by S J Scott
Remember: never let other people’s priorities become your own.
Action #3: Block Out Time on a Calendar
This is where the rubber meets the road.
After identifying those 80/20 “big rocks,” it’s time to put these activities on a calendar.
To get started, I suggest using a calendar where you can schedule your day into 30- to 60-minute increments. You have two options here:
Buy a weekly calendar.
Use an online calendar, like Google Calendar.
Personally, I prefer the Google Calendar because it syncs with other online tools that I use (like Todoist and Slack). Plus, my wife can look at the schedule on her devices when planning fun activities we can enjoy together. But feel free to pick the tool that works for you.
To get started with blocking out time on your calendar, I recommend five actions:
Begin by blocking out time for the commitments that you already have that involve other people or deadlines. These are meetings, appointments, and previously scheduled events. There is no flexibility for these commitments, so they should be the first items to put on your calendar.
Block out time for the tasks that are high priorities as well as those that require greater concentration. These are the rocks and pebbles that have the strongest influence on your life. You can make time for them by looking at your project lists, identifying the actions that need to be completed next, and scheduling time to work on these activities. If you don’t make time for these activities, you’ll end up focusing on the pebble and sand activities, which don’t have as much of a positive impact on your life.
Block out time for personal hobbies, such as reading or going to listen to a speaker talk on a topic that is interesting to you. You may also find it helpful to block out time to spend with your children doing homework or getting ready for bed. You should also block out time to have a date night with your spouse. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or expensive; just spending the time together to build a healthy relationship will be beneficial to your overall well-being.
Set aside “flexible time” for unexpected tasks and issues that require your immediate attention. By leaving parts of your calendar open, you can take care of these issues without derailing your plans to work on the important stuff.
Set aside time to process any ideas that came up during the week. If you’re like me, then you probably have dozens of great ideas every week related to your goals. The question is, how do you follow up on them?My advice is to process these notes, making one of two choices: (1) take action on it immediately and (2) schedule a time when you’ll follow up on it.
Here’s how that would work:
If the idea is actionable, write out a step-by-step plan for how you’ll do it. Simply write down a series of actions you’ll take on this idea and then schedule these ideas into your week.
If the idea is not actionable, put the idea into an archive folder that’s reviewed every month. If you do this for every idea you have, you won’t forget to follow up at the right time.
If you want to see an example of what my weekly schedule looks like, then check out the visual walkthrough that I provide in the free companion website.
Action #4: Practice Batching and Create “Theme Days”
If you want to take your time-blocking efforts to the next level, then you can create a weekly schedule where you focus on one type of activity for an extended block of time. This is often called batching tasks.
The benefit of batching is that you remove the stress that often comes from having too many tasks on your to-do list. Instead of trying to tackle everything on one day, you set aside time each week to singularly focus on similar tasks.
For instance, you can batch activities like responding to email, posting on social media, returning phone calls, going to appointments, and handling administrative tasks. These can be done in blocks throughout the day. Any task that you regularly do can be batched with similar tasks.
Now, if you want to take batching one step further, you can create what are known as “theme days.” The idea of theme days is to create multiple categories for your career and then block out time each week where you focus on just these activities. This focus block can be part of a day or a whole day that’s dedicated to one activity. It’s the perfect strategy for anyone who needs to wear multiple hats for their job and feels overwhelmed by all that they need to do daily.
For instance, besides my daily habit of writing, there are a few areas of my business that can be grouped together into a single block of time. Here’s what this looks like in my typical week:
Mondays: writing (extra writing in addition to my daily habit).
Tuesdays: book marketing.
Wednesdays: conversations and interviews.
Thursdays: blog optimization.
Friday: writing and administrative tasks.
Saturday: family time.
Sunday: family time.
The beauty of themed days is that they remove much of the stress you regularly experience. When you know that on each day you have to worry about only one thing, it becomes much simpler to ignore all those other obligations that weigh on your mind. Your job is to simply focus on one type of task and work diligently on it.
Action #5: Set Aside Time for Deep Work
If you work in a career field that requires a heightened amount of focus, then you would benefit by blocking off time to focus on what’s called Deep Work.
Deep Work is a term that Cal Newport coined in his book appropriately titled Deep Work. It refers to professional activities that are done without any distractions while you’re in a state of deep concentration. This focus can push your cognitive abilities to their limit.
Without Deep Work, you tend to stay on a superficial level of thought without ever reaching your full potential. The classic example of this is someone who multitasks on tasks like writing a report, checking social media, and texting their friends. Then they wonder why they always feel rushed and never achieve anything of importance.
The key to Deep Work is to guard your time at all costs. While this may seem simple, think about how often you find yourself mindlessly going through work that should be meaningful while breaking your concentration every few minutes to answer your phone or check your email.
There are several things that you must do to be able to accomplish Deep Work. When it comes to social media, either don’t be a part of it or leave it for a very specific time of day that is far away from your working hours. Remove the apps from your phone so you’re not tempted to check out these sites in the middle of the workday. People who are the most successful don’t spend their hours mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds to see what other people are doing. Instead, they focus on themselves and their work.
Additionally, make firm commitments that you cannot back out of. This will give you strict deadlines to adhere to, which will likely help keep you on track. You are much less likely to procrastinate on a task if someone else is depending on you as well.
You also need to be well aware of what tends to distract you the most and address it head on. Is your phone ringing all day, making you change your course of thought several times each hour? Do you work close to people who talk out loud all day long and you can’t help but listen to the conversation? Pinpoint what is distracting you so you can eliminate the issue.
People often get distracted by the pebbles or sand in their lives. However, if you proactively set aside adequate time for the important rocks first, then you will know that no matter what happens in life, you have already taken care of the things that truly matter.
Deep Work helps fight procrastination because it requires you to set aside time for the important stuff in your life. Avoiding “time vampires” is key, because while they may seem important at the time, they aren’t in the long run.
Exercise #6: Pl
an Your Weekly Schedule
Creating a weekly schedule gives you an opportunity to identify the crucial tasks that you choose to focus on for the next seven days. It also acts as your first line of defense against those random tasks that could potentially derail your week, causing you to feel overwhelmed.
To get started, set aside a few hours, preferably on Sundays, to schedule the tasks you’d like to accomplish in the next seven days. You should focus on five core actions during this review session:
Action #1: Answer Three Questions
Determine what deserves your attention by answering three basic questions:
What are my personal obligations?
What are my priority projects?
How much time do I have this week?
Action #2: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Your Schedule
Apply the 80/20 Rule to your schedule by spending as much time as possible focusing on the actions that generate a significant result. You can do this by scheduling activities based on the answers to these questions:
What tasks are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
What core activities have the biggest impact on my career?
What experiences produce 80% of my fulfillment and happiness?
Who are the people that cause 80% of my enjoyment and make me feel truly engaged?
Who are the 20% of people who cause me to feel angry, unhappy, and unfulfilled?
What habits make up 80% of my efficiency or effectiveness?
If you get busy, you can simplify everything by answering one question about the tasks you’re scheduling: “Does this task help or hinder my ability to work on one of my five goals?”
Action #3: Block Out Time on a Calendar
Block out time on a calendar by scheduling time for your priority tasks, personal hobbies, and “flex time” to reflect on new opportunities or take action on any emergencies that pop up during the week.
Action #4: Practice Batching and Create “Theme Days”
Practice batching by grouping similar tasks together at a specific time or on a theme day.
Action #5: Set Aside Time for Deep Work
Set aside time for Deep Work, where you eliminate all distractions and completely focus on an activity that requires deep concentration.
Step #6: Implement 14 Daily Practices to Overcome Procrastination
We’ve spent much of the book covering topics like identifying your core projects, creating S.M.A.R.T. goals, saying no to low-priority tasks, and planning your weekly schedule. But we haven’t talked about how to handle those day-to-day moments when you feel that urge to procrastinate.
The reason I waited until now is because procrastination is often a symptom of a larger issue when it comes to managing your time. I feel when you learn the right way to manage your time daily (using what I’ve discussed in Step #1 through Step #5), you’ll eliminate many of the issues that cause procrastination.
That said, I do recognize that your life might be a daily struggle of deciding to focus on the activities you’re supposed to be doing while resisting the temptation to skip what you’ve planned for the day.
So, in this section, I’ll cover 14 strategies to help you take action on tasks—even when you don’t feel a lack of motivation.
This step has a “choose your own adventure” list of ideas. This means you don’t need to do all of them to overcome procrastination. Instead, I encourage you to pick and choose the ones that work well for your personal situation.
Let’s get to it.
Practice #1: Resolve Any Potential Emergency
Throughout this book, I’ve mentioned many strategies for managing your time and increasing your productivity. While I think these things are important, they pale in comparison to the importance of resolving any potential emergency.
Think back to the story about my father that I told at the start of the book. He made a small decision that had a lasting, positive impact on his life. But he could have chosen a different path, which might have led to his death.
My point? If you live an unbalanced life, focusing only on work projects and ignoring everything else, you could be missing a major warning sign of a potential catastrophe.
We all have those moments that require us to immediately drop what we’re doing and take care of an unexpected priority. This can include a death in the family, a sick child, or your furnace breaking in the middle of winter.
These scenarios can’t wait until your next open block of time. Instead, you often need to cancel everything on your calendar and take care of these issues immediately.
On the other hand, there are scenarios that start out as small things, but could transform into catastrophic events for you or your family. These can be issues like experiencing chest pain, receiving a letter from the government, getting a phone call from your child’s teacher, or hearing from a depressed friend in the middle of the night.
At first, none of these scenarios might seem like an emergency. So, it’s easy to let them slip through cracks—especially if you’re a busy person. They don’t come with a warning sign like the other emergencies in life.
But if you’re someone who already procrastinates, then you run the risk of allowing these issues to snowball into a catastrophic event.
As we’ve discussed, ignoring potential emergencies can lead to death, divorce, suicide, financial ruin, and other horrible situations. No matter how busy you might be, it’s always important to immediately address any situation that could be an emergency.
This can be done by asking yourself a few questions:
What is the worst-case scenario if I ignore this issue?
How would this potential emergency negatively affect my friends and family?
What are the not-so-important tasks or obligations that I can put off to take care of this potential emergency?
What simple actions can I take today to resolve this issue?
If it’s not a life-threatening issue and I don’t have time to address it today, when is the soonest I can deal with it?
In the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware shared her experiences as a palliative care nurse who worked with people in the last few weeks of their lives. Her patients frequently spoke of the things they wished they had done differently. The one regret that sticks out to me is the wish that they hadn’t worked so hard during their life.
I feel this is an important lesson, because it’s easy to get wrapped up in the daily grind and ignore the issues that don’t seem important but can turn into true emergencies if left ignored. Sure, you might not “have time” to take care of the unexpected. But it’s also a matter of priorities. No job, task, meeting, or appointment is worth putting something off that could derail your life or the lives of your loved ones.
My suggestion is whenever something comes up, stop what you’re doing and take care of it right away.
Have that candid conversation with your spouse.
Make an appointment with a doctor if something doesn’t feel right.
Call back your friend who sounds depressed.
Open that scary letter from the government and immediately address it.
Sure, none of these scenarios might be convenient, but I guarantee that taking care of them immediately will prevent scarier issues down the road.
Practice #2: Do a 5- to 10-Minute Daily Review
A simple way to fight procrastination is with a 5- to 10-minute review session. The idea here is to spend a few minutes going over the day’s priorities and identifying the tasks that will have the strongest influence on your immediate goals. You should ask yourself these key questions during the review session:
What appointments and meetings require me to be somewhere at a set time?
Are there any emergency emails that need to be immediately addressed?
&n
bsp; What specific tasks, which relate to the batches or blocks of time that I’ve scheduled for the day, can I complete?
Is there an appointment or activity that could take longer than expected? How will this change my schedule if it does spill over into another task’s time?
What are the 80/20 tasks that will have the biggest impact on my long-term success?
How does each task relate to my quarterly S.M.A.R.T. goals?
What is the hardest, most challenging task that I’m dreading?
This quick review session is critical because it provides structure for each day. When you constantly remind yourself which tasks are important, it’ll be hard to put them off because you will recognize that your inaction will negatively affect your immediate goals.
Practice #3: Focus On Your MITs
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed (and then procrastinate) if you start the day with a to-do list full of tasks, appointments, and projects. You can simplify your list by identifying the tasks that have the biggest impact on your career or life and do them first thing in the morning. This is a concept commonly known as your most important tasks (MITs).
My suggestion is to pick from one to three MITs that absolutely must be completed by the end of the day. Two should relate to an urgent project with an immediate deadline and one should be part of a long-term goal.
For instance, many years ago, I determined that one of my core 80/20 activities is writing. So, even if I have a bunch of urgent tasks that are due at the end of the day, I always set aside at least 30 minutes for this task—usually right after my morning routine. From there, I spend the rest of my morning on the other two MITs. By focusing on important activities right away, I create an energized state that allows me to work on any project in the afternoon.