⏱️ The Best Minute: How to complete all your tasks
💡 1 IDEA FROM ME
One of the best ways to keep things from falling through the cracks and ensure everything you need to get done will actually get done is by putting due dates on all your tasks.
Deadlines bring clarity to what needs to be done when and help us focus on what we need to be working on. Simply adding things to your to-do list without specifying when they need to be addressed makes it much easier for things to pile up because you haven’t been clear on your deadlines.
Anytime you add something to your to-do list, put a due date on it. If you don’t give yourself a deadline you're leaving it up to whatever you feel like doing on a particular day. If it is a task you don’t want to do, you’ll keep pushing it off (while taking up brain energy because you’re still thinking about it) until the very last possible second, many times finally doing it too late or simply ignoring it altogether.
Below is a picture of my Todoist from the morning I am writing this. I recommend Todoist for two primary reasons. One, the way it structures recurring tasks is the best I have seen. Two, it is really easy to add tasks with a due date using their hotkey function without having to open up your task manager every time something pops into your mind (and their mobile app works great as well).
For example, I could use the hotkey function on Mac (Command + Shift + A) and a little pop-up box appears. I could simply type “Write The Best Minute on Monday” and it will add that task to my list for the following Monday.
The top three tasks with the green arrows beneath them recur every Monday. All the tasks beneath them were added by me at various times, but were all things I wanted to address on that particular day. Do all of them need to be addressed on this day? Not necessarily, but since I have assigned them to get done on this day, I’ve already predetermined when they should be addressed. When the day arrives, there is no internal debate as to what needs to be accomplished that day.
And if, for whatever reason, I don’t get to a non-urgent task on the assigned day, I’ll reassign the due date to the following day to keep it right in front of me.
Struggle with keeping up with all your tasks? Remove the internal debate on what to tackle on a given day. Instead, give them all due dates and face the day knowing exactly what you need to do.
Next week in The Best Minute I’ll share the four possible things we really mean when we say we are “busy” and what you can do about them.
💬 2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS
I. Robert Heinlein on the benefits of teaching:
“When one teaches, two learn.”
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II. Adam Grant on how to get real feedback:
“When people hesitate to give honest feedback on an idea, draft, or performance, I ask for a 0-10 score.
No one ever says 10. Then I ask how I can get closer to a 10.
It motivates them to start coaching me – and motivates me to be coachable. I want to learn how to close the gap.”
📖 1 BRIEF BOOK REVIEW
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
This is a classic book originally written in 1937. It is about as much of a psychology book as it is a book about money.
I enjoyed the read and found it helpful in some areas. At the same time, there are "13 steps to riches" in the book as well as many other types of lists in the book, so it is a lot of information to keep up with.
I also found it about 50 pages too long, which took away from the book for me. He also had a little section on prayer and how it works (in his opinion) that I certainly disagreed with.
Still, I did enjoy the read overall. It didn't meet my hopes given how many other people I've seen who recommend the book, but glad to have read it. 7/10
7/10
🤔 1 QUESTION TO LEAVE YOU WITH
Does the amount of time I am giving to this match its true importance?
