Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity

by Tim Challies

Tasks (individual to-do items) go in subprojects (collections of related projects).

Subprojects can be grouped into projects (collections of related subprojects).

There is only one thing you should ever add to Todoist: tasks. Tasks are specific and actionable items that relate to one of your projects.

I recommend that you begin each of your tasks with a verb followed by a colon.

Whatever it is, get it out of your head and into Todoist.

This inbox holds unfiltered and unsorted tasks, so you will need to process it on a regular basis.

Processing your Todoist inbox involves briefly examining each note and making a decision about it.

If have a meeting at 6:30 in the morning, you may wish to set an alert 12 hours in advance so you plan your bedtime and morning routine appropriately, and then another alert 90 minutes in advance to ensure you are on the road on time.

Consider sharing calendars among family members.

As you know, this tool is used to collect, manage, and access information.

Evernote mimics a real world information-collecting system, and it offers three levels of hierarchy: notes, notebooks, and notebook stacks.

Notes (individual pieces of information) go in notebooks (collections of related notes). Notebooks can be grouped into notebook stacks (collections of related notebooks).

Take a look at your personal area of responsibility and create a notebook to correspond to each of the roles or projects for which you might want to collect and archive information. Once you have created those notebooks, combine them into a notebook stack and call the notebook stack “Personal.” (Hint: Create a notebook stack by dragging one notebook on top of another notebook and then releasing it. Then drag all the other personal notebooks into that same stack.)

Each one of these notebooks corresponds to one of my roles, tasks, or projects.

In this way it is much like accessing information in a particular book by first going to the right bookcase, then selecting the

right book, and then finding the right page.

A half-hearted commitment provides halfway results, while a full-out commitment provides much more substantial results. Do not give up on it quickly and do not feel that you need to use it sparingly.

Motivation, like the moon, waxes and wanes. At times it is full and bright; at times it seems hidden altogether. Motivation gives the desire and energy to begin making changes in your life, but it cannot sustain them. However, this does not mean you cannot be productive even when motivation is low. As many have pointed out, motivation gets you started, but habit keeps you going. You need to use those times of high motivation to build habits and to embed those habits in a system. That way, when motivation wanes, the system will keep you going.

What is a system? A system is “a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole.”9 A system has multiple parts that work together toward a common goal.

Your tools are now there to serve you—Todoist to tell you the options available to you, Evernote to provide the information you need to complete your tasks, and your calendar to remind you of any pending events, meetings, or appointments.

You know our organizing principle: a home for everything, and like goes with like.

The core principle.

Getting things done is not only a matter of managing time, but also a matter of managing energy.

Try to schedule work that requires a lot of mental engagement at those times when your energy is high.

High energy tasks

Then try to schedule work that requires little mental engagement at those times that your energy is low. This category includes administrative tasks, running errands, and tidying your desk.

Low energy tasks

Accomplishing nine or ten low-priority tasks while neglecting the one high-priority task may make you feel better, but it is the very opposite of true productivity. Try to do the hardest thing first and when you’re at your peak.

“Only God gets his to-do list done each day.”12

Amen🙏

Do not be discouraged by your inability to do it all.

remind yourself again and again of your purpose. You do not exist in this world to get things done. You exist to glorify God by doing good to others. Remind yourself often of this important truth.

This excerpt was really mind-shifting for me.

Each of us is prone to seek satisfaction in someone or something other than God. As we consider priorities, we are wise to identify and to keep an eye on our idolatries, knowing that we will be prone to take on not the tasks that glorify God, but the tasks that validate us. Sinful men and women that we are, we may subtly assume that our top priorities should be those tasks that make us feel good about ourselves instead of actually doing good for others.

On the one side you will be tempted by fear of man, where pleasing other people is so important to you that you will be tempted to say yes to everything.

For that reason pilots rely on a simple tool that is ideally suited to help them remember everything they need to do: a checklist.

All emails need to be replied to or filed (see the bonus chapter at the end of this book), all information in Evernote needs to be placed in its proper notebook, and all tasks need to be filed in their appropriate projects.

The outcome of a weekly review.

At the end of these [Get Current] steps you have gathered all the information you need to make wise and informed decisions about the week ahead.

The outcome of [Get Current]

a place to receive new email, a place to hold email you will reply to at a later time, a place to hold email you need to keep for archive purposes, and a trash bin for all the rest. It really can be that simple.

this is like the category box system i used to organize my room. Donate, keep or trash.