10/12/2011

Afternoons: What would be nice to do

Continuingwith our 7-day Dare to get more done, let’s look at what your afternoons could be like. As we saidyesterday, mornings lend themselves to higher productivity, and you should takeadvantage of that. By the time you’ve had lunch and it’s around 1-2pm in theafternoon, your energy begins to wane. That’s the time for tasks that areneither so urgent nor too demanding on your stamina.

To help you identify those tasks, the conversationyou need to have with yourself is: Nowthat I’ve done what I had to do today, what else has my attention right nowthat I could work and move forward on?

Again, the first thing to do is to start with alist. Jot down what’s on your mind. Check your calendar for any important datesapproaching. Do you have any old to-do lists or items on your diary lyingaround waiting to be done? Add them to the list. This will likely turn out tobe quite a long list, but don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you’ll do everything onit this afternoon. It just means you’re giving yourself an inventory of tasksyou can choose from and decide which ones you’ll do this afternoon. It’simportant that you try to empty your head by writing down everything that’snagging at you. The idea is that you won’t have to be thinking later aboutstuff you still have to do, because everything will already be on the list — atleast for that day. Of course that list will remain “live” as you cross itemsout that get done and add new ones the next day.

Writing this list should take you less than 5minutes. Now, you must choose what to do from the list.

You’ve probably realized by now that today’s “would-be-nice-to-dos”are tomorrow’s “absolutely musts”. These are obvious picks, so scan the listfor those. After that, it’s pretty much up to you what else you want to do thatafternoon. Choose as many as you can finish before evening today.

The good thing is that you can keep that list andrefer back to it again tomorrow morning, so you don’t have to always becreating new lists. As I said before, it’s good to have a “live” and up-to-dateinventory of tasks you can refer to every day, so invest in that. I use mycomputer to keep that list, which syncs with my phone, so it’s always accessible.That way, it’s easy to add new items as I think of them and to check others as “done”when they are completed. See what method of keeping a list works best for you.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about evenings (fun time!).

P.S. Perhaps the two souls who are taking thisdare would like to leave their comments here… Let me know how it’s been goingfor you and feel free to share your ideas too. Are you getting more done? Do you feel better at the end of the day? More organized?