So instead of interrupting the flow of your workday with little tasks, you can concentrate on the high-impact stuff that requires your full focus and attention. The beauty of this kind of automatic delegation is that you can simply set it and forget it-majorly cutting down on your to-do list. Other popular “zaps” include automatically adding Eventbrite attendees to MailChimp and automatically scheduling social media posts through Buffer. That way, when I need to sort through potential posts, I don’t have to waste time rooting around in my inbox. To cut out some of those less-than-urgent responsibilities, try an automating service, like Zapier, which gives you the ability to delegate repetitive work tasks to a personal internet assistant.įor instance, as part of my job, I need to keep track of pitches and guest bloggers, so I set up a “zap” to automatically save specific kinds of emails to a separate Evernote notebook. That being said, a word of caution: When your to-do list is cluttered with small, repetitive tasks, it’s easy to get caught up in whatever comes up first, rather than what’s actually the most important. Then, when you feel like you’re getting lost amidst the buzz, you can take a look at what you’ve done-which will give you a boost of motivation and renewed focus to keep achieving. When you actively identify something as a priority, you’ll be more likely to focus on it like a laser beam through the clutter instead of pushing it off to another day.Īnd finally (don’t worry, just one more!), create a done list to record everything you’ve accomplished during the day. This is where you choose impact over what you might feel is urgent. This is a daily list of your top two or three priorities (it’s key to keep it limited to avoid creating just another general to-do list) to help ensure you’re making progress on stuff that matters. To go a step further, make a priority list in addition to or based on your to-do list. (Check out a few of my favorite tips for maximizing your to-do list.)īut, a to-do list alone can only get you so far (more on that later). With all your responsibilities organized in one place, you can strategically choose what to do next instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Sounds simple, yes, but adding a few lists to your life really works.įirst, parking something on a to-do list frees up some valuable mental room, because once a nagging task is on your list, you don’t have to worry about remembering it anymore. Lists are like the Container Store for the mind-they help you compartmentalize your mental clutter in a thousand different ways. You’ll quickly gain some clear space, which will help you refresh, refocus, and get your brain back on track. So if your mind is feeling a little muddled, start by using these five tips to organize your thoughts, worries, and tasks. And to get your brain into that ideal state, you have to make space by clearing some mental clutter. It needs to be somewhat organized and at peace for you to be able to filter information into the right mental folders and actually get stuff done. You see, your brain isn’t built to split its attention in too many directions. After all, it’s easy to see that a messy workspace dampens productivity, but I often forget that a messy mind can do the same. One day, as I put off answering work emails by tidying up my spewing desk of papers, receipts, and devices, I started thinking about how my mental desktop could use some cleaning, too.
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