Being productive is more than fifty percent just feeling productive. Some of the busiest people I know, people who accomplish a great deal, also claim to feel as if they never get anything done. Their lists are oppressive and never get any shorter.
Today’s tip may help you with that oppressive feeling AND help you to get more things done. It’s deceptively simple: remove a task from your to-do list that recurs.
Do you need a task to remind you to eat? You probably don’t. You know by your hunger or the time of day when to eat. You don’t need a to-do to remind yourself to sleep, or brush your teeth or take out the trash.
You also don’t need reoccurring tasks for many other items. I just removed the following from my daily recurring tasks:
- Empty inbox
- Review day folder
- Review action folder
- Work out
These are things that I can do without the items being on my list. Not having them there does at least two things for me. When I look at my list, I see four fewer things on it every day. That helps me relax – or at least helps to keep the pressure to a minimum. It also lets me focus on things that I do need to be reminded of – things that really need to be done and were getting lost in the clutter of those tasks that showed up every day.
Let your to-do list or system help you remember the things that you need to remember, not to reinforce the things that you automatically do every day. Remove them from your list, breathe a sigh of relief, and go back to focusing on what you really need to get done.
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