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Do the Most Important Task First
31 May 2016
Allison watched Pinkcast 1.2: A simple trick for getting the right stuff done and decided to experiment with adding this strategy to her daily approach for getting things done.
Tags: allison read, allison watched, balance, change, dan pink, productivity, time management and prioritization
This weekend I spent time with one of my favorite teenagers, and we shared a secret confession. We're both kind of lazy. Actually not kind of. We're all the way lazy. This is a hard thing for the people who know our 14 and 43-year old selves to understand because we both seem to have accomplished quite a lot in our lifespans. But, it's true. Each of has factory settings that lean toward stillness and doing less.
As we talked about the challenge of not inherently valuing hard work (so many people we love and admire seem to), I shared with her some of my strategies for overcoming my laziness. Because while I may enjoy doing less whenever possible, I also have quite a bit of ambition, a big vision for how I want my life to be and a whole lot of goals so I've had to learn techniques for helping myself to get things done while also intentionally choosing to live a balanced life.
David Allen's recommendations in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity s well as my mother's advice to start every day with writing are two of the best ways I know to have a productive and satisfying work day. Now, I'll be doing my best to follow some simple advice from Dan Pink, too. Pink is the bestselling author of five books. (Drive is my favorite.) He just started doing short podcasts called "Pinkcasts" and in 79 seconds he taught me a great lesson from Leo Babauta, the founder of Zen Habits.
You should do the "most important task first" each day. Before you clear out email or organize your to do list or do all the other things you do at the beginning of your work day, you should instead devote your initial morning energy to the most important task of the day. When I look back on the days where I’ve done this, I do notice that they were some of my most satisfying and overall productive days.
As a sometimes procrastinator and someone who's writing her Tuesday blog post at 10:30pm, I'm especially inspired by this straightforward idea and looking forward to discovering if intentionally trying to get my most important task for the day done at the beginning of the day makes the remainder of my day feel even more productive. I think I already know the answer, but I like trying something out for one month before I make a long-term commitment.
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