Simple productivity: three important tasks every day

August 26th, 2010

It’s funny how seemingly unrelated areas of your life can suddenly converge on one idea.

Last week I was reading Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less.

I’ve read some of Leo’s stuff on Zen Habits, and decided to check out his book as part of my current effort to simplify my life. In it, he talks about doing three Most Important Tasks (MITs) first thing in the morning, before you do anything else (breakfast is ok, I assume).

“Usually, the small, unimportant tasks that we need to get done every day (e-mail, phone calls, paperwork, errands, meetings, Internet browsing, etc.) will get in the way of our important, longer-term tasks–but if you make your MITs your first priority each day, the important stuff will get done instead of the unimportant.”

Leo Babauta, The Power of Less

You have the most motivation early on in the day.

If you start the day off getting three really important things done, you build momentum for the rest of the day (whether that means continuing to work, or taking a break– either way, you can’t feel guilty because the important stuff is already done).

I thought it was a cool concept, but wasn’t quite ready to incorporate it into my routine yet. A few days later, a friend mentioned to me a talk by Steven Covey about a metaphorical glass jar in which you must put rocks (most important tasks), pebbles (minor tasks), and sand (worthless tasks, e.g. Facebook). If you put pebbles or sand in first, you can’t fit the rocks, but if you put the rocks in first, then the pebbles, then the sand, they all fit. The moral of the story: pick 3 big “rocks” to do first thing in the morning, and everything else will fall into place. It’s a pretty cheesy metaphor, but it struck a chord because I had only read Leo’s book a few days earlier.

I confess, I am what many refer to as a “dreamer”.

I think big, and I have a million things I want to do in any given day. If I’m lucky, I can get 10% done of what I want to do. Which 10% depends a lot on how I structure my day. What I don’t want to do is get a lot of little tasks done and ignore the big ones.

Thus, I have decided to follow Leo’s advice

Every night, I write down a list of the three most important tasks I want to get done the next day. Last night, I wrote: “1. Spanish 2. Exercise 3. Unity”. (I suppose I’m cheating a bit at the moment since I’m writing a blog post.) Here is how those play out:

1. Spanish I have a very important life goal of being fluent in Spanish. In order to make that an attainable goal, I need to do something daily with the language. Thus, every morning I sit downstairs with a cup of Earl Grey, a bowl of oatmeal, and listen to a BBC Mundo podcast of international news. It’s a great way to start the day.

2. Exercise I read a few months ago that daily exercise helps with ADD symptoms. Thus, to help me stay focused throughout the rest of the day, I try to do something active in the morning. For example, this morning I’m going to go for a 1 mile run. It’s not a lot, but I’m out of shape so it’s a start.

3. Unity Client work. Not all your Most Important Tasks have to relate to a life goal (but at least one should). I promised a client I would do some work for them this week, and I am following through on that promise.

I’m 1/3 so far, but about to start on #2.

What are your Most Important Tasks?