Ultra-Simple 3-Steps for Getting Amazing Things Done

In our effort to sim­plify things and get things done, we can be eaten up by step-by-step processes and com­pli­cated sys­tems. Here is some­thing from Leo Babauta of Zen­Hab­its.

1. Find Some­thing Amaz­ing to work on. Seri­ously — amaz­ing. Not just reg­u­lar tasks, but some­thing that you’ll feel good about, that excites you, that will have a high impact on your job and goals and life, that will make a dif­fer­ence. Do this at the begin­ning of each day, or even at the end of each day so that you don’t have to think about it the next morn­ing — you already know what you’ll be work­ing on. If you do this, at the end of the day, you can even pre­pare all the mate­ri­als and tools you’ll need first thing in the morn­ing, and clear your desk so you’ll be ready to go.

Get excited about this work. You’re going to accom­plish great things.

2. Hole your­self up and just work on the Some­thing Amaz­ing. This is the key. Well, aside from the first step, because if you don’t do the first step, this step isn’t going to work as well. And also the third step (below) is incred­i­bly impor­tant, more than you might think, so don’t skip that one. But aside from the first and third step, this is the most impor­tant step in the system.

Here’s how it works: clear your sched­ule for a good chunk of time — maybe 30 min­utes if that’s all you can spare, an hour is bet­ter, and 2–3 hours or more are even bet­ter than that. Sched­ule this chunk of time first thing in the morn­ing, or at least early in the morn­ing, if you can, so it doesn’t get pushed back by other things dur­ing the day.

Then clear away ALL dis­trac­tions: noti­fi­ca­tions for email, IM, Twit­ter, and any­thing else that might pop up or make a noise, your phones, all mobile devices any clut­ter in front of you (just shove it in a drawer or put it on the floor to clear away later), and most impor­tantly, The Inter­net. Yes, turn off the Inter­net. Well, not the whole Inter­net, as other peo­ple might be using it, but just your con­nec­tion to it. If pos­si­ble, go some­where where there are no dis­trac­tions and no Inter­net con­nec­tion. Tell every­one you work with that you will be incom­mu­ni­cado for an hour or three work­ing on an impor­tant project. If you can, make this a reg­u­lar thing on your sched­ule — 2–3 hours in the morn­ing every day, when peo­ple know you can’t be disturbed.

Once you’ve holed your­self up, don’t work on any­thing except the Some­thing Amaz­ing. Seri­ously. Resist any urges to switch tasks or check on some­thing or get up and talk to some­one. Those urges will come up, trust me. It’s like an addic­tion — you just have to get through them. Steel your­self, and just sit there breath­ing deeply (with your head between your legs, if that helps) until the urge passes. Then get back to work on the Some­thing Amazing.

Focus on that one thing until you’re done. Really, just the one thing.

3. Take a nap. Or reward your­self some other way — take a break and walk out­side, or play WoW, or check the email you’ve been itch­ing to check, or read through your bril­liant Twit­ter mes­sages, or go for a run (not everyone’s idea of a reward, per­haps, but I love it). And cel­e­brate your accom­plish­ment! You’ve got­ten some­thing amaz­ing done.

Now repeat Steps 1–3 until your work­day is over.

But … what about all the other tasks and things I need to do? How do I track them and get them done?

First, those less impor­tant tasks will get done, but the world prob­a­bly won’t end if you put them off for a few hours or even a day or two. Unless you hap­pen to be Mr. Obama, and one of those “less impor­tant” tasks is some­thing like “Solve cri­sis with nuclear weapon mal­func­tion”, in which case don’t you think you should have put that task at the top of your list, Mr. Pres­i­dent? For the rest of us, the world will go on with­out every sin­gle task get­ting done.

Sec­ond, keep a run­ning list of every task you think of. When you’re done doing your Some­thing Amaz­ing, take a look at the list and see what really needs to be done. Maybe it’s another Some­thing Amaz­ing, maybe it’s just a rou­tine task that needs to get done. Maybe it’s a bunch of smaller tasks that you can get done all at once before mov­ing on to the next Some­thing Amaz­ing. Also look through the list and cross off things that don’t really need to get done — usu­ally things you’ve been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on for awhile.

This sys­tem isn’t as com­pre­hen­sive as other, more com­pli­cated, pro­duc­tiv­ity sys­tems, I’ll grant you. But it’s sim­ple, and it works. Try it today, and let me know if it doesn’t make a difference.