Comments on: Staying On Target With Your Tasks

By: Craig Jarrow

Craig Jarrow — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:47:18 +0000

Love the weekly review. I use it *before* the coming week as a prep session.

Not only to plan, but to prepare (review materials… lay things out… etc.).

Great tip!

By: Craig Jarrow

Craig Jarrow — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:45:31 +0000

Mining Man - Love your thought on "five more minutes."

One of my early mentors taught me, "You can do *anything* for five minutes."

It is a great way to start something you are resisting or to put in the effort to finish something that needs to be done!

A TMN t-shirt will be on its way to you!

Thanks for the sharing the great tip!

By: Craig Jarrow

Craig Jarrow — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:32:06 +0000

Eric – I like the disabling of pop-up notifications. I think the Outlook “new mail” is my most hated.

Good tips!

I have never been one for multiple desktops. Although I do have them enabled on my iMac.

By: Craig Jarrow

Craig Jarrow — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:30:38 +0000

Robert, great thought!

I think it can be very powerful. Dave Navarro wrote a similar piece the other day... check it out here: http://www.rockyourday.com/how-to-keep-urgency-...

By: Kielyassocs

Kielyassocs — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:54:16 +0000

I've just discovered your blog via the Dumb Little Man and it's added to my favourites. My tip would be to identify which activities bring you the most income and make sure that you prioritise those before moving onto the ones which might be the most enjoyable but don't bring in the money!

By: denise

denise — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:55:44 +0000

Even though the psychological adrenaline rush of finishing a job is a great feeling, I reward myself when I have targeted the goal and achieved it in a set amount of time. It might be little, such as taking the evening off because it all got done, or big, such as buying something- a form of delayed gratification. I'm fairly disciplined but on “weak” mind days this is usually what can give me best focus. I love a completed “to-do” task list!!

By: Victoria

Victoria — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:20:04 +0000

When I'm working on a specific task, I keep a side list where I jot down thoughts/ideas/tasks that pop into my head but could draw me off focus. Even looking up that reference goes on the side list because I KNOW it will break my work/writing flow. As my fourth grade teacher used to say, call it ” wheelbarrow” and roll on.

By: Mining Man

Mining Man — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 09:44:25 +0000

"Just five more minutes"

When I feel I'm losing focus or an email pops up that looks like being a great distraction, I commit to just doing five more minutes on the task I'm working on. I might use a timer or just the clock on the computer to time it.

At the end of the five minutes, I usually find that I just keep going, not even conscious that the time is up. That commitment to just do a little bit more usually goes a long way as during that time I regain my focus.

But if I do get to the end of the five minutes and still want a break or a distraction, then I go for it, happy knowing that at least I got that little bit extra done.

I use this same principal when I'm procrastinating about starting something. It might be a two hour project, so I commit to doing just five minutes on it. 90% of the time once I've started I have no problem keeping on going!! It's just kicking off thats hard.

By: Gerardvanstijn

Gerardvanstijn — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:18:27 +0000

For me what has wroked best is setting a timer when I need the task to be done. That way I will have a deadline to keep.
But to be honest, it is not foolproof.

By: waldeis

waldeis — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:52:14 +0000

For me, there are multiple things i think are important to ensure that i stay on target with my tasks. If i need to pick one thing then it's the Weekly Review

A weekly review: You don't need to do everything according GTD, but the Weekly Review is the one thing i highly recommend to everybody out there. Within a normal business job, you have so many project tasks running in parallel that you easily let slight on individual ones. The only chance – at least for me – to keep all in track and get reminded about all my tasks is the Weekly Review. I have scheduled a 2 hour time-frame for that every friday afternoon before i leave the office. I go through all my individual task and project lists and check every single one if it's still valid. I also check my Someday/Maybe list at that time and from time to time i find interesting things i noticed maybe 3 months ago that i can now take some actions on.

That's my tip for staying on target….and i want a T-Shirt!