like to spend five or ten minutes in the evening planning what I want to get done the next day.

Why in the evening? Because that’s when I find I’m most frustrated at what hasn’t been achieved — and that is a good gauge to avoid similar disappointment in the future.

2. Be realistic about what can be achieved

The planning takes the form of choosing what I want to get done the next day.

Don’t try to do too much though — I limit myself to five tasks that I commit to completing. Anything outside of those tasks is pushed back to another day in the week.

Even then, though, I try to be flexible.

I know that I’m not always going to get my five things done. Life will get in the way, meetings will be thrust upon me at short notice (do I really need to be in them?) and an email that comes in overnight could throw my carefully laid plans into chaos.

This is why five tasks per day is a good number for me. Even when the unexpected happens, I should still have enough time to get my priorities done.

3. Evaluate your choices

Once I’ve chosen my tasks for the next day, I make sure that they’re the right ones.

To do this, I go through each of them and ask myself two questions:

If I got nothing else done, other than this task, would I be happy tomorrow evening?
Will completing this task unlock further tasks further down the line?

I find that any task that doesn’t generate at least one ‘yes’ response is not a priority and therefore, it remains in my “Anytime” list — a list of tasks that need to be completed but don’t have a specific date attached to them.

Once I’ve identified my five tasks, I list them in order of importance, using the first question above: if I could only get one thing done the next day, what would it be?

4. Block out time to get the tasks done

Having decided on my priorities, I then block out an hour in my calendar the next day to get them done. Where possible, I love to make this at the same time every day, but that’s not always feasible.

The important thing, though, is that I commit to a decent amount of time.

I don’t rely on the odd ten minutes here and there as focus-switching is a complete pain and I find that I only work on my projects for half the allotted time before my brain naturally starts drifting to what is coming up next.

Instead, I find some dedicated time where I’ll work on my five tasks exclusively and focus entirely on what I need to get done.

5. Procrastination

I try and defend the time block I’ve set aside against others who want to put meetings in my calendar.

That is another reason why committing time the night before is so useful — colleagues can see that I’m busy at the time I’ve chosen and should find a more convenient time to catch up.

If, for whatever reason, my time block needs to be pushed back (or perhaps my mind is wandering during that time), I come back to my priorities and focus on the one thing that I wanted to get done today.

There should always be time to complete one task — even if that’s just a small step in a bigger project.

6. Get ticking

Whether you’re tracking your tasks digitally or manually, there is a definite sense of joy (and dare I say ‘smugness’?) at ticking something off your to-do list.

When I’m able to do that I give myself a metaphorical pat on the back — especially if a particular task has been on my list for a while.

After all, I’ve taken control of my priorities for the day, not allowed others to replace them with their own objectives, and taken steps toward my overall goals.

That’s definitely reason enough to feel pleased about how my day went and allow me to properly switch off in the evening.

One last thing

If you found the article above useful, then there are three things you can do to support my writing:

Hit those clapping hands so that other people with your interests will become aware of it. Hopefully, they’ll find it useful too
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