“Do one thing at a time,” we’re told, and for good reason. When we focus all of our available time and resources on a single task, project, or goal, we’re more likely to start and complete it, and do a better job of it. 

But it’s not always necessary or practical to do that. 

You might have several projects on your “current” list—moving your office, hiring new staff, starting a new marketing campaign, preparing for trial—the list does go on, doesn’t it?—and you can’t do everything “today”.

You need time to find candidates or ideas, make a list or outline, talk to different people, draft documents, or time to finish up other projects before you can start working on the next one.

Which is why you work on a project and switch to another before the first project is done. 

You know what that’s called? Normal. Another day at the office.  

Hold on. You’ve probably heard the expression “task switching,” which is what we do when we multitask, meaning going back and forth from one task to another, and why this isn’t recommended. 

Starting a task and then switching to another task before you finish the first one isn’t optimal because when you stop working on a task before it is complete, your brain tends to keep it in “RAM” and your mental resources are still being used for that task and you can’t use those resources to work on other tasks. 

Better to finish one task before moving on to another. 

But task switching isn’t the same thing as simultaneously working on multiple projects, and you often don’t have a choice.

If you’re planning to move your office, hire and train a new assistant, prepare a case for trial, and start a new marketing initiative, you might not be able to finish one project before you start another. 

Do it if you can. You’ll be glad you did. But if you can’t, if you need to work on multiple projects in parallel, do what you have to do.

Start working on one, take it as far as you can for now, start another project, and keep going back and forth until you finish everything. 

Messy, but often necessary. 

For tasks and for projects, one thing at a time is the default, and when possible, finish one thing before you start another. 

But you know this, right? So why am I mentioning it? Because if you’re like me (and we both know you are), you’re reading this because you took a break from doing something else you need to do, and I’m just reminding you to get back to it. 

You’re welcome.

You know how things always take longer than you think and how your carefully thought out plan for the day too often goes to pot? You start the day and discover you allocated too much time to one thing and not enough time to others, or didn’t do things you’ve been putting off.

Yes, you can adjust. We all do. But there’s something else we can do before we start our day that makes it less likely we’ll need to adjust and more likely we’ll get our most important tasks done.

After you make your list, visualize the day ahead in as much detail as possible. 

Run through the list and imagine everything on it, as though you are doing it.

See yourself waking up, doing your morning routines, checking your list and calendar, and then making calls, responding to email, talking to your staff, reviewing and drafting documents—everything, until it’s time to call it a day.

See the entire day—what you do, how long it takes, and how it feels as you do it.

It’s a simple way to know if your plan is both realistic and likely to accomplish your most important tasks. 

Does anything seem unnecessary? Do you have enough time to do everything? Is there something you should do (or want to do) that’s not on the list?

Think of it as a dress rehearsal for the day. If you don’t like your performance (in your head), you can make adjustments before the day begins.

Or realize you need to call your understudy so you can take the day off. 

Over time, my weekly review has become more about tidying up (emails, notes, tasks, projects) and choosing tasks for the upcoming week rather than an actual review of what I did the preceding week and using that to plan the next.  

You too? 

One thing we can do to improve our “review” is to take a high-level inventory of the week by asking two questions: 

1. What went well? 
2. What can I do better? 

We can take a quick look at our calendar and/or task management app and note everything we did that week, what worked, and what didn’t, or drill down into specific projects or cases and identify our progress or lack thereof.  

We could record our results in a diary, or spreadsheet, so we have something to look back on. We could also gamify what we’re doing and reward ourselves when we follow our plan.  

Sometimes, it’s difficult to be objective about what we’ve done and we should consider asking others for feedback. Talk to a partner or friend, or email your subscribers, and ask what they think about your recent offer, article, action, or idea. 

What went well? What can improve? 

Perhaps the biggest benefit of tracking our activities this way is knowing that by doing that, we’ll develop the habit of thinking about what we’re about to do before we do it. 

How’s that for a novel idea? 

Do you ever get notifications about an upcoming appointment or scheduled task and miss it? You don’t see the pop-up or hear the chime and, oh well, there has a be a better way. 

Besides having an assistant knock on your door to tell you your next appointment has arrived. 

I just heard about a guy who uses a stupidly simple way to make sure he doesn’t miss things. Or ignore them. In addition to setting notifications for events on his calendar et al., he sets the alarm clock on his phone. When it rings or buzzes or chirps or plays a song, he can’t ignore it because it doesn’t stop until he stops it. 

And, unlike the polite notifications most of our apps give us, the alarms on our phones are loud. And obnoxious. Which is why we use them to wake up (especially when we have an early plane to catch and it’s still dark out). 

He sets an alarm to notify him to wake up, of course, but also for meetings, to eat, exercise, shut down for the day (and plan the next day), and for important tasks and time blocks that often get away from him.

I thought this was a great idea and set up my first alarm for 9am tomorrow to try it out. You might want to give it a go yourself. 

Especially to notify you it’s time to do something you don’t want to do. 

I’m sure you’ve figured out that you will never get everything done. But you do your best. You go through your lists of tasks and projects and goals, prioritize them, work as hard as you can, but you still don’t (seem to) make a dent.

Stop trying so hard.

Choose a few things that are important to you and let go of the rest. You’ll feel much better. And get much more (important things) done. 

One area to do this is with your reading list. You don’t have time to read all those books and articles and watch all those videos. And you shouldn’t try.

Skim through the pile if you feel you must or delegate that to staff. Or buy “book summaries” instead of the whole enchilada.

Commit to consuming only the highest quality material and ruthlessly eliminate everything else.

Yes, it will take time to sort through everything, but the tradeoff is that you’ll be able to delete perhaps 95% of your reading pile. Most things are unimportant, cumulative, or irrelevant. Get rid of it in favor of the precious few.

(I’m reminding myself of this as I type. . .)

What then? Stop skimming and start studying. 

Read (the good stuff) slowly. If it fizzles out, jettison it and move on to something else.

Highlight key points and think about the ideas presented—what they mean, questions they answer, other questions they pose—and put the important points in your notes, in your own words. They’ll have more meaning for you that way because you’ll need to reflect on them before you record them. 

What do you agree with? What do you like? What bothers you? How will this information benefit you?

And decide what you will do with this material. Tag your notes for your current and upcoming projects and add links to other notes you’ve made on the subject.

Don’t rush. This is the good stuff, remember, so take your time. Write an outline or summary. And then read the material again.

Yes, more time. But you have that time because you got rid of 95% of everything else.

You can accomplish most things worth accomplishing without extreme effort. In fact, giving things your all might be counterproductive. 

You get tired and make mistakes. You have unreasonable expectations and feel bad for falling short. You spend most of your time on one project and your other responsibilities and goals suffer. 

Of course 110% effort isn’t possible. Neither is 100%. Even 90% is too much. Instead, some experts suggest you dial down your effort to 85%.

Supposedly, that’s the sweet spot. Enough effort (time, energy, commitment) to be manageable and avoid burnout. Enough to allow you to do your best work and accomplish your most important goals.  

You’ve only got so much juice to give. Scale back. You’ll be more productive. 

It’s easy to do and makes a lot of sense. A simple way to find things you need to do but often don’t. 

All you do is create a list of small tasks you can do when you don’t have a lot of time, energy, or motivation. Add labels or tags so you can find these tasks when you have a few minutes between appointments, for example, or when you’re tired and don’t want to do anything cognitively demanding.

This isn’t primarily for regular routines or for tasks you schedule in advance. It’s for the things that tend to fall through the cracks. 

When you have 5 or 10 minutes before your next appointment, call, or meeting, for example, you can jot down a few notes about an article you’re planning to write. In the afternoon, when you’re low on energy, you can read an article or watch a video for an upcoming project. 

I’ll bet your task app, or list, is filled with tasks that qualify. Find them, tag them, and do them when you the opportunity presents itself. 

Some people create tags for 5, 10, and 20 minutes. Or “energy” tags for “low, medium, and high”. Some people set up filters for combing time and energy, e.g., “10-minute low-energy” tasks or “5-minute tasks for the xyz project”. 

One benefit to these kinds of lists or filters is that they allow you to more easily bundle tasks, e.g., errands, chores, admin, or involving other people, so you can get them done in one go.

Having lists of tasks you can knock off when you’re tired or busy feels good and might stimulate you to get other things done. 

But I think one of the biggest benefits is that it allows you to create shorter lists devoted to your “most important” tasks each day, without the clutter or distraction of everything else you could do.,

Shorter lists of “must do” tasks allow you to focus and do them. After you do them, you can easily find other things to do.