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9 Get It All Done in 24 Hours: Turn To-Do Lists into Done Lists

Tim is a financial planner who works for a large national firm. There are rules and regulations he must follow, and deadlines and quotas he must meet, but he has the freedom to decide his schedule each day.

He knows what he needs to do. He has to make cold calls to total strangers. He has to make warm calls to people he’s been referred to or folks he met at networking events. He needs to go to those networking events to meet contacts. He needs to prepare quotes and examples for those with whom he can schedule appointments. He has to follow up with his current clients to make sure that their needs are being met. He wants to do more than a yearly review with his clients; he wants to get to know them.

That’s a whole lot that he needs to do. His to-do list usually has 20-plus items.

Yet, on a morning when I spied on him, he spent a total of two hours answering fellow planners’ questions or just shooting the breeze with them while being sociable and playing pool in the employee break room, as well as piddling around in his email inbox while filling out various forms.

In the back of Tim’s mind, he knew exactly what he needed to get done. Yet he didn’t do it. He said he didn’t have enough time in the day.

GOAL

Accept the fact that as long as you have a full life and thriving career, at the end of the day, you will always have something still left to do.

Accept the fact that you can get done what you absolutely need to do because you are in total control of how you handle your day. Total.

TACTICS

At the end of each workday, choose the top three tasks you need to complete the following day. You’ll also want to choose the next three most important tasks you can work on. These are your 3+3.

1. On your paper or digital calendar, schedule in your personal priorities for the next day.

2. Have within your view your calendar for the upcoming week.

3. While reviewing the project timelines you created in the previous chapter and looking at your next five to seven days of activities on your calendar, add in any tasks you must complete into open time blocks.

4. Choose your 3+3 for the next day. Number them on your calendar 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in order of priority.

5. Block off two half-day CHOP sessions per month to clear the annoying crumbs from your plate. See page 65.

STRATEGY

There is time in the day to do what truly needs to get done.

The Philosophy behind My 3+3

It’s time to take a step back and take a deep breath. In and out. In and out.

Our lists of everything we need to do will always be long. If we have a full life and successful career, there will always be something else to do. That is a fact of life we must accept. The day we have nothing on a to-do list means our job has become obsolete. So rejoice that you have a lot to do!

If the long list of tasks to do is overwhelming, are you willing to go to a 3+3 for each day? You see, when we try to work from one long list of everything we need to get done, it’s not motivating to see the list never shrink. And it doesn’t, because as we cross off things we finish, we also add tasks that have cropped up. There’s nothing wrong with having one master task list to capture all the things you need to do over time. But having a short list to complete on a daily basis is psychologically more soothing, plus it’s motivating to see more items crossed off than not.

Another challenge with trying to work daily from a long list of to-do’s is that they’re just items on a list. They are not tied to times. If you were to look at the list of 25 things you have there and assign time blocks to them (example: It’ll take me 30 minutes to do X and two hours to do Y), you’d discover that it’s not humanly possible to get all those things done in the day, in addition to the regular daily tasks you complete and the personal life you’d like to live.

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.

— Seneca the Younger

By choosing only three absolutely critical tasks we must complete the next day, we are setting ourselves up for success. A list of only three tasks is doable, so we’ll get those crossed off and be able to celebrate. “Yes! I finished my list!” A list of only three tasks is easy to focus on. When shiny objects appear or interruptions happen, it’s simple to get back on track and refocused on those three tasks that need to get done that day.

Now you might be saying, “Hey, crazy lady! I do a helluva lot more than three things each day!” Yes, absolutely you do. There’s checking email, returning phone calls, completing daily tasks related to your job, and so on. But all these tasks are usually not the ones that are of the greatest responsibility or highest value for your job, yet you spend waaaaay too much time on them. Sometimes, all day. By choosing three high-priority, high-value tasks to work on, you won’t fall down the rabbit hole of low-value work.

So, once you choose your top 3, then you choose your +3. This is the bonus round. If all the stars align in your day — everything goes absolutely perfectly — and you end up finishing with time to spare, you can celebrate, and then start working on your +3 to get ahead. Or, if the opposite happens — everything goes haywire, nothing is going your way, the internet is down, you can’t get the answers you need, people flaked out — and you can’t move forward on your top 3, then you can move into your +3. Usually, when bad things happen, we pitch a fit, and then a mental roadblock goes up because we don’t know what to do next since things didn’t go as we wanted or expected. With the +3, you’ll be able to get back into focus and still move ahead, even if it’s not in the order that you originally planned.

Another reason why you want to choose your 3+3 is so that you can procrastinate productively. Let’s say that you don’t really want to work on task 1 or task 2. Instead of popping into email or piddling around on something else that’s nowhere near a high value for your job, you can procrastinate — temporarily avoid the task — by working on something else from your 3+3 that will keep you on track or put you ahead.

Schedule Only What Truly Needs to Get Done

How do you know which tasks to put on your 3+3 list? Start with your current list (or scraps of paper) of your to-do’s. (Eventually, this is the part where you’ll take out the project timelines that you completed in the previous chapter. It’s okay if you’re not there yet. You will be.) Work through the following three questions:

What types of tasks or projects are “Urgent Priority”?

These tasks must be completed or else you’ll lose your home, your health will suffer, the health of your household members will suffer, you’ll get fired, you’ll go out of business, your relationship with a household member will suffer, or something terrible will happen to you or a member of your household or work team. If you don’t get this done, you’ll be in a world of hurt.

What types of tasks or projects are “Priority”?

If these tasks are completed, your personal health will remain at least status quo, the health of a household member will remain at least status quo, you’ll earn income, you’ll keep your job, your business will remain afloat, your home’s condition will remain at least status quo, or your office’s condition will remain at least status quo. If you get this done, you’ll stay afloat.

What types of tasks or projects are “Proactive Priority”?

If these tasks are completed, your personal health will improve, the health of a household member will improve, you’ll increase income, your home’s condition will improve, your office’s condition will improve, the status of your job or business will improve. If you get this done, you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Let’s reflect for a moment. What types of tasks or projects fall into none of the previously mentioned categories, but you often spend a lot of time on them?

Gradually, as you become more efficient, you’ll find yourself needing to complete fewer and fewer last-minute “Urgent Priorities,” so that you’ll have more time for focusing on “Priorities” and, eventually, “Proactive Priorities.” Before long, you will be scheduling your tasks several days ahead, then a few weeks ahead — instead of just the next day.

Schedule Using Time Blocks

Whatever tasks you want to complete should be assigned to time blocks throughout the day. Block off 30 minutes at the end of your workday for reflecting on what you finished, processing what needs to be ready for the next day, and scheduling your 3+3.

Assign time blocks for each task in your 3+3. Pad in at least an extra 25 to 30 percent of time over and above the amount of time you think it’ll take. This will help you if you struggle with underestimating how much time you need. For me personally, since I still battle with perfectionism, plus I want to have time in my day for putting out fires or taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity, I pad an extra 50 percent. If I think something will take me 60 minutes, I block off 90.

By working in time blocks, you know how much time of your day should be spent on which kinds of tasks — both low value and high value. Should you need to change things around, no problem. Implement Structure and Flow by flip-flopping time blocks around to different places. You’re moving them, but you’re still allowing time for them.

Build in a Fail-Safe

When we second-guess ourselves or worry about what we might forget, we lose time. Building your 3+3 at the end of each day will help remove the worries and give you that time back. It’s even more confidence building to have a backup plan, so build in two half-day CHOP sessions per month for this. What do you work on during your CHOP day? I’m glad you asked!

Crap

Highly hay

Odds and ends

Piddly stuff

These are tasks that are

boring or

difficult or

annoying or

delayed because you won’t make a decision or

avoided because they require untangling a mess

and have been carried over on to-do lists each day because they’re not at the top of your priority list, but they still eventually need to get done. The blocked-off focus time allows you to chop through stuff you still don’t want to do, or perhaps even chop tasks from the list for good because you realize that you don’t really need to do them. More important, this time allows you to chop the weight from your subconscious that these un-done tasks add. Eventually, you might be able to cut it down to one CHOP hour per week instead of two half days per month.

Whatever keeps you from reaching your goals today had better be important — it’s costing you a day of your life!

— Nido R. Qubein