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Yesterday I shared a few general thoughts on productivity. In short: other people might get more stuff done than you do. However, they might also have more help, fewer responsibilities an easier situation and more energy. More importantly – your worth is not determined by how much you get done in a day.
We all have stuff to do
However, we do all have things we want or need to get done. Maybe you have a physical list of things or it is just in your head but most likely there are quite a number of tasks you need to fulfil.
I might talk about how I organise and prioritise those tasks on another day. However, today I wanted to share a method I discovered recently that is really helping me with my daily to dos.
Identifying obstacles
My main problem when it comes to getting stuff done are overwhelm and interruptions.
Overwhelm
Like most people I have a long list of to dos. It’s easy to look at or think about this list and all there is to do and feel completely overwhelmed. And that sometimes stops me from doing anything at all. Or I might get a few bits done but the fact that so many tasks remain frustrates me.
Interruptions
And, like quite a few of you who read this blog, I have small children. It is rare that I clean the bathroom in one go without the baby waking up or my toddler really urgently needing me to draw a tiger. By the time I have sorted the baby out and drawn the tiger it is likely that I have forgotten about the half-cleaned bath and I move on to making dinner or make a call or start knitting. By the end of the day it can feel like I got nothing done, I feel frazzled and frustrated.
The Jot Method
The Jot Method has really helped me with these problems. This is how it works.
1. You decide on one task that you want to do. For example, calling the hairdresser to make an appointment.
2. You take a piece of paper and write “call hairdresser.”
3. You call the hairdresser.
4. You cross out “call the hairdresser.”
5. You repeat steps 1-4 for anything else you want to get done.
This seems a bit silly but the writing down of this one thing helps me to just do it. Even if I get side-tracked I know what task to come back to. I’m less distracted or tempted to multitask and start multiple things at once.
Also, I end up with a list on which everything is crossed out which makes me feel a lot more accomplished than a list where most things are still not completed.
It feels a lot kinder to focus on what I can do right now than on everything that needs or should get done.
So, if you struggle with overwhelm, interruptions or procrastination this simple method might be helpful to you as well.
What are your strategies against overwhelm when it comes to your to-do list? I‘d love to hear about it!
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