Did you know that the word priorities is a rather new invention?

Apparently, when originally adopted into the English language (from French I believe), priority was a mass noun, and it got its modern plural only around 1940s?

Interesting.

priority changed update

 

 

 

Even more interestingly, the word multitasking was ‘invented’ not long after that, and first appeared in the IBM report talking about the capabilities of their new computer.
Coincidence?

It was James Clear, one of my favourite bloggers and habits guru, who enlightened me on that. His recent article is an eye-opener.

I stopped multitasking a while ago, when I learnt that multitasking is actually task-switching and we waste our time and energy on re-focusing. (If you are still doing it, stop! You may be losing up to 40% of your productivity!)
But even though I was working on improving my focus and getting more and more productive, something was going too well of late, and James’ article helped me see it. I want to share a little personal story with you.

Since I quitted my regular job 3 months ago (I still do some short-term contract work, but generally focusing on developing my own business and helping an edu tech start-up get off the ground), I’ve been struggling with poor concentration due to distractions – should I be doing this or rather that?

Maybe it’s tiredness? I thought? I was quite overworked prior to quitting my job.
So I slept and had lots of R&R, and exercise to re-energise myself.
It helped, but I was still not as focused as I would want to.

I don’t usually have problems with priorities, or achieving my goals, so I went back to my current goals.
Checked. I’m still working on my goals and they have not changed, and I’m tracking along a little behind, but still on track.

Strange, I thought. Where is the problem? Why am I so easily distractible? Shouldn’t I improve my ability to concentrate on my goals and priorities now I have quitted my job and can dedicate my time, almost my entire time to doing what I really want to do?
Sure, I should. But still I couldn’t.

As usually, the answer dawned on me while out running (diffuse mode of thinking). All those priorities! Despite my heavy pruning, my plate is still too full. And definitely too full for me at the moment. Should I work harder? But what do I cut back from? I started looking for waste in my already mean and lean system and was about to start getting up a little earlier, at 4.30am. Crazy, I know!

But fortunately, I read James’ post and realised that even though I wasn’t multitasking by putting too much on my to-do lists I was effectively wasting time worrying about getting all that planned stuff done, while actually there was no good reason for pushing on so hard. So I was wasting my valuable creative time on worrying that I may not do stuff that did not need to be done on that day anyway.
What a waste!

I’ve decided to adapt James’ approach instead and re-invent my to-do list and my weekly planning. Being a bit of a short-distance runner anyway (which means I get bored quickly), I decided to expand on his 1-item to-do list and here is my 1+2+3 To-do list revisited I’ve come up with:

 

1. 1+2+3 to-do list:

My daily to-do list has now three sections:
1 Large task
2 Medium size tasks
3 Small tasks

and that’s it!
I pick my tasks from the weekly plan, depending on priority and time available and any other usual, pressing deadlines. This is an adaptation, of still too scary 1-3-5 list.


2. My weekly planning:

I do my weekly planning every Sunday night, reviewing what I’ve achieved over the past week and crossing it off my list and outlining what deliverables I want to have done before the end of next week. I have added one step to my planning: beside every deliverable I now put a L, M or S letter, so I can easily transfer those tasks onto my daily plans.
Easy-peasy!

I’m on week 2 of my new approach and I tell you – it’s going really well! My ‘roll-over rate’ (task uncompleted and postponed to the next day) has dropped considerably. My to-do lists look less scary and more focused.
I need to find a way to deal with the sense of not doing enough tough. That’s stupid need to be busy.

I will report on the progress. Feel free to snatch the formula and report on how you’re going!