Zen Habits says
1. Only schedule three essential things to do per day.
2. Plus a list of smaller tasks that can be done one after another in 30 minutes.
3. Use a calendar for appointments
Animal Comment: The 3 essential tasks must be comprised of a number of smaller action items. If you are recruiting a Marketing Director. You have to:
- create a list of target companies.
- telephone source those companies and or internet source them
- then recruit potential candidates
If you want to recruit names you already have, you write down Recruit Marketing Director. You don't list the ten calls you want to make as essential tasks.
But you still have to plan a well-defined list of action items that can be done on that day (under the heading of Recruit Marketing Director).
Too much work you're never happy
If you have a long and growing to-do list, it's got to feel overwhelming. The only cure is to cut it down. You can keep the long list but only schedule 3 essential tasks per day.
Too much work means mediocre work
If you spread your time over a lot of tasks, the results on each one are going to be mediocre.
Better take the time to do great work on one thing. Excellent work gets noticed and will take you farther than mountains of trash.
Animal Comment: Not all jobs have to be great and fast working journeymen are usually preferred over slow moving perfectionists.
Weekly Review
Decide on key tasks for coming week
Schedule them first thing in the day, on different days. Do them right away.
Goals
One at a time is best. But you can have up to 3. Not ten
Unexpected Urgencies
Stuff will come up that you really need to take care of or they could create problems for you later.
Put those on a separate small task list. Schedule 30 minutes after your essential tasks to do them.
Don't be well informed
Zen Habits doesn't read newspapers, magazines or watch TV. I assume that he shuns online versions as well. He does watch DVD's.
