Top Tips from My Time as Get-It-Done Guy

Today we're going for the best-of-the-best. In the last 576 episodes, we've covered a lot of territory together. We’ve had big tips, small tips, intriguing tips, and Q-tips. But as you surely recall from episode 512, The 80/20 Rule, 20 percent of the tips make 80 percentof the difference. So today, come for a quick review of the tips that will improve your life the most. We have big tips and small tips—I hope you try them all tips!

Big Productivity Tips

Some tips apply throughout all areas of your life and business. If you remember anything from the Get-it-Done Guy, remember these.

Keep your why in mind. This is the single most important tip ever. I don’t know what it is about us humans, but it’s super-easy for us to do stuff that doesn’t move us toward our goals. In episode 130, How to Accomplish Your Real Goals, we learned to ask “Why am I doing this, anyway?” at every possible moment. If your actions don’t lead to your goals, change what you’re doing. 

If you want to get going on all those things, try speed dating! (It’s not cheating if all your tasks know about each other.)

Use one master to-do list. If you have little scraps of paper everywhere with to-do items jotted down on them, consolidate! Have one master to-do list, preferably on paper. Every week do a round-up of any random task items you’ve jotted elsewhere (I tend to jot them on anything handy, including the cat) and move them into your master list. Then you can review the entire list and get an overview of all the things you could be doing. But probably aren’t. Episodes 290 and 171 discuss How to Manage Your Task Lists on Paper and How to Create One Master System to Organize Your Life.

Speed date your tasks. And if you want to get going on all those things, try speed dating! (It’s not cheating if all your tasks know about each other.) Write your top five tasks on a piece of paper. Set a timer for five minutes. Work on the first task until the timer goes off. Then switch to the second task, and the third, and the fourth! When you’re done with the fifth...

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