So why do we waste so much of our time worrying about doing what we’re best at? Not only that, but we seem to go out of our way to do anything but what we should be doing. Whether it’s web surfing, TV watching or just shuffling papers, we’ve all done it.

Here’s five quick and easy things you can do to beat your procrastination. They may not be enough to cure it entirely, but they’ll help you get over the initial hump.

Create a work friendly environment

Remove distractions from where you’ll be working before you start. Turn the TV and radio off, close your internet browser and your IM clients. Get everything you’ll need for the task ahead, and lay it out in front of you. Make sure there’s plenty of light, and that you’re comfortable. Nothing makes work harder than an uncomfortable chair or a messy desk.

Make a short list

Making a big list of what needs doing is helpful at times, but when you’re battling with procrastination it can end up being de-motivating instead. Take an index card or small piece of paper, and list THREE things that you can accomplish in the day that will make a difference. It’s tempting to pick something big, but it’s important to start small. Even if it’s just "tidy desk" or "send email to X about project Y", it’s something you can work on.

Completing tasks is the best way of busting down the walls put up by procrastination, so think of them as a warm up before a work out. Once you feel more energetic and confident, move on to bigger jobs.

Start a timer

When I sit down to work on a task, I start a 30 minute timer. Then I start working. It doesn’t matter if the quality of writing is good or bad, as long as I do something. By having the timer in front of me, I’m reminded to focus on the job at hand. Once the timer is up, I’m done.

It’s often the case that I want to keep working even when the timer has finished, so it’s great for making progress on tasks I’ve been putting off.

Monitor your time

I’ve written about keeping a time log in the past, and they’re a good way to help you focus. When you know what you do is going to be written down, it’s a little encouragement to do something worthwhile.

RescueTime is a handy tool for Windows that automatically logs what you’re doing on the computer and lets you view statistics. After a week of use, you’ll be able to see what your biggest distractions are. Be warned, it can be a little sobering to find out just how much time is wasted during the day.

Reward yourself

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. When you force yourself to work, you can reinforce the idea that work it’s bad. Make sure you reward yourself, whether it’s a movie, a meal or reading a book in the sunshine. Smile when you’re working, to remind yourself that once you’re finished you can do something enjoyable. Don’t think of the task as a barrier keeping you from what you want, but as a journey to take to your reward.

The truth of the matter is that organised people enjoy just as much fun as everyone else. More importantly, they experience less stress and and more efficient simply by sticking to a few habits. Whilst most people would agree that it’s beneficial to be more organised, it can sometimes be difficult to get started.

Why should you get organised?

Being organised isn’t about obsessing over small details, but about being effective and efficient. There are plenty of benefits to be gained from creating a consistent system:

• Reduces Stress — You won’t get stressed looking for things, such as reports or documents. You’ll also be less likely to forget important tasks and have to deal with the consequences.
• Saves time — Similar to the above. You won’t waste time worrying about things, because they will already be done. You also won’t waste time repeating the same task you’ve done before and either forgotten or mislaid the results.
• Increases personal effectiveness — You won’t repeat tasks, mislay important jobs or items. There’s also the benefit of prioritising your work so important things get done, and you’ll have a complete list of tasks and projects so you’ll alsways know where you stand on important jobs.
• Improves your self esteem — As strange as it sounds, being organised increases your self esteem. We often feel better the more in control of our lives we are. When things are going wrong, items are getting lost and we feel lost in our work environment it can seem like we’re just being dragged along. By getting organised you take control of your life, which improves self-esteem.
• Improves your relationships — This is another “side effect” of being organised. Having a system in place makes you more reliable, and reliable people are often seen as more trustworthy. Plus keeping things somewhere safe means you’re less likely to forget birthdays and anniversaries – although if you do forget them you won’t have an excuse

There are plenty more advantages, but they’ll appear in different areas of your life in subtle ways. You’ll probably find that the quality of your life is improved in many areas, which is perhaps the biggest advantage of all.

The Anatomy of Organisation

You can split your system into three distinct areas:

• Physical layout — This concerns all the “stuff” that you use. Things like lists, folders and stationary. Each of these items should have its own place to be stored, which saves you from looking for them when they’re required. It also keeps work surfaces free of clutter, which can aid concentration.
• A processing system — The system used is down to personal preference, but you should have a consistent approach to dealing with everything that comes into your life. This includes creating a place to put all of your inputs, as well as how they are recorded so they won’t be forgotten.
• Habits — A set of good habits will ensure your system runs smoothly. Examples of good habits to learn include handling each piece of paper once, and regularly reviewing goals and task lists. It takes time to build up these habits, but they will make a huge difference to your personal effectiveness.

It’s important to note that the entire system is only as strong as the weakest link. For example, if you have good habits but a poor physical layout, you’ll struggle with finding things which can lead to frustration. Similarly, if you have a good system and methodology but you’re not in the habit of using it, you won’t gain the full benefit.

Creating a Simple System

There are dozens of different systems out there, and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve found that it’s best to start with a barebones system, which can be modified once you’ve got into the habit of using it. A very simple system would consist of the following elements:

• An inbox — This is a central place where all of your incoming stuff is put, so it can be processed at a later date. The important thing is to make sure nothing is getting left out of the processing stage. You can think of it as a funnel that makes sure everything is going into your organising “machine”.

• To-do lists — These lists can either be contextual or project based, whichever fits you best. If you’re using contextual lists, you’ll need several such as “@Desk”, “@Computer” and “@Internet”. I put “Computer” and “Internet” into two different lists as I usually disconnect my modem when I’m working so I don’t get distracted.

  Even if you decide to use entirely project based lists, it’s still useful to have a list of phone calls that need to be made, emails that need to be written and people to follow up with.

• A calendar — If a task has to be carried out on or by a certain date, you’ll want to put a reminder of this on your calendar. You should resist the temptation to organize your days using a calendar, as it dilutes the effectiveness of it.
• A list of all ongoing projects — This is a central list that lets you keep track on all of your current projects. It’s not meant to be detailed, and all project material and task lists should have their own folder(s). The main purpose is to give you something to review to make sure nothing gets forgotten.

• A filing system — Unless you’re an extreme minimalist, you’ll need a central place to store project and reference materials. Every project should have its own folder, even if it will only contain a single piece of paper. When organising these folders, simplicity is the key. Storing them alphabetically is much easier than arranging them by importance or any other criteria.

  Most of my projects have their own folder, but in some cases they will be split up. For example, I have two folders for this website: one to store general information such as design ideas, and one to store draft blog articles.

  If you think storing a single piece of paper in a folder is wasteful, you can place a piece of tape on the folder before putting a label over it. This makes it easy to peel the label off so you can reuse the folder.

• A someday/maybe list — This isn’t really essential, but if you get a lot of crazy ideas about new projects it’s a good place to keep note of them. During your reviews you can see if any of the ideas are worth pursuing, or if they’re worth giving to someone else.

The main purpose of having all these things in place is that it gives your brain a break. You’re effectively delegating the responsibility of remembering things to paper, which gives you chance to concentrate on more important things.

Additional Items

Once you’ve got your basic system up and running for a few weeks, you may want to add more to it. A little experimentation can go a long way, so don’t be afraid to mess around with different things. Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

• Goals, affirmations and purpose — Having clearly written goals is one of the biggest steps you can take to being a more effective person. By setting goals, you give yourself an idea of where you want to be in life. More importantly, you can use your goals to assess which tasks will take you closer and which will waste your time. It can be tough to get started with goal setting, but the benefits far outweigh the initial difficulty.
• Today’s tasks — This is a list of all the tasks that you want to complete in a single day. There are plenty of different ways to do this too. It can be a simple list of tasks, a prioritised list, or a “top 3″ task list. Take some time the night before to write your list, and think carefully about how much you put on it. There’s only so much you can do in a day, and having tasks left undone at the end of the day can have an adverse effect on morale.
• Today’s stuff — This is another tray, but it contains all the reference material for the current task. It’s useful for keeping everything in one place so it doesn’t take over your entire desk.
• A schedule — This can either compliment the “today’s tasks” list or replace it completely. Start by breaking your working day into chunks of at least 30 minutes and then fill it up with what you want to get done. The article “How to create an effective schedule” covers this subject in more detail.
• Individual lists and schedules — Large projects will need their own task lists, and may also require their own schedules. It can also be useful to keep schedules for recurring tasks, such as blog posting or weekly reviews.
• A progress tracker — If you often end the day feeling like you’ve wasted your time, you may benefit from using a progress tracker. It doesn’t have to be complex, and a simple system may just involve writing down what you’ve done during the day and what went right and wrong. A slightly more thorough version involves giving yourself “points” for completing tasks, and ticking boxes when performing activities in different areas of your life. I wrote about my experiences with progress trackers in “keeping a progress log“.

• A journal or diary — Journals can have several uses. The most common way is as a book to write down personal thoughts and feelings, as well as detailing personal problems. Sometimes the act of writing down a problem can give you many ideas about how to solve it.

  Another use is to keep track of what changes have been made in your life and why. This information can be used to see if they had a positive or negative impact on your life, and writing down why you did them can stop you from repeating the same mistakes.

• “To Read” pile — Yet another tray, this time containing material you wish to read. This could be printed articles from a blog (such as this one ), magazines or newsletters. By giving these items their own place you have somewhere to refer to should you get any “dead time”. It’s also a great place to go if you’re going to be taking a bus or train and what to get something done.

There are hundreds of tweaks and changes you can make, and not all of them work for everyone. Very few systems will ever remain the same for very long, and it’s beneficial to try many different things over time to see what improvements can be made.

PC vs Paper

PDAs and Pocket PCs have become more affordable in recent years, but will they replace pen and paper? Like most things, it’s really down to personal preference.

Most modern handhelds are powerful enough to run just about any task. They can also be synchronised with your main PC to keep things stored in a central location. They’re also much quicker when it comes to searching and sorting, and you won’t get leaky ink in your pockets. However, paper is far more versatile in most areas. You can quickly scribble down notes, stick it in your back pocket without breaking it and the battery will never go flat.

I’ve used both systems, and both had their strengths and weaknesses. I initially struggled to get a pen and paper system working, and buying a Pocket PC made a huge difference to my overall productivity. Perhaps it was the excitement of getting to use a shiny new toy to keep myself organised, or perhaps the fact I’d spent a lot of money on it. Either way, it had the desired effect and was one of the best purchases I made.

The main problem I had is that electronics can be very distracting. I often spent too much time trying to tweak the system to perfection instead of just using it to get things done. There was also the distraction of trying out all the new features and getting it to run games. I still use an electronic system, but I prefer to have paper copies of calendars and task lists handy.

Keeping it all working

Once your system is set up, you’ll need to keep it maintained so it doesn’t grind to a complete stop. This is done by developing habits that will keep your system running:

• Discipline with the inbox — This is quite difficult to begin with, but it’s vitally important that you don’t use your inbox as a storage folder. If you find yourself leafing through it looking for papers, then it’s not being used properly. Everything that goes IN should only be touched once before being stored, completed or binned. This is really just a habit of repetition, but ingraining it will save you hours of time.
• Carry a capturing device — Ideas will come to you whenever they feel like it. Our brain is a wonderful organ, in that it’ll come up with some splendid idea at 2am but will steadfastly refuse to remember it in the morning. Get in the habit of carrying something around that you can use to record these ideas. Make sure it’s small enough to comfortably fit in a pocket or bag, otherwise you’ll resist taking it around with you which really defeats the purpose. One more tip: keep it by your bed!
• Constantly Review Your Items — Constantly look over everything on your goals and to-do lists to make sure you’re going in the right direction and that nothing has changed. The more often you review, the quicker you can adapt to changes in circumstances. Check everything is moving forward, and review your “crazy ideas” list every few weeks to see if it any ideas have become more relevant.
• Keep your work areas clean — As soon as you’ve finished with something, put it away. This simple habit alone can help keep your workspaces clean from debris and other clutter which will distract you.

So there we have it. Organising yourself can be a daunting task, but breaking it into small chunks and slowly developing the habits necessary will help you to create a system that improves just about every area of your life. All of this might seem excessive, but just one day of being organised will let you know it’s all worth it.

Steven Covey’s Seven Low-Level Habits

In order to gain a further understanding of low-level habits, here are Steven’s original seven habits.

1. Be proactive — We all have the capacity to choose how we react in every situation. We can use the common reactive model of thinking, where we are not in control of what we think or feel, or we can choose to be proactive and decide on our responses.
2. Begin with the end in mind — Before you start any task, you should have a concrete idea of what the finished result will be.
3. Put first things first — Don’t waste time on insignificant and unrewarding tasks. Aim to sped as much time as possible working on the tasks that will bring you closer to the completion of your goals.
4. Think win/win — When working with others, always be looking for a solution that benefits both parties. Cultivate and develop an abundance mentality.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood — Always try to see the other person’s point of view before impressing your own upon them. Put yourself in their shoes, and try to experience the situation from their viewpoint.
6. Synergise — Synergy means that the whole is greater than the individual parts. By working together in a synergistic way, we can create much more than if we worked alone. Sadly this has become modern day management speak for "do more work in less time".
7. Sharpen the saw — Constantly regenerate and reinforce these habits through conscious action.

All of these habits are low-level, as they will affect just about everything you do. Developing any of these habits fully takes conscious effort, but they all bring considerable improvements to all areas of your life.

Effective High-Level Habits

Now that we have an understanding of low-level habits, we can look at building higher level habits. Each of these habits will bring improvements to your life, and the self-discipline acquired from learning each one can be used to learn others, in a snow-ball like effect.

Become an Early Riser

A lot has been said about the benefits of waking up early. Everyone wants to get more done in less time, and we can either wake up earlier or go to bed later. The main advantage of these two approaches is a lack of distraction and disturbance as everyone else is asleep. You can easily get several uninterrupted hours of work done without a break in concentration. Of the two, early rising has several major advantages:

Waking up early and staying up late are both habits that can be learnt with the correct preparation. The hardest part of learning to wake up early is battling the internal conversation of "just a few more minutes". It’s always extremely tempting to hit the snooze button and stay in bed, but it can be overcome. If you need a little help, you can always put your alarm nice and far away from your bed so you have to get out to switch it off, and then dunk your head in some cold water before going to bed.

Alternatively you can share a bed with somebody who takes up all of the room as soon as you get up so you can’t get back in

Motivate Yourself

Although motivation in itself is a low-level action, it can be reinforced with a high-level habit. Constantly topping up your motivation is important for those times when things get tough (and they will). There are plenty of different motivational techniques out there, and some work better for different people. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Take Regular Exercise

Aside from the health benefits of regular exercise, it’s great for your productivity and your mood. The body releases endorphins during strenuous activities which elevate the mood, and cause the phenomenon sometimes referred to as the "runner’s high".

Committing to regular exercise can be difficult at first. It’s important not to do too much when you first start as it can be counter-productive. If you haven’t exercised in a long time, start with a small goal like working out for 10 to 15 minutes three times a week. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can be a challenge if you haven’t been doing much physical activity. Once you’ve built the habit of making time to exercise, you can start to increase the amount of time you spend doing it.

Use the Two-Minute Rule

If you have a task that will take less than two minutes, do it right away. It makes sense to get it done immediately, because it will take longer than two minutes to store it and retrieve it later. There is also the problem that most two minute tasks have produce the feeling that "it’ll only take a few mins so I’ll do it later", and they either snowball into a much bigger problem or don’t get done at all.

Make Plans to Achieve Your Goals

Making plans builds upon the habits of having clear goals and of prioritising actions. Once you have a firm idea of where you’re want to go, you’ll need to start deciding how you’re going to get there. Sometimes you might have no idea how you’re going to achieve a goal, and that’s fine too. Knowing what the goal is and visualising its achievement can give you valuable ideas, and it also opens your mind to opportunities you may have previously missed.

How far ahead you plan depends on the project and your own personal preference. Regardless of how far ahead you plan, remember to keep your plan as flexible as possible. Unexpected events will always occur, so be ready for them.

Get Yourself Organised

This is really a broad term that covers many smaller habits. Each small habit is useful on its own, but as they add up they become more and more valuable. Examples of good organisational habits are:

• Use an inbox — Keeping all your inputs in a single place prevents you from becoming overwhelmed from too many sources. The inbox is not a place to store work, and once something goes in to the inbox it should be processed once and dealt with. Don’t succumb to the urge to leaf through it and pick out the things you want. Go through it one item at a time, and keep it as empty as possible. The rest of your organisational system should be doing most of the work
• Keep your work area clean and tidy — A messy desk might not seem like a big problem, but lots of items lying around it can be a large distraction. Keep it simple and keep it clean.
• Regularly review your goals — Once you’ve listed your goals on paper, make it a habit to constantly review them. Make changes where necessary, and don’t be afraid to modify or even remove a goal if it is no longer relevant.
• File away your project work — As mentioned earlier, don’t use your inbox to store your work. Use folders to store work on projects, even if the folder will contain a single piece of paper. This approach makes it much easier to find the things you want, and keeps other areas clean and tidy.
• Use project and task lists — Keep a list of all the projects that you are working on, and keep separate lists of all your tasks. Use contextual to-do’s where appropriate.

Organisation can be a sticking point for some people, either because they have negative views of organised people, or because of a pre-conceived motion that they’re just disorganised and that’s the way it is.

A lack of organisation is a habit that can be replaced, and it’s well worth it. For example, if you spend 5 minutes a day looking for misplaced items, putting things in the correct place could save nearly 20 hours over the course of a year. Granted, that’s a particularly contrived example but the benefits are real. By getting organised you’ll save time, reduce stress and have higher self-esteem.

Developing a high level habit

A habit is a "recurrent pattern of behaviour that acquired through frequent repetition". In order to truly learn a high-level habit, you must continuously and consciously repeat the behaviour that you want to see. It requires devoted energy and attention, but all habits can be developed with the correct mindset. When you are first getting started, develop small changes at a time. As you succeed, start to build on these previous successes. It’s tempting to try and change everything overnight, but this approach usually leads to failure and frustration, and can set you further back in the long-term.

A simple method for learning a habit is as follows:

1. Define the habit to be learnt — Define a specific and measurable habit that you wish to learn. "I exercise for 25 minutes every day at 7am" is a good example, but "I regularly exercise" isn’t. Much like setting goals, you must be as specific as possible so that you know exactly what needs to be done to say that the habit has been learnt.
2. Monitor your progress — Create a system for monitoring your progress. This can be as simple as ticking a checkbox at the end of the day, or filling in a chart. It could also be something more substantial like writing entries in a journal to describe the experience in more details.
3. Use environmental reinforcement — Put up reminders and encouragement in places where you will constantly see it. Good places include the ceiling above your bed, or on a wall next to it. Also stick it on or above your desk, so that you’ll see it whilst you work
4. Take action — The more often you take the action, the easier it is to repeat. It can be difficult to start any new habit, and there is often a dip midway where you want to revert to a previous habit. Fight the urge, and enlist the help of others if you need it.

Any new habit takes work to achieve, but even small changes in your thinking and behaviour can create substantial changes in all areas of your life. None of these changes can be learnt overnight, but with consistent effort and energy you can transform your life into something truly amazing.

Here are 25 small tweaks you can use to increase your overall productivity.

1. Start as you mean to go on

2. Use positive affirmations

3. Set goals

4. Brainstorm

5. Eliminate distractions

6. Keep a journal or progress log

7. Use contextual to-do lists

8. Use a someday / maybe list

9. Take a mind dump

10. Monitor your time

11. Use a focussing partner

12. Prepare your workspace before you start

13. Take a nap

14. Take a break

15. Get yourself organised

16. Eat properly & keep your fluids up

17. Get some exercise

18. Use the four D’s

19. Learn to say "No" again

20. Work at a higher tempo

21. Limit your time

22. Start small

23. Revisit previous victories

24. Break down your big tasks

25. Experiment with different productivity techniques

Why we procrastinate

Procrastination is mostly used as a defence mechanism to protect us from our fears, such as the fear of failure. This behaviour is reinforced by the fact that procrastination is often rewarded. For example, even high school assignments that were completed the day before were often rewarded with a relatively high grade. There was very little incentive to go the extra mile and complete something early and to a higher standard. If anything, this kind of behaviour would often result in alienation from your peers and even physical bullying.

Despite saying to ourselves "that’s the last time I’ll leave it so late", we still end up leaving important jobs to the last minute. Why?

Fear of Failure

Failure has different meanings for different people. For a perfectionist, anything less than the absolute best result is a failure. For other people, it may be a lack of praise from someone they respect that causes them to believe their project is a failure. This fear is particularly potent as many people (mistakenly) equate their own self-worth to the worth of whatever they create. If the project is a failure, then in their eyes they are also a failure. This way of looking at self-worth can be extremely damaging, as it prevents us from taking chances in case we fall short of some impossible mark.

Fear of Success

As if the fear of failure wasn’t enough, now it’s the fear of success! This takes several different forms, but a lot of it is down to your own perceptions of the outside world. You might have negative images of successful people, and worry that you might become like them if you succeed. Again, this fear can come from school where most success is frowned upon by peers. It’s often easier to lower your performance to an average level just to get by.

The other worry that goes with success is the fear that you will have more and more work piled upon you when you succeed and that you’ll eventually become overwhelmed…

Fear of Being Overwhelmed

As well worrying that success will lead to more work being piled on, there is also the initial fear of seeing how much work the project needs in order to be completed. This leads to stress as all those minor tasks rush through your head. In a sense this is similar to starting with a blank canvas and wondering about how you will transform it into a work of art. Feeling overwhelmed can have a large impact on overall productivity, as you run around putting out fires without ever feeling like you’re moving forward.

Fear of Finishing

The fear of finishing is quite interesting, as most of us procrastinate about getting started. Fear of finishing is closely tied to the fears of success and failure, in that the project will be "judged" upon completion, which will lead to either success or failure. There is also a fear of the emptiness upon completing the project, which can be especially prevalent if it’s been worked on for a long period of time.

Lack of Direction

It’s difficult to get started on a task if you’re not sure of where it’s going, even though it can feel like planning will only slow you down. It’s vitally important to have a good idea of the final outcome for a project, even if the finished article will differ. Without an end result in mind, it’s hard to go anywhere.

Lack of Discipline / Laziness

I wasn’t sure whether to include this on the list, as it’s much easier to beat yourself up and say it’s down to laziness than to accept you may be afraid of something. If you find you’re always putting the rewards first, you might need to take a look at yourself to see if it’s really a lack of discipline, or if you have a deeper fear of something. Don’t be too quick to write yourself off as lazy.

How do we overcome procrastination?

Detach your self-worth from your work

This is easier said than done, but it’s really important to keep your self-worth separate from your results. It’s a fact of life that some things don’t always turn out how we expected. At the time failure can seem like the worst thing in the World, but given time it’s easier to see the good things that came from it. Lessons can be learnt from every failure, and improvements can be made that will make you a better person. If you fail, take some time to look at it before picking yourself up and moving on.

Break your tasks into smaller parts

Large projects should be broken down into many smaller chunks, which can then be completed in short bursts. This can help to prevent the overwhelming feeling when looking at the bigger picture, and can also be useful to get you get started.

Make continuous improvements

In "Extreme Achievement", I mentioned making iterative improvements to projects. Many small improvements over time can help break the mental picture that the first release must be perfect. To follow up with the blank canvas analogy, think of using an iterative approach as using light pencil lines to sketch your picture, before adding more detail and finally beginning the actual painting.

Not only do small iterations help break the image of the huge barrier to completion, but they also allow you to make adjustments much easier.

Understand that you can’t do everything

There is never enough time to do everything that you want. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with work, it might well be time to learn to prioritize your tasks. My favourite method is one used by Brian Tracy, in which you read through your task list and prioritise based on which task would make the most difference in your life if completed. This helps to clarify which tasks are really the most important, and can help prevent you from wasting your time on irrelevant jobs.

1. Exercise — 20 to 30 minutes of exercise can do wonders for your energy levels. If the weather is nice, it’s even better as you can go outside and breath in some fresh air. If you’re particularly enthusiastic, you can go outside in the cold and rain too. If nothing else it will wake you up!

2. Relax — It might seem counter-productive to relax as soon as you get up, but it aids concentration and gives you some time to clarify your thoughts. Even though “just getting on with it” seems like the smart thing to do, it can end up doing more harm than good. Take a few minutes every morning to do some deep breathing or light meditation and clear your head.

3. A Quick Shower — Some people recommend a lukewarm shower in the morning to wake them up, but personally I prefer it to be a little warmer. This is a good idea if you’ve done some exercise!

4. Ditch The Computer — There have been far too many days when I’ve sat down to “check my email” only to glance at the clock later and find half my day has gone. Even if your work requires a computer, try and blast through some manual tasks first.

5. Listen to Something Inspiring — This also goes great with exercise. Make a collection of inspiring tunes or podcasts, and listen to them whilst you work-out.

6. Read Something Inspiring — A few inspiring stories first thing in the morning can be a great boost. There are plenty of books full of these stories, but autobiographies are also a good place to go.

7. Revisit a Previous Victory — This is one of my favourites, because it’s so simple but is easy to overlook. When things get difficult, our first reaction is often to affirm that we’re incapable of completing the task, when the truth is that we’re much better than we give ourselves credit for. Take a few moments to remember all the times you’ve been faced with a difficult moment and have succeeded.

8. Read Your Goals — Your goals should inspire you, so read through them every morning to get yourself in the mood. This also helps to keep you focused on what you want, which is always a good thing.

9. Choose a Reward — Not everything on your to-do list will be fun and exciting, and you may need a little encouragement to get things done. Pick out something that you want, and then treat yourself to it when you’re done. Make sure you spend some time thinking about the reward to build your desire and motivation. Simple, but effective if done properly.

10. Ditch the TV and Newspaper — It’s nice to feel informed, but being bombarded with all of the unpleasantness the World has to offer every morning can be a real motivation killer. Use the time saved to read something more inspiring, such as your goals or an uplifting story.

Something to help me stick to my goals, both long and short term, and to help me change my habits.

Onto the requirements:

Requirements

Paper Based — The main reasons for this is that I find it much easier to modify a paper based system “on the fly”. The other main reason is that I find paper to be more rewarding to use when ticking things off. It also means I don’t need to switch the computer on first thing in the morning, which would stop the “I’ll just check my email” phase that can last hours.

Printable — As much fun as it was to draw all that stuff, it really needs to be printable so I can stick it in a binder and save myself some time.

Bigger System — Ideally it should cover my long term goals as well as my weekly ones, and also my affirmations and intentions. These items should be easy to access so that I don’t overlook them. There should also be the potential to add slots for my 30 day trials.

Points Tracking — Points tracking worked well in previous versions of my progress tracker, so I’ll be keeping it.

Space for Reflection — There should be space to write down what worked and what didn’t work, which I should be able to put in a stack and review when my monthly/quarterly goal sessions come around. There’s not much point in writing these things down if I won’t be using them.

Weekly Goal Tracking — There should be a space to monitor the progress of my top three goals.

Weekly Review Checklist — The weekly sheet should have a checklist for completing my GTD weekly review. This is more of a system to help me get into the habit of performing a weekly review.

Version 1.0

I’m not much of an artist, so this version is somewhat bland. I fully expect the design to change over time, so I’ll be linking to updates from this page.

Weekly Goals Tracker

The first document is the “weekly goals tracker”, which takes the place of my old drawable system. It’s quite similar to the old version, but now has two new sections. The first one is called “three things to be thankful for” which is another tool for making sure I don’t overlook the positive things that have happened in the week. The second new section is a checklist for my GTD weekly review.

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.doc (53KB)

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.odt (17KB)

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.pdf (69KB)

30 Day Trial — Progress Monitor

The second document is a progress monitor for 30 day trials, and is geared towards changing bad habits into positive ones.

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.doc (32KB)

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.odt (7KB)

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.pdf (45KB)

Licence and Credits

These files are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Licence, which means you’re welcome to share and modify them as long as you keep the original link and don’t use them for commercial purposes.

The b-Alert tracker is taken from “The Power of Focus“, and the 30 day trial is a modified version of the habit changer taken from the same book. The scoring system was inspired by David Seah’s “The Printable CEO“.

Large goals need to be broken into smaller steps, but you must always keep your eye on the larger picture in order to succeed. Forgetting where you are going is one of the biggest barriers to goal completion, so the progress log should have a system that prevents long term goals from being forgotten. There’s nothing more frustrating than finding some goals you wanted to achieve written down on a hidden scrap of paper with a date from 6 months ago.

There are still barriers that prevent me from using the progress log on a regular basis, which really defeats the point of having it. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t…

What works?

The points system — I definitely get more done when I’ve been using the system for a few weeks, and it really motivates me to work harder. It’s really a private commitment to do something, and having it written on a piece of paper that is regularly reviewed galvanises it in the mind.

Reflection — It’s all too easy to keep your head down and work without looking up to see if you’re doing the right thing. If you find yourself saying “I’m too busy to look at my goals”, then you have a problem. Taking time at the end of the day to reflect on what has happened can help you keep a check on your progress, as well as helping you analyse what your stumbling blocks are.

If you work from home, you can also use this reflection time as “closure” to your day, which you use to signify that the working day has finished. Work will quite happily encroach on the rest of your life, give yourself a definitive ending point to stop it doing this.

Helps to build & maintain habits — It takes roughly 30 days for a habit to form, and those 30 days can be extremely difficult if you don’t have a system to help you. Getting into my habit of daily exercise was helped by tricking it off on my goals tracker. It almost acted like a contract with myself, and it pushed me to exercise in some pretty manky weather!

Weekly goals — Seeing my weekly goals helped me create schedules and keep track of my progress. It didn’t do much for larger goals, and if I missed a weekly goal it created a backlog and decreased my productivity.

Increased motivation and focus – How you work is affected by how you feel, but instead of making ourselves feel good about our work we often only remember the bad things. Keeping a record of the things that have been achieved prevents us from warping what actually happened, and makes us feel better about ourselves.

What doesn’t work?

Lack of focus on larger goals — There isn’t really a reminder of my big goals or purpose inside the tracker, which means they can be forgotten too easily. Putting them in my progress log seems like a logical step, especially if I’m going to be looking at it more than once a day (see below).

Not reviewed often enough — This is more of a flaw in how I used it than how it was laid out. I firmly believe that you need to look at goals at least once every day in order to root them into your brain. It might sound like overkill to look at your goals several times a day, but if that’s what it takes to work then it’s worth it.

Scoring  system too vague — Things like “concrete project work” don’t go far enough to explain what they actually are. This is especially important as GTD defines anything with more than one action as a project, so just about any action would fit here. Something like “publish blog or site article” is much better defined. Trying to group all tasks into scoring zones is quite difficult, so it might be a case of breaking them into A, B and C tasks as I mentioned in “How to create an effective schedule“.

No rewards — I’d like to experiment with tying the scoring system into some form of reward scheme. It would be nice if the work was always its own reward, but sometimes you need that little extra encouragement to push you through. This would also help me partition my time between pleasurable pursuits and work related stuff.

Drawing it all — Yes, it was fun to draw and colour it all in, but it still takes a lot longer than printing a new sheet out. Any form of barrier that discourages me from using the system should be eliminated.

Further Improvements

As you can see, there’s a lot that can we built upon, but also a lot that needs to change. The biggest change the system needs is a tie-in with my larger goals. In my next article I’ll be writing about the new and improved system that I’m about to start experimenting with.

The worst part about these tasks is that they suck away your energy and distract you from your major goals. Completing a task and ticking it off helps to fend off procrastination, so seeing your next action list swell with hordes of undead tasks is not helpful because it can cause you to ignore the list altogether.

How do we put these zombie tasks to bed?

Why do we get Zombie tasks?

The easiest way to make sure a task keeps coming back is to define it incorrectly. There are a few mistakes that seem to keep cropping up, and it’s important to keep them in mind when creating your next action lists.

Mistaking a to-do item with a someday/maybe — I love the “someday/maybe” list from the GTD system. If you do any kind of creative work, you’ll always end up with creating ideas you don’t have the time or energy to implement at your current point. Keeping a someday/maybe list helps you keep track of these ideas so they don’t disappear into the ether.

If you see a task on your to-do list that you aren’t going to work on for a while, it might be best to move it to your “someday/maybe” list instead. As long as you’re reviewing this list in your weekly review, it won’t get forgotten and you’ll be able to divert your energy to other tasks.

Mistaking a to-do item for a project — This is an easy mistake to make, especially if you’re not clear on exactly what a project is. A project is anything that requires more than one next-action to complete, and a next action is a physical action that will move a project closer to completion. It can take time to fully appreciate the difference between the two, but once you’ve mastered the technique you’ll find your to-do lists are much more helpful.

Not giving a task finite limits – A next action should have a beginning and an end, and should ideally involve a single activity. The reason for this is that you want to start it, work on it and then KNOW that it’s finished. If you can’t work on it for a session and know that it’s finished, it’s probably a project.

Missing previous steps — This is another problem I’ve run into quite often. I’ll see a task, but remember that something else has to be done before I can do it. It’s a good idea to enter this new task into your system, and move the old one to the project task list.

I like to plan ahead, and one of the things I don’t like about the GTD system is the lack of next action grouping. Keeping a separate task list for each project helps a little, but if you have a lot of projects it can get quite unwieldy.

Preventing Your Tasks From Becoming Zombies

Now that we know what not to do, let’s take a quick look at the qualities that make a good next action.

Something that can be done in one sitting — This isn’t an essential requirement, but I’ve found that it helps to list tasks as something that can be done in a single session. If it will take a lot longer, then it’s possible that it’s actually a project so I’ll try to break it down further.

It’s a physical action — The next action list should only list actions that need to be performed. If you’re looking over a list and having to process items as you go, then they need to be re-worded.

Finite Limits — There are set conditions for the task completing. Instead of “Brainstorm article ideas”, use “Brainstorm 25 article ideas”. This way you know when you’ve done enough. It sounds simple, but it’s an easy detail to leave out.

Cleaning Up The Stragglers 

The easiest way to get rid of the lingering tasks is to re-process them during your weekly review. I’ve found that I get a lot more zombies if I’ve been lax with my weekly reviews. It can be a difficult habit to get into, but it really is the most essential component of an effective GTD system.

I started using GTD in my final semester of university, and I’m quite sure it’s the reason I managed to stay (relatively) sane in those final few months. As much as I hate to admit it, I was incredibly unorganised in my first few years, so any kind of system would have made a big difference. I’d heard a few developers talking about GTD on some game development forums, so thought I’d give it a whirl. Whilst I didn’t achieve a “mind like water”, I did manage to reign in all my tasks into one place. Considering the position I was in before (“mind like whirlpool”), I was quite pleased.

The bits that work

The Two Minute Rule

Like Dave, I find the two minute rule to be incredibly useful. I would often look at even the smallest of tasks and decide “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Not a good habit. There’s only so many times you can put a task off until it becomes urgent, and getting into the “I’ll do it tomorrow” habit is a sure-fire way of getting yourself into trouble.

Taking up the two minute rule helped me to break this habit, and made me far more productive. Anyone who suffers from procrastination will know that once you’re started, nearly all resistance vanishes. Thrashing through a list of two minute tasks often left me with more energy to pursue the bigger tasks.

The Someday/Maybe List

This was another simple change that I’ve employed. I have a lot of ideas, and I usually think of new ones when I’m supposed to be doing something else. It surprised me that I’d never thought of keeping track of all these ideas in a single place. The “Someday/Maybe” list is a place for me to make a note of all these fantastical ideas, and writing them down means I won’t be distracted by them whilst I’m working.

Having an “In” Tray

University generated a lot of actionable items, such as coursework, research subjects and a small forest’s worth of lecture notes. Before I had an in-tray, they used to just sit in my bag and wait for something to happen. As you can probably imagine, this was note the most effective system in the world.

Contextual “To-Do” Lists

My time was generally split between four places – university, home, walking through town and sitting on the bus. Dividing tasks into contexts instead of subjects eliminated a lot of mental sorting when in different locations. For example, if I needed to buy something, I would put it on the “@Town” list, which I’d check when in a position to do some shopping.

I also had an “@Bus” list, as the journey lasted around an hour, so it was a good place to revise my notes from the day and plough through a list of small tasks.

The bits that don’t work so well

Projects

I like the idea of the “next action”, but I like to plan further ahead than a single action. Writing software can be a very daunting task, and there’s often a whole heap of things that need to get done. Next actions are often very small, and it doesn’t seem like the best way of managing a large scale project.

Perhaps keeping track of all this is beyond the scope of my current GTD system, but I know other developers have used it to perhaps some tweaking is in order.

Keeping It All in One Place

I regularly switch between the computer and my desk, so finding a way of storing these tasks and projects has become quite a challenge. I’m still a fan of using paper, but it’s much easier to modify tasks that are being managed on the computer. Sometimes I find myself writing the same thing on paper and on the computer, which is very frustrating.

No Scheduling

Whilst to-do lists do the work of deciding what needs doing, they don’t help with when it needs doing. The calendar can remind you of deadlines, but there seems to be a gap between the action and the deadline. In a way, this is connected to my problem with GTD’s management of projects and my own tendency to plan things out quite thoroughly.

How do I fix these things?

Over the next few weeks I want to modify my entire system to iron out these problems. My current plan is to keep a project plan at the front of each project’s folder, and to schedule my day into hourly “blocks” where I can work through the project’s list of tasks. Project milestones will get added to the calendar, and I’ll trial a completely paper-based system.

Has anyone else encountered these problems with their own systems (either GTD or something different)? If so, how did you remedy them?