1. Do you have any tasks that are not captured in Swift To-Do List?
2. Do you have to remember any time-sensitive information that you’ve not captured in Swift To-Do List (or other appropriate tool)?
3. Do you have to remember any work-related information that you’ve not captured in Swift To-Do List (or other appropriate tool)?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, I have both bad and good news for you. The bad news is that you are not getting maximum benefits out of Swift To-Do List. The good news is that in just 10 minutes or so, you can feel happier and more efficient.

The #1 cause of work-related stress and worry is the necessity to remember information that is not written down. This starts an endless spiral of worrying and questioning yourself: “Am I forgetting about something important?”

You probably already understand this problem. And I salute you for obtaining Swift To-Do List. However, if you really want to feel relaxed and reclaim all your mental resources wasted on worrying, you need to do the following.

You need to write all tasks, all time-sensitive, and all important work-related information into Swift To-Do List. Not just tasks – but anything you would have to remember otherwise.

Note: If you have a lot of reference material, you might already have some other system than Swift To-Do List for managing it – and that’s completely fine. Just make sure that your mind is not part of that system!

Since version 8, Swift To-Do List allows you to manage not just to-do lists, but also “Lists” in general. You can use them, along with Memos, to capture non-task information.

So, what are you juggling in your mind? Write it into Swift To-Do List, right now. You will be glad you did – and feel the difference with an immediate sigh of relief.

If you would like to learn more about why it is important to capture information into Swift To-Do List, and how to do it best, take a look at my new Swift Mind Freedom e-book.

Related Posts:

• Swift Mind Freedom released!
• Centralize Your Lists with Swift To-Do List
• Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Commitment Management
• 3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating
• How to keep your to-do list useful, short and motivating
• “Why should I care about being organized?”

30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List? is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

So… do you ever wonder why you can’t get anything done?

Well, Julie Morgenstern, the #1 USA professional organizer, explains what new research revealed:

According to a study published by Cubesmart Inc., we experience on average, one interruption every 8 minutes or approximately 6-7 per hour.

That equals about 50-60 interruptions in an 8 hour day.

Most interruptions take approximately 5-15 minutes. If you receive 50 interruptions daily and each takes 10 minutes, that totals 500 minutes, which is 8 hours per day.

Ouch! No wonder you feel the need to work 12 hours per day… 8 handling interruptions, and 4 getting your work done after hours.

Sobering, isn’t it? Or, consider this study:

“In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.”

The bottom line is this -

DISTRACTION equals DESTRUCTION …of productivity and your future career and success in life.

Interruptions and distractions are the #1 reason why we can’t get anything done in the office.

Yes, you can use all sorts of fancy productivity techniques, but as long as people and things keep distracting and interrupting you, you won’t accomplish anything. It will be impossible.

You are either distraction-driven, or productive. Your mind is either scattered all over the place, or focused.

It’s your career and future at stake here. It’s a very serious problem – and most people don’t have a clue about it.

Fortunately, here are 5 action steps you can do right now to turn things around -

You absolutely need to get rid of as many interruptions and distractions as possible, immediately. And this is what you need to do -

1. Disable all popups and notifications – on your computer, phone, tablet. Everywhere. Be brutal.
2. Start explaining to your co-workers that when they need something, they should email you. Be polite but firm and persistent. Also tell them that calling you or walking to your desk should be used only in important urgent matters.
3. Check your email only twice a day. Keep your email closed the rest of the day. This is key.
4. Keep your phone on vibrate if possible. And remember: You don’t have to pick up the phone just because it rings.
5. Don’t “train” others to expect your response immediately in trivial matters. If it takes you 24+ hours to reply to an email, they will learn to obtain the information themselves instead of contacting you all the time, sometimes unnecessarily.

Once you do these 5 things, you will make it possible for yourself to actually get something done!

Then, the next step is to schedule some un-interrupted blocks of time without distractions. Once you do that, you will be more productive than ever – and start going home sooner.

The perfect workflow

Your workday can look like this:

1. Look at your to-do list to see what’s next
2. Do it
3. Mark it as complete in your to-do list
4. Go to 1 and repeat

If your current workflow doesn’t look anything like that, well, blame the distractions and interruptions.

PS: Psssst. Let me tell you a secret — ready? — YOU are the one who is allowing the distractions and interruptions into your life. You are responsible. I suggest you take control of your work environment and life back into your hands – today.

You can start by removing the “email drug” needle from your arm, disabling all notifications, and training your co-workers to stop interrupting you all the time.

Related Posts:

• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• Start your workday the right way
• How to murder your productivity
• 5 Counter-Intuitive Productivity Tips
• Outsmarting Yourself for Success
• Be Successful First Thing in the Morning

New research explains why you can’t get anything done is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

People love starting new projects, businesses and ideas.

So they start building something and make rapid progress – they build and build, and they end up building a 1 foot tall “house”. But then something happens. They jump to something else. So they end up with a bunch of 1 foot tall houses. Dozens, hundreds of them.

(Yep, there are tiny 100 houses in the picture. In reality, it would look even worse, because the houses would probably have no roofs or doors.)

Here’s the deal -

You need to build a skyscraper, not a bunch of broken, unimpressive tiny houses.

If you want significant results, impact and success, you need to keep working on that one thing and keep building upon it for years.

Don’t get me wrong – I am all for the “Lean Startup” philosophy of quick-and-dirty rapid prototypes, minimum viable products, etc.

However, once you find something that has legs, then for crying out loud, as long as you are making progress, keep working on it! For years.

We’ve started our software business 9 years ago from scratch. And I’m SO glad that we’ve never stopped working on it. It’s a nice small skyscraper now. Of course, inside the business, we have built and discarded a few tiny houses (projects with no legs). But once we released Swift To-Do List and our customers loved it, we never stopped working on it and made it our #1 priority.

Today, we have fantastic product, fantastic internal systems, fantastic information resources for our customers and website, and fantastic people on our team. All it took was 9 years of hard work and never-ending improvement.

Here’s my question to you -

Can you stick to something for 30 minutes?

An hour…? A day…? A week…? A month even?

Yes? Can you? Maybe you can.

Well, how about for 5 years?

Have you even considered it?

Instead of building yet another tiny house with no roof and door, build another floor for your new skyscraper.

Focus on your best project or idea, and as long as you are making progress, never stop working on it.

The world will love and reward you for it.

Related Posts:

• Be Successful First Thing in the Morning
• Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon
• Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2023 Goals
• This one simple habit will help you get everything done
• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• Using to-do lists efficiently

So, do you want to build 100 tiny houses, or 1 skyscraper? is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

How do you start your workday?

And if you start workday with a routine, is it an optimal routine?

In one of my previous posts, Be Successful First Thing in the Morning, I emphasized the importance of starting your day the right way. Over time, it makes an enormous difference.

Perhaps you already have your “ritual” to start your workday – for example, you might start your workday by brewing coffee and checking and answering your email. But have you ever considered other (and possibly better) ways of starting your workday?

It might seem that checking your email first thing in the morning makes a lot of sense, as it helps you stay up to date. Unfortunately, it comes with a very high price: It throws you into a reactive state. Even if you’ve already planned what to do after you are done with the email, it will will open dozens of “drawers” in your mind – and it will become much harder to focus on your planned task at hand.

Focusing on a single task at a time is the best way to get anything done. However, focusing on a single task can be a great challenge in today’s information-overloaded environment.

For this reason, I recommend starting your workday by working on your most important task first – after you start your computer, check your Swift To-Do List to see what’s the next most important task for you to do right now, and immediately take action. Don’t do anything else until you make a progress on that task – don’t check any news or social sites, don’t check your email, don’t chat with your co-workers.

Even if you work on this chosen task for just 15 minutes, it will make a huge difference in your overall productivity and ability to focus. After you make a progress on the task, feel free to check your email – now it won’t affect you as much, as it will be easy for you to get back to your started task after you are done with the email.

Plus, you will feel really good about yourself. Right from the start of your workday, you will feel productive. And that can carry you quite far.

I’ve used this approach myself to write the Swift Mind Freedom e-book. Every morning, before doing anything else, I’ve been writing the book for 45 or 60 minutes. It worked great. However, whenever I didn’t start the day by writing, I usually didn’t get to it at all. Remember: Opening email can be dangerous :-)

Related Posts:

• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• New research explains why you can’t get anything done
• Be Successful First Thing in the Morning
• 3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating
• So, do you want to build 100 tiny houses, or 1 skyscraper?
• Always get stuff out of your head

Start your workday the right way is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

I am going to show you exactly how you can:

1. Decrease your IQ by 10 points while working
2. Make sure you won’t accomplish anything
3. Increase your stress levels by at least 100% or more
4. Get completely overwhelmed

If you learn the techniques presented in this post, you will:

1. Become completely insignificant
2. Earn less money
3. Repel successful and capable people
4. Be slave to the random whims of others
5. Get fired from your job or drive your business to the ground

Sounds good? Let’s get started!

Check email 50 times a day to prevent focus

If you won’t check your email at least 20 (and ideally 50) times each day, you will risk that you will be able to focus on your work. And if you focus on your work, you risk completing something important. So the biggest benefit of checking email all the time is that you are in completely reactive state, working on low-important tasks, which often seem urgent but are not. That’s perfect for our purposes!

Julie Morgenstern wrote a book called “Never Check E-Mail in the Morning”, but her advice is obviously counter-productive to what we are trying to achieve here. And she doesn’t know what she is talking about, anyway, because she is just the #1 USA organizer. Another expert, Michael Linenberger agrees with her in his book “Master Your Workday Now!” (which is probably the best alternative to GTD) – that’s a big disappointment, Mike!

Clutter your desk with piles of paper for constant anxiety

I recommend that you start at least with 2 large piles of paper, and build it to 5 or more piles over time.

When processing paperwork, try to avoid reading it whenever possible. And ideally, some of the papers should be important or urgent.

Never file paperwork to its proper place, because you would risk diminishing your anxiety and stress levels.

Sit in a crappy chair for physical fatigue and tiredness

All physiotherapists will tell you that good workplace ergonomics are paramount for your well-being. Feeling well could help us be more productive, so we shouldn’t risk it and always sit on a $20 horror-on-wheels.

Multi-task to decrease your IQ by 10 points

I urge you to always try to work on at least 2 tasks at the very same time. And if you get really good at it, you can work on 3 or even 4 things at the same time. The real masters of unproductivity can work on 5 things at once.

If you are beginner at multi-tasking, then at least start checking your email in the middle of doing each task.

As popularized by Tim Ferris, according to Josh Waitzkin, “A study at The British Institute of Psychiatry showed that checking your email while performing another creative task decreases your IQ in the moment 10 points. That is the equivalent of not sleeping for 36 hours – more than twice the impact of smoking marijuana.”

That’s excellent news for us.

By doing 2 or more things simultaneously, you will ensure that none of them gets done properly and even temporarily lower your IQ by 10 points. The saying goes: If you chase two rabbits, you will catch none.

Get as many notifications as possible for constant distraction

The next thing you need to do is to configure as many real-time notifications as possible. These include:

1. Email notifications
2. IM notifications (ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Google Talk)
3. Skype
4. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media
5. News notifications (e.g. RSS)

But once you setup all the above, don’t stop! You also need to set them up on your smart phone and tablet.

If you start receiving a lot of notifications, then you are doing great, because you are always very well informed, but more importantly, guaranteed to greatly reduce your productivity and ability to focus.

Rest assured, you will be able to forget about the risk of getting into the flow state and accomplishing anything substantial. Excellent.

(And for those of you who are over-achievers, then for extra punch, keep Facebook and other social/news sites always open in your browser. After all, you never know what interesting thing could happen!)

Be interrupted as often as possible to avoid getting in the flow

Researches show that when you get interrupted at work, you will return to the original task only in just over 40% of the cases, and that it takes 20 minutes on average to resume what you were doing before. This is excellent, because randomly switching tasks is one of the most powerful ways of making sure you won’t get anything done.

So, I recommend that you implement open-door policy, invite others to come to you as often as possible with unimportant request and questions, and when someone sends you an email, then for Christ’s sake, JUMP OUT of the chair and run to them!

Build the longest to-do list in the known universe for guaranteed stress

Task management experts agree that good to-do list should be short and up-to-date. But we don’t want good to-do list, because good to-do lists helps us to be organized, productive, focused and not stressed, which is the opposite of what I am trying to teach you here!

So, what you should do is to create as long to-do list as possible.

Keep adding tasks all the time: Anything that comes to your mind. Anything that someone else suggests should be perhaps done. The less important the tasks are the better.

And never delete tasks from your list! Tasks often lose importance and priority over time, so you need to keep them there to ensure that your to-do list is as outdated and irrelevant as possible.

When it comes to task names, you should always make them abstract and non-actionable. No verbs. And don’t be specific. This will make sure that when you get to the task again in the future, you will have to think about what it actually is, which will help you to waste more effort and time.

If you get good at this, you will add about 20 tasks to your to-do list each day (most of them useless), and complete just 2 or 3 tasks (all of them useless). That’s an excellent recipe for guaranteed stress and potentially nervous-breakdown in the long-term. So keep at it, because as you can see, the potential rewards are substantial.

Also, don’t centralize your tasks and notes using a task management software such as my very own Swift To-Do List (that I’ve been working on for the last 7 years). If you place all your tasks and notes into a single place, your stress will disappear and productivity will soar. And we don’t want that, do we? It’s far better to scatter your work across dozen of documents, sticky-notes, papers, and devices.

In case you couldn’t tell, I am joking. (Or am I?)

Yes, this post is a humorous one, but if you want to prevent yourself from reaching your full potential, then stick to the advice above, because the techniques above really work – and many people apply them “successfully” every day.

But if you want to be more productive, eliminate stress, and become successful and significant for your company or business, then do the opposite.

This article is your wake-up call. Send it to others from your workplace to wake them up as well – or they will undermine your efforts for a change.

And post in the comments below – what realization you just had? What did you learn here?

- By Jiri Novotny+, the obsessed author of task management software for Windows, Swift To-Do List. Jiri’s life quest is to become productivity and achievement world-class expert to empower others. His current main goal is to create the best task and notes organizer for Windows.

PS: If you could use task and notes organizer for Windows, then definitely download free 30-day trial version of Swift To-Do List Jiri has been working on for over 7 years now. You will be amazed.

Related Posts:

• Swift Mind Freedom released!
• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• How to keep your to-do list useful, short and motivating
• “Why should I care about being organized?”
• Centralize Your Lists with Swift To-Do List
• Is your to-do list impossible to finish?

How to murder your productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

I find it fascinating that whenever you want to really understand something – anything – you will discover that the real truth behind it is usually counter-intuitive.

So, here are 5 very useful productivity tips that you can immediately use.

1. Make sure your work is left unfinished

Before you take a break, make sure that your work is left unfinished. This will help you to zap right back into the flow once you get back. Your brain craves completion.

This is actually a famous writing tip from Hemingway – he always left the last sentence unfinished, so he could pick up again easily the next session.

Once you finish something and want to take a break, you could also start working on the next thing just right before you take the break, but it’s not nearly as powerful as stopping when you are 80%, 90% or even 99% done, and then taking the break before completing it to 100%.

2. Begin with the least urgent task

The tendency is to wait until something becomes urgent – and then do it. That’s bad, because most of your urgent tasks were non-urgent once.

The idea is to complete your tasks before they become urgent. And the only way to do that is to work on the least urgent tasks first.

This won’t help you to eliminate genuine emergencies, but your overall emergencies might drop by up to 90%, and the stress along with them. Your efficiency will increase, and predictability and reliability of our your output as well.

3. Schedule the fun first

We all have trouble with procrastination. There are many causes of procrastination, but one effective technique of reducing it is to schedule the fun things first, and then work only between these blocks of fun time.

This way, your reptile brain won’t feel threatened when you want to do the work, because it will know that the fun is guaranteed.

So – schedule the fun first, and then work in the “free” time.

This tip comes from The Now Habit book. If you are struggling with procrastination, read my detailed summary of The Now Habit.

4. Work less to get more done

By setting a time limit on your work sessions, you will get more done than if you have all the time in the world. Instead of beating yourself up because you are procrastinating and having trouble getting started, you will be able to jump out of the inertia and soon feel eustressed about finishing your stuff in the allocated time.

Limit both your work sessions (60-120 minutes), and your weekly output (40 hours).

It’s interesting that scientific evidence shows that working more than 40 hours is not sustainable in the long-term anyway; and yet, in the Do More Faster book (which is a collection of interviews with startup founders) almost everyone is working 14-16 hours a day for many months. How is that possible? I would argue that if you love what you are doing, it’s a bit different. But still, one has but to wonder what the real productivity of these entrepreneurs are.

Working hard is not just about the quantity (time), but about quality. To increase the quality, you need to decrease the quantity. There is a sweet spot for every one of us. Experiment with limits to find it.

5. If everything is on fire, go for a walk

Sometimes you just get stuck during your work session. For some unfathomable reason, the more urgent and important something is, the harder is for you to make progress.

If you’ve hit a wall, you need to break the downward spiral of procrastination and bad feelings. (More on breaking bad behavioral patterns in Outsmarting Yourself for Success.)

If you can’t push yourself to do something, just stop the losing battle and go for a walk. Chances are, on your return, you will jump on that task with unexpected eagerness.

There are many reasons why this works. One simplistic explanation is that when you walk, your body is in movement. When you come back, you have to sit down and stop your body – but since things in motion tend to stay in motion, all that energy will get transferred into the work. Plus, when you walk, you can’t work even if you want to – and this makes you realize how much you actually want to work.

What works for you?

If you have some productivity tip that you’ve discovered (counter-intuitive or not), please share it with me and others in the comments below. I am fascinated by these things.

- By Jiri Novotny+, the obsessed author of task management software for Windows, Swift To-Do List. Jiri’s life quest is to become productivity and achievement world-class expert to empower others, and his current main goal is to create the best task and notes organizer for Windows.

PS: If you could use task and notes organizer for Windows, then definitely download free 30-day trial version of Swift To-Do List that I’ve been working on for over 7 years now. You will be amazed.

Related Posts:

• The next actions and prioritizing
• 3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating
• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• “Why should I care about being organized?”
• How to murder your productivity
• Hidden Procrastination

5 Counter-Intuitive Productivity Tips is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

How about your pet project? Do you think that you will ever finish it, if you don’t put in effort consistently?

Just wake up, and start working on the most important goal. Just for 5 minutes. It will be more – but the 5 minute target removes all excuses.

Success creates more success, and achievement creates more achievement. It feels SO GOOD to complete something RIGHT AWAY in the morning, before some lazy late-sleepers are even waking up. Talk about a head start!

There is nothing like early morning success. It truly sets the tone for the day.

Are you thinking that it won’t work for you? Perhaps it won’t. But I urge you to try it for yourself, because I’m sure it will work. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Once you accomplish something – you will want to accomplish more. In fact, you will be excited! You will wonder “What else can I achieve today? How great I could make this day?” If you begin your day with a perfect track-record, you will go to extreme lengths to keep it that way.

This might seem like such a small thing – but once you experience it, I promise you will understand how huge impact this can have for you.

And remember – it works the other way around too! If you begin your day by goofing around and surfing the web, chances are, you won’t accomplish much that day. Avoid wasting the start of perfectly great days like a plague. Start of your day can literally make or break it. And your life is nothing more than a collection of days!

Humor me and try this. After all, what could you lose? Do you want more excitement, enthusiasm and sense of accomplishment in your life? Since you are reading this post, I bet your answer is resounding YES!

So, here is what I suggest you to do immediately:

Write your most important goal for tomorrow on a piece of paper and post it somewhere where you will see it after you wake up tomorrow. It can be your alarm clock, computer screen, or mirror in the bathroom. And if you want to get the maximum out of this, go to bed a bit sooner than usual – and wake up a bit sooner than usual, too! After you wake up, you will see the reminder. Then just do it!

Arguably, I believe that mornings are better than evenings for working on your most important personal goals. Sure, everyone is asleep at night so there is silence and so and so, but mornings have their advantages too. The main advantage is that in the morning you are fresh, and your mental desktop is completely free. It’s like a freshly rebooted Windows computer ;-) If you live a healthy life and exercise, you should be at your peak state in the morning. So why not fully harness that edge, before 1000 little busy-spams of the regular day attack your brain? And hey, you can always do both – mornings and evenings.

The first hour of your day is the navigator of the day – so make sure you navigate your day right.

(And no, after posting the paper reminder for tomorrow’s goal, there is no special reason to wait until tomorrow. Once you prepare the paper, then do something – anything – towards your goal – right now!)

- By Jiri Novotny+, the obsessed author of task management software for Windows, Swift To-Do List. Jiri’s life quest is to become a productivity and achievement world-class expert to empower others, and his current main goal is to create the best task and notes management software for Windows.

PS: Have trouble with focusing? Then read Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?, also by yours truly.

Related Posts:

• Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon
• Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2023 Goals
• So, do you want to build 100 tiny houses, or 1 skyscraper?
• Outsmarting Yourself for Success
• 10 Benefits Of Being Organized: From Chaos To Freedom
• This one simple habit will help you get everything done

Be Successful First Thing in the Morning is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Why is it hard to focus

There are usually two main reasons why is it hard to focus: Suboptimal system of organizing your work, and distractions. Organizing your work is a breeze with our to-do list program. Distractions are whole another chapter.

Two ways of overcoming distractions

Are you spending too much time on Facebook or surfing the web? There is still hope! Basically, you can do two things about distractions: Eliminate them, or distract yourself from them :-). Let me explain – if you fully focus on something else, then the distractions can’t distract you anymore.

How to fully focus

The best way to fully focus on one important task (or multiple tasks – a short task list) is to print or write the task on a sheet of paper and place it in front of you. That way, whatever you do, you will always end up looking at the paper, which will make you remember that you have important task/tasks to do. Having something physical to remind you increases the urgency and seriousness – you simply can’t close the paper like a window on your computer screen. It stays there until you finish the task.

As an added bonus, the feeling of accomplishment is also far greater. Enjoy tearing the paper to little pieces when the task is done :-)

Swift To-Do List enables you to print just a single task (or multiple tasks), including notes and all important information about the task. Simply right-click the task, and select Print or Export Task(s)…:

When you print the task, you will literally transform it into a task at hand.

When all else fails, post a physical note directly to your computer screen. Why? There is no avoiding it. Even digital desktop sticky notes can be easily avoided, but not this one.

Related Posts:

• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• New research explains why you can’t get anything done
• How to murder your productivity
• 5 Counter-Intuitive Productivity Tips
• So, do you want to build 100 tiny houses, or 1 skyscraper?
• Start your workday the right way

How to fully focus on task at hand is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog