Swift To-Do List Blog » GTD

Double your productivity, stop procrastinating and master your habits with new video training

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 09:37:47 +0000

A completely new video version of the premium Meta Productivity personal productivity training by Jiri Novotny has been just released!

If you purchase Meta Productivity now, you will get the video version completely FREE. You will also get an audio-book and e-book version – all for a single price.

Meta Productivity is a revolutionary training that will help you to:

Dramatically increase your productivity
Stop procrastinating
Master your habits

You will get more done in less time, have more energy, and achieve success faster.

Watching video is much easier and more fun than reading a book. Video makes it easier for you to focus on the training. Permanently increasing your productivity has never been easier.

Peter Drucker said: “For the first time in human history, we will have to take responsibility for managing ourselves”. That’s why it’s critical to learn how to be productive.

Click here to learn more about Meta Productivity, or to purchase it!

Meta Productivity comes with 90-day Unconditional Money Back Guarantee – it will change your life, or you will promptly get your money back, no questions asked.

Double your productivity, stop procrastinating and master your habits with new video training is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Meta Productivity released! “Dramatically Increase Your Productivity”

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 11:57:33 +0000

The best and most important e-book training I’ve ever written has been just released!

This book will change the way you look at productivity forever.

You will dramatically increase your productivity, master your habits and kill your procrastination.

I’ve worked on this book for over 3 years. I’ve applied everything I’ve learned over the past 10 years about productivity, and condensed it all into proven, simple & powerful systems that anyone can start using immediately, with the least effort possible.

The book turned out really well, and I’m super excited about it. It can truly enrich and inspire you.

I’ve organized this training into 5 short e-books (modules) – each has about 20-40 pages.

In module #1, “The Secrets of New Productivity“, I list 7 common productivity problems (that no one talks about) and how you can overcome them.

These include lack of willpower and self-discipline, perfectionism, the fact that your to-do list is infinite, decision paralysis (being overwhelmed), to-do list guilt, and more.

You will also learn why “meta productivity” beats “productivity”: When you try to be productive, you burn your willpower on a particular task. So it’s not really sustainable. But when you are meta productive, you use your willpower and mental energy to make yourself more productive permanently.

In module #2, “The Meta-Habit™”, I share the most powerful method for taking control of your life and time I know of.

Habits are actions with huge ROI (return on investment). Just a single habit that helps you to be more productive, healthy, energetic or joyful can pay you huge dividends for the rest of your life.
And what’s the best way to take control of all your habits? With a habit!

The Meta-Habit™ is a method of managing habits. It’s super easy – it takes just about 2 minutes per day, and yet, it will help you to successfully start new habits or break existing negative ones.

In module #3, “The Productiveness Framework™”, I share the ultimate method for dramatically increasing your productivity.

The Productiveness Framework™ is a set of 5 principles that you can organize your day around. One of them is a simple yet brutally effective method for getting a lot of real, important work done every day.

You can expect to increase your productivity by 50-100% just by implementing the tools from this module alone.

Then there’s module #4, “33 Golden Nuggets of Productivity Wisdom”.

The idea behind this module is to make you a wise productivity genius.

This module will increase your awareness of productivity, give you new powerful perspectives and deep insights that will, in the long run, result in more success in your work and life.

This module is super-fun to read. It’s a collection of the best and most valuable information on productivity I know of.

Finally, there’s the bonus module #5, “7 Productivity Power Tools”.

In this final module, you will get additional proven tools that you can use to increase your productivity even more.

Click here to learn more about Meta Productivity. Or click here to purchase it ($99.95)..

Meta Productivity is delivered to you instantly, in 3 formats (PDF, ePub and Kindle).

Meta Productivity comes with Unconditional 90-day Money Back Guarantee: If you won’t be amazingly happy with it and the positive impact it has on your productivity and life, we will give you a full refund.

Meta Productivity released! “Dramatically Increase Your Productivity” is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The 1 activity that makes you 10x as productive [video]

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:12:36 +0000

Would you believe that there are activities in your life and business that can make you two times… or five times… or even TEN times as productive?

In this new video, Eben Pagan explains why it’s so important to identify and do those activities (just go here and opt-in to see it free):

Video: The 10x Productivity Factor

In this video, you’ll learn:

The business activities you can do that generate TEN TIMES the return in growth, profit and income
How to eliminate distractions and interruptions, so you can focus on only those activities that grow business and make you the most money
How to organize your time into “60 60 30” blocks, to maximize what you accomplish each day
The one activity you must do that has nothing to do with business – but that multiplies the productivity of the work you do IN business

You can watch the video and get the 2 free PDFs downloads right here, by just opt-ing in on this page:

Video: The 10x Productivity Factor

Go watch this free video, and start increasing your productivity today.

(Your email will be 100% safe with Eben and never shared. Eben has been my mentor for many years now. He’s one of the best teachers and smartest people I know.)

The 1 activity that makes you 10x as productive is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 13:33:41 +0000

Here is a quick self-check you can do. Just answer these 3 questions:

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

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

2 rules of naming tasks correctly

Jiri Novotny — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:58:50 +0000

I will share with you 2 rules of naming tasks correctly. If you apply them, your to-do list will empower you to take action. If you don’t, your to-do list will cripple your ability to move forward.

I’ve already talked about the importance of writing everything down immediately to maintain a peace of mind. I’ve also talked about the importance of consolidating your to-do lists and keeping everything in one place. These two things indeed are the key – but once you master them, there is another thing you can do to make your to-do lists super-useful and empower you to take more action.

Tasks are actionable items. They are actions that need to be taken. And it’s too easy to forget this when writing your tasks down. The words you use to write a task matter a great deal.

You should always use actionable task names, which contain specific actions – verbs.

In the task name, always write the action you need to take to move the task forward, and be as specific as possible.

Two rules of naming tasks are:

All task names should contain an action (begin with a verb, and ideally describe the next step).
All task names should be as specific as possible

So, for example, don’t just name a task “Report”. A slightly better way to name it could be “Finish the report”, but it’s still not the best wording because it’s not specific enough. It’s vague. It doesn’t tell you exactly what to do to finish the report, and which report.

Here’s a better task name: “Write the final summary in the Q4 Report to finish it”. That’s pretty specific and actionable. You know exactly what to do to move the task forward, and exactly which report the task relates to.

Or, you could name it like this: “Finish the Q4 Report” and add a subtask named “Write the final summary” – the subtask still contains the next action.

Why is this important?

When we look at our list and see just “Report”, we have no idea what to actually do or even a hint on how to start. We have to stop and figure it out, which is very inefficient, but also demotivating and creates a friction between us and the task.

It is much harder to get going when the task names are not actionable and not specific. All our brain sees when we look at vague task names is “This task is huge! Too much work! Too much thinking! Let’s do something else!” In such situations, we spend too much valuable energy trying to get started on the task. This opens the door for procrastination (social media, news, web-surfing and pointless busywork).

Try to use specific, actionable wording right when you first write the task down. In that moment, you probably know what the actual specific action is. So write it down. Don’t force yourself to figure it out later, when you don’t have all the relevant information on your mind anymore. When you start using specific actionable task names, you will save yourself a lot of time and energy. It’s just smart.

Task names which are specific and contain the action you want to take are:

More motivating and less intimidating
Easier for you to get started on
Saving you valuable time and mental energy
Less likely to be procrastinated on

Best of all, it takes you just a very little effort in the moment you are writing the task down for the first time. By writing the task in a way so it’s obvious what the next specific action is and what precisely needs to be done, you will get all the benefits above.

Here are a few examples of good and bad task names:

Bad task name	Good task name
Jim	Call Jim and ask about the quote
Paper	Finish the summary of the white paper and send it to Peter
Chair	Order online 5 new caster wheels for my office chair
Annual meeting	Prepare my presentation for the annual meeting
Letters	Sign and mail the letters to our 5 VIP partners

Here’s how you can apply this right now to experience the difference yourself: Open your to-do list, and re-word some of your most important tasks, so they contain the next action, and are as specific as possible.

(This post is an edited excerpt from my new e-book Swift Mind Freedom).

2 rules of naming tasks correctly is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Always get stuff out of your head

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:48:52 +0000

(This is an edited excerpt from my new e-book Swift Mind Freedom).

Let me ask you one question -

Why keep all your tasks, ideas, notes, worries, promises, commitments and reminders in
your head… when you can store them in your computer instead?

Don’t store things in your head. Put them in a trusted system. You will be rewarded with relief and increased mental capacity. You will feel better.

If there is one thing that technology is great at, it’s remembering things. Unlike our minds, computer will never forget what you enter into it. In fact, it can even remind you of things at the right time!

The biggest instant benefit of writing things down is that once you write something down, you feel relief instantly. Once you have captured a task (or idea), you can forget about it. You know where to find it in case you need it.

Think about this: Just as computer can get its memory (RAM) overloaded when too many programs are running at once, your mind can get overloaded when you are juggling too much stuff in your head.

By writing things down, you will increase your mental capacity. It’s like an upgrade for your brain. This can literally increase your IQ.

Put things out of your head, and into your organizing system

Whenever new task comes to you, write it down immediately (e.g. into Swift To-Do List).

And don’t write down just tasks, but anything that you would have to remember.

Develop this habit of capturing everything instantly.

This is the key.

Once you start doing this, you might be shocked how clearly you can think and how efficiently you can function. It’s almost like magic.

Always get stuff out of your head is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Swift Mind Freedom released!

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:28:00 +0000

My Swift Mind Freedom e-book is finished and released.

It took me almost a year to write it. I’ve put a lot of effort into it, and I am very happy with the result.

Bill Polm, one of the early readers, who also helped me with editing, predicted that the “[The] book has the potential for becoming a classic in the field. It covers [task] management better than any I have read before it“.

We’ve not even announced it yet, and several people have already purchased it! This is very exciting.

I plan to keep improving the e-book, based on the feedback I will receive. Updates of the e-book will be free.

You might have a lot of questions – so I will do my best to answer them. If you have any other questions, post it in the comments.

Who is Swift Mind Freedom for?

Swift Mind Freedom is for anyone who has a lot of things to do or keep track of, and works with a Windows computer.

If you use or would like to use Swift To-Do List, it’s perfect for you.

What will I gain from Swift Mind Freedom?

As you start applying Swift Mind Freedom, you will:

Experience instant and complete relief from stress and overwhelm.
Get in total control of your work and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Become super-efficient, racing through your surprisingly motivating to-do list in record time.

The results are permanent. Once you read this e-book, your to-do lists will never be the same.

What are the contents?

The e-book has 3 main sections:

Introduction and motivation – this helps you understand why being organized is important, and it gets you moving. I also share the story of my personal “to-do list journey”.
11 Swift Mind Freedom Principles – these 11 powerful principles are the core. Each principle comes with a fun hand-drawn illustration, and an action step so you can immediately apply it into your life
Q&A and Troubleshooting – this section lists many questions and problems, along with the answers.

Each section is divided into chapters.

It has 110 pages in total.

It comes as a PDF file, so you can read it on your computer, table or e-reader.

(In the future, I would like offer .mobi and .epub formats as well if there is interest.)

If you would like a short sample, see my recent post “Tasks and oranges“. That post explains why it’s important to break down complex tasks into subtasks. In Swift Mind Freedom, there is a whole chapter about this (it is one of the Principles), including a how-to and step-by-step instructions for Swift To-Do List.

How does Swift Mind Freedom compare to other books?

This e-book is unique because it shows you how to apply what you learn directly in Swift To-Do List.

Also, it is easy, fast and simple. It is possible to read and apply it in a single day.

I’ve read all the books on task management, time management, organizing and productivity I could find, and after a lot of research, experiments and hard work, I’ve distilled them into Swift Mind Freedom, so you can get great results fast and with minimum effort.

Each of the 11 core principles comes with a fun hand-drawn illustration. This helps you understand and remember better, and learn faster.

Finally, I am here for you. I am committed to helping you get the results you want, so you can email me at any time with your questions.

How much does it cost?

The e-book costs $39.95.

If you purchase it with a new Swift To-Do List 8 for Windows license, you will get 50% discount.

Purchasing this book is 100% risk-free for you, because it comes with 90-day money back guarantee. If you won’t be completely happy with it for any reason, I will refund you the full amount. No hard feelings. Again, I am fully committed to helping you get the results you want.

Where can I purchase the book?

Right now, it is available exclusively on our website, where you can purchase it using our secure online store.

You will receive it immediately after payment.

Will there be a sequel?

Yes, I would like to write a sequel.

Swift Mind Freedom is focused mostly on getting and staying organized, stress relief, control and efficiency. It works beautifully with Swift To-Do List.

The sequel will be heavily focused on productivity. It will build upon Swift Mind Freedom (getting organized is always the first and most important step). My working title for the sequel is “Ultra Productive: Eat your to-do list“.

I love feedback!

I would love to hear what you think. If you read the book, please send me an email and tell me what you think. What you loved and what you didn’t care for. While I know that Swift Mind Freedom is already pretty good, your feedback can help me improve it further.

Any questions or thoughts? Post them in comments below!

Swift Mind Freedom released! is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

How to keep your to-do list useful, short and motivating

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:46:17 +0000

In the previous post, I talked about the basics of using a to-do list efficiently.

A quick recap -

Create the to-do list and do the initial dump, placing all your “stuff” into it. This clears your mind.

(continuously): Look at your to-do list, see what’s next, work on it.
» Whenever you get interrupted or distracted, repeat.
» Whenever you finish a task, repeat.

(continuously): Whenever a new idea or task comes to you, write it down immediately into your to-do list, then proceed with what you were doing before.

Today, we will add one important advanced technique. It is the missing secret ingredient.

We are going to learn a solid to-do list maintenance routine, using which you will keep your to-do list relevant, short and motivating.

Your to-do list is like a garden.

If you don’t tend a garden, it will soon become full of weeds and dead plants. The beautiful flowers and useful plants will have hard time flourishing in such an environment, as they become oppressed by the weeds.

The same thing can happen to your to-do list. If you don’t remove done tasks, and if you don’t remove tasks that are no longer important, and if you don’t reprioritize tasks when priorities change, your to-do list will be just like a garden full of weeds; and not nearly as useful as it could be.

So, when you tend your to-do list “garden”, what do you do? Well, you go through your to-do list, and do the following 9 steps. I’ve listed the steps in terms of importance, so the first 3 steps are far more important than the last 3 steps. That being said, if possible, do all of them:

Reprioritize. When your to-do list becomes an obstacle to your productivity, it’s usually because there are too many tasks in certain priority categories. Usually, you will have far too many high priority tasks. So, demote some of them. Ask yourself: What is really important here?Keep in mind that tasks lose importance over time. There are two main reasons for this. First, in the moment you are writing a task down, it usually seems emotionally more important than a few days later when the emotion fades away. Second, some newer tasks are indeed more important than the old tasks, so the old tasks lose relevance because of the opportunity cost. As you know, you can’t do everything.
The problem is that we seldom decrease priorities of tasks in our to-do lists. For many of us, it just feels wrong – it feels like slacking. But reprioritizing is necessity to keep your to-do list relevant and up-to-date. Things change, and your to-do list must reflect that.
Delete everything that is no longer important. Sometimes you might realize that you don’t want to do something at all, because things changed. That’s perfectly OK. You can never do it all. You have just so much time. If you are sure you don’t want to do something, delete it. If you are unsure, then reprioritize it accordingly – as an “Info/Maybe” task, and perhaps move it to a separate list. Try to keep your main to-do list for tasks that absolutely want to do.
Hide tasks that you don’t have to worry about now for later. To keep your list at a reasonable size, hide low-priority tasks until later. If you know that you don’t have to worry about something for a couple of weeks or even months, hide it until a later date. In Swift To-Do List, this can be easily accomplished by setting the Hide Until field, added in version 8.
Move all non-tasks to a separate list. Your main to-do list should be for actions only (tasks). Keep the non-tasks (info, ideas, reference material) in a separate list; otherwise, it will be impossible to finish your to-do list.
Break complex fear-inducing tasks down into sub-tasks. If there are any important task you are procrastinating on, then you should break them down into subtasks.
Remove duplicate entries. If you notice the same item appearing twice or more, perhaps in slightly different words, delete all but 1 copy.
Rewrite task names to make them more actionable. Use verbs and be specific. When you read any task name, you should immediately know what needs to be done. If you have to think even for seconds, then the task name is probably wrong. You can also spice things up and include fun words and phrases – but be careful to preserve the full clarity. If you can make daunting task rhyme, you might be able to do it sooner, as it will stick in your mind. Play with it. Just don’t overdo this step – it might be a sign of procrastination.
Remove projects and goals, and replace them with next action tasks. If your to-do list contains enormous tasks which are not really tasks but projects or goals, you should instead create the next action task (or a couple of them) for each project, and remove the projects from your to-do list. Keep the list of projects separately.
Delete completed tasks. Delete them permanently or archive them. In Swift To-Do List, deleted tasks are automatically moved to task Archive, accessible via menu Manage – Archived Tasks. You don’t actually need to do this manually. I recommend you to use the auto-archive feature added in Swift To-Do List 8: Go to menu File – Options, and in the Task-View tab of the Options window, check “Automatically archive done tasks” at the bottom. Using this, done tasks will get automatically archived after the specified time (Immediately, The next day, After 2 days, etc.)

To sum it up: Reprioritize; delete tasks that you no longer want to do; hide all the tasks that are of no concern to you now until later; move all non-tasks to a separate list; break complex tasks into subtasks; delete duplicate tasks; rewrite task names to make them more actionable and specific; remove projects/goals and replace them with next action tasks; delete completed tasks.

If you do this, your to-do list will stay fresh, crisp, laser-focused and super-useful. It will help you flourish.

There is also a second huge benefit to this: By maintaining your to-do list, you will also effectively review it, and maintain a pretty accurate picture of what needs to be done. Your mental model of tasks, non-tasks, project, goals and commitments will very closely reflect the actual information captured in your personal organizer, thus helping you to make better decisions and estimates. By keeping an accurate mental picture, it will also help you avoid capturing the identical information multiple times (thus creating duplicates).

You might now be thinking: “Whoa, I thought that the point of keeping a to-do list is NOT to have things on mind. Well, you are spot on. But what we are trying to do is to make sure that you don’t NEED to keep things in your head, because they are already captured in a trusted organizer. It is the “necessity to remember” which is stressful. Looking at your list and getting the feel of what’s there is not the same as having to remember it all.

When you are reviewing/maintaining your to-do list, your goal is not to memorize it all. The fact that you refresh your mental picture is a side-effect. You are not trying to remember things here, just as when you read a novel, you are not trying to remember it. When you review items in your organizer, it will refresh your mental model of what needs to be done, which is usually beneficial. It helps you make better decisions.

Finally, there is a third enormous benefit. In Agile methodology (used for software development), there is a saying: “If something is painful, do it more often”. If you do the to-do list maintenance just twice a year, it will be very tedious and painful. But if you do it weekly, you will oftentimes notice that many of the steps aren’t even necessary. You will learn to apply these principles automatically, even when you are not doing the routine – this is an incredible benefit. You will become a to-do list master without even trying!

And by the way, many productivity systems have separate maintenance and review routines, or lack one or the other. I’ve combined both review and maintenance routines into one for maximum efficiency, and threw out everything non-essential. Therefore, doing the routine is time extremely well spent with enormous leverage.

Implement regular to-do list maintenance routine into your life, now

I recommend doing the to-do list maintenance routine at least once a week. I think that doing it on Monday morning is perfect, because it will help you review everything that needs to be done during the week, and it will also ensure that you are well-equipped for the week with an actualized and useful to-do list.

But beware – the strategy “I have to remember to do X” (e.g. “I have to remember to do the weekly to-do list maintenance/review”) is a guaranteed failure. Why? You won’t remember it at the right moment. You will be busy; other things will usurp your attention. Even worse, having to remember something is a stressful burden. And each time you fail/skip, you will feel bad about yourself. Don’t do this to yourself! Setup a weekly reminder, and forget it. When it reminds you, do the routine. It’s that simple, and it’s nearly miraculous.

Because merely trying to remember to do the to-do list maintenance routine is a horrible strategy guaranteed to fail, I want you to do the following in Swift To-Do List for Windows:

Click the Add Task button. We will create a new task specifically for this.
Name the task “Do the weekly to-do list review/maintenance routine”. I also recommend including “- no matter what” at the end of the task name. It’s a little note which tells you that you really, really want to do the routine, even if you might not be feeling like it in the moment. The “- no matter what” appendix works great for me, but something else might work better for you, depending on your personality, self-talk, and preferences.
Now go to the Notes tab. What we want to do here is to write step-by-step instructions for doing the routine. Every time you are reminded, the notes with these instructions will be shown. This way, you won’t have to refer to this post. You will also learn the routine faster and do it the right way. And the best part is – doing the routine won’t be as overwhelming, because the steps will be simple and obvious. You won’t procrastinate on this. If you want, you can also include a couple of motivational sentences, reminding yourself why you want to do the routine and how it serves you. Think of this as a message you can send yourself into the future. Right now, you are all enthusiastic and energized about this, but in a few months or weeks, you might feel different, because there can be several important deadlines looming, etc. So – copy the following text into the Notes, and modify it as you see fit. You can also highlight the steps which you think will have the best payoff for you personally.

Go through all tasks – it’s easy! And -
1) Reprioritize (priorities decrease over time!)
2) Delete tasks that I no longer want to do
3) Hide Until later all the tasks that are of no concern to me now
4) Move all non-tasks to a separate list
5) Break down intimidating complex tasks into subtasks
6) Delete duplicates
7) Rewrite task names to make them more actionable and specific
8) Remove projects/goals and replace them with next action tasks
Now it’s time to go to the Recurrence tab and setup a weekly reminder for this task. Select Recur Weekly, and then set a time. I recommend setting it bit earlier than the usual time you arrive at work, so the reminder immediately pops out. So, for example, if you usually arrive at work at 9:00, set the time to 8:30. Then, check Monday. In the Action dropdown, select “Set undone and remind me”, and optionally, for extra punch, check “Email me”. And that’s it. You can also click the Preview to see the times you will be reminded to do the weekly review. If all looks good, click OK to add this task. Once added, you can check off the task (mark it done), because on Monday, it will uncheck itself and remind you to do the review.

Now, once the reminder-task is set up, go through the steps and actually do the routine right now! This will help you do it well the next time.

Congratulations! You are now ahead of 99% of people who want to get organized, because you have actually made sure that you will succeed. This what true winners do.

The next week, when you are reminded about your to-do list maintenance routine, do it – no matter what.

At first, this might seem tedious, but it will get easier every week. And who knows – after a few months, you might realize that you all you have to do each week is to read your list to refresh the tasks in your mind, because you apply the principles automatically during the week, like a true to-do list master.

How to keep your to-do list useful, short and motivating is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

“Why should I care about being organized?”

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:26:51 +0000

Even though you are probably interested in getting organizing, you might still have some lingering doubts like:

“Yeah, being organized is very nice, but why should I care? Why should I care about productivity at all? Does it even matter? Isn’t it enough to just show up? If I don’t do something today, well, no big deal, I can do it later – right? Being organized is for boring uptight perfectionists.”

Well, here is my answer -

Being organized and productive does matter. In fact, it matters a great deal – way more than you might think. In the long-term, it’s especially important. In fact, not being organized/productive can have disastrous consequences for you. Let me tell you why.

If you zoom out and look at your life, being organized and productive actually has a deep impact on virtually all areas of your life: your health, your family, your career, your finances, your friends, your wellbeing, and your overall sense of happiness. Staying on top of your goals also helps you make smarter money decisions, and using ING as a trusted financial partner can naturally support that organized lifestyle through simple and efficient banking solutions.

If you need motivation to finally get (and stay!) organized, you are at the right place. Just as organization is key in life, many businesses and event spaces prioritize safety and preparedness, which is why some turn to Fire Watch Services in Virginia Beach to help keep venues monitored and secure.

When you become organized and productive, these 8 things happen:

You will eliminate stress. Stress is not just about unpleasant workdays. If you are stressed, you won’t sleep well at night and you risk high blood pressure, ulcers, heart attacks, stroke, cancer, immune system impairment and nervous breakdown. It is well established that stress is very damaging to our health. In fact, in Japan, there is a term “Karōshi” which can be literally translated as “death from overwork”. The Wikipedia says: “The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress.” Karōshi happens even to people in their prime years. By eliminating stress, you will sleep well at night, greatly improve your health, and increase the quality of your life and probably the length of your life as well.
You will become efficient and advance in your career or grow your business, make much more money and become wealthier. By becoming one of the most valuable, reliable and indispensable people in your company, it is unlikely you will ever get fired. In fact, you will probably get promoted – and repeatedly. If you are a business owner, you will be able stay in business and prevent bankruptcy – and eventually double or triple your business or go even beyond that.
By reducing overtime and needless overworking, you will have more time for your family. You will be able maintain happy, healthy and deeply fulfilling relationships. Because you will have enough energy left and be able to spend high-quality time with your spouse, your intimate relationship will flourish. If you have kids, you will be able to spend more high-quality time with them as well. Also, your spouse won’t leave you, which, statistically speaking, could easily happen – think of overworked husband who comes home late, drained, slowly becoming alienated from his wife and kids. Well – that won’t ever happen to you. Instead, you will be able to give and receive all the love you need and want.
You will have good close friends. Because your work won’t drain you, and you will have more time, you will be able to spend and have great time with your close friends and enjoy their company in your life. Stress elimination helps here as well, because by definition, stress prevents you from being happy. And if you are unhappy, how can you possibly make others feel good?
By becoming productive and reliable, you will be admired and appreciated by your colleagues or business partners; and prevent becoming insignificant and irrelevant in your company or industry.
By being able to actually do what you want to do, you will have the power to influence others and create the life you want; and prevent becoming powerless to change your circumstances.
You will be deeply satisfied with your life and happy. You will feel great about yourself, as you will know that you are fulfilling your potential.
You will have the opportunity to actually make a difference in your world, advancing a cause or helping community you deeply care about.

It’s good for your health. It’s good for your career. It’s good for your finances and wealth. You’re informed about the best junior ISA. It’s good for your family. It’s good for your relationship with your spouse, kids and friends. It’s good for your self-esteem, status and happiness. It’s good for your influence and power. It’s good for the world.

And it prevents some truly horrible things that could happen to you.

Need I say more?

PS: Download Swift To-Do List and get organized in 5 minutes. Heck, it’s even fun – I promise. Many people would agree.

Citation: https://www.indiatimes.com/igaming/non-gamstop-casinos-647736.html

“Why should I care about being organized?” is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Centralize Your Lists with Swift To-Do List

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:23:42 +0000

Centralizing all your lists (and especially to-do lists) is a simple act of placing all your to-do’s and other lists together, into one file, software or paper. Centralizing your lists is probably the most powerful technique to reduce overwhelm.

Having your to-do’s and other information centralized is very important, because if you do not have your to-do’s centralized, and rather have your to-do’s scattered among multiple places, then:

Sometimes, you will lose and forget important things. This leads to unnecessary last-minute emergencies as well as wasted opportunities.
You can never fully trust your organizing system. That results in stress and anxiety.
You can’t get a quick overview of all urgent and important tasks. This makes you inefficient.
You can’t quickly find the next action needed to do. This impairs your focus ability and disrupts your workflow.

On the other hand, centralizing your to-do’s, ideas, thoughts and other “things” has the following benefits:

You have a system you can always trust, where you can find everything you need, whenever you need it.
You can quickly get a complete overview of urgent things for today or tomorrow, so there are no unpleasant surprises and unnecessary emergencies.
You can always quickly see what the next thing to do is. This improves your ability to focus and makes you more efficient and productive.
Because you will know that you will never lose or miss any important information, you can fully relax and experience a true peace of mind.

And what do I mean exactly by “having your to-do’s scattered among multiple places”?

Well, there are dozens of ways of storing your to-do’s, ideas, notes, etc. You can have all these things on multiple papers, sticky notes, computer files, software, emails, devices and even rooms or buildings. And that is a big problem for the reasons I’ve mentioned above. Even if you have just 3 or 4 places (and most people have more), the negative effects kick in hard.

The solution is to take everything you have – all the papers, files, emails, notes and so on – and move the tasks in them into a single central place. Swift To-Do List is perfect for this, because it essentially allows you to manage multiple to-do lists and notes in one place. That way, you can have all your to-do’s, ideas, thoughts, notes, checklists, and any other lists or text documents in one place. You can even attach files to your tasks or notes to keep related files at hand.

Swift To-Do List has a tree with icons, which allows you to organize all your lists and notes (task-independent notes in the tree are called “memos” in Swift To-Do List) in a hierarchical structure with icons. You can have everything at your finger-tips. It looks like this:

There are multiple ways of adding tasks into Swift To-Do List. Tasks can be imported from plain text files and CSV files. You can also import to-do’s from other software, such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Excel, Task Coach, and many other.

Memos (notes) can be imported from various formats, including plain-text and rich text files (.txt and .rtf), MS Word Documents (.doc and .docx), HTML files (.html and .mht), OpenOffice files, and even ePub format. You can, of course, export notes into all these formats as well, and better yet, you can even export them to PDF.

I will now show you exactly how you can input tasks into Swift To-Do List, and then how you can import notes and memos. Now is the right time for you to Download and install Swift To-Do List (in case you don’t have it installed already).

How to add tasks into Swift To-Do List

The first button in the toolbar, Add Task, is hard to miss. You can also use the shortcut hotkey Ctrl+T (“T” like “Task”), or double-click into any empty area in the task-view. The Add Task window has a button labeled “OK, add another…” which will add the task, then reopen the Add Task window.

But the simplest way of quickly adding multiple tasks is to use the Add Multiple Tasks feature, available from the menu Tasks – Add Multiple Tasks. The shortcut hotkey for this feature is Ctrl+H.

You can simply enter one task per line (or paste any simple text list into this window), and add all these tasks with a single click on the Add Tasks button. You can then edit these newly added tasks later to specify the details.

Another simple way of adding tasks is to simply paste them into the task-view. You can paste just a single line of text (which will open the Add Task window, or multiple lines, which will open the Add Multiple Tasks window. Just click into the task-view, then paste the task (or tasks) with Ctrl+V.

Creating tasks from emails is also very simple. You can just drag and drop the emails into Swift To-Do List. Here is a video showing you how to quickly create tasks from emails. This is one of the features we are quite proud of, as it is a huge time-saver, and Swift To-Do List can handle even the email attachments and adds them as the task attachments, etc.

The Import Wizard is the most powerful way of adding large amounts of tasks, usually from other software. You can access it using menu File – Import Wizard. The Import Wizard can import comma-separated files (.csv), tab-separated files (.tsv) as well as plain-text files (.txt). Because vast majority of other software supports export to comma-separated files (.csv), you can usually import your data into Swift To-Do List very easily. Step-by-step import guides for various software (including Outlook, Excel, Lotus Notes, Task Coach) are available on our website. Swift To-Do List Help file has even more import guides for other less-known software. You can open the Help by pressing F1 in Swift To-Do List.

How to add notes into Swift To-Do List

There are two kinds of notes in Swift To-Do List:

Task notes, which always belong to a particular tasks
Memos, which are task-independent notes located in the tree among to-do lists and other memos

Both task notes and memos can be imported/exported to various formats, including TXT, RTF, DOC, DOCX, HTML, MHT, ODT, ePub, and PDF (export-only). Swift To-Do List fully supports rich formatting, including images, bullet and numbered lists and so on. Both tasks and memos can have attachments.

To create a memo, open the Add To-Do List window, and in that window, select “Memo” in the “Add” frame, as shown below:

Then, to import a file into the memo, click the Export/Import Notes button in the text editing toolbar, as shown below:

As you can see, there are two import options – either to replace the notes, or to append the imported file at the end. Using the latter, you can import multiple documents into a single task note or memo and thus join them. But you can also, of course, just create multiple memos or tasks instead.

Your action steps

In this article, you’ve learned why it is important to centralize your to-do’s and other things. You now also know what centralizing is. And you know how you can centralize your to-do’s with Swift To-Do List.

To immediately apply what you’ve learned, you can do the following:

Download and install Swift To-Do List (in case you don’t have it installed already)
Input your most urgent/important to-do’s and other information into Swift To-Do List.
Once you’ve put as many things into Swift To-Do List as possible, it’s time to process all other places where you keep your to-do’s, ideas and important information. Create a list of these papers, documents and files, and then bring them over into Swift To-Do List.
Develop a habit to always input everything into Swift To-Do List when you are at your computer. You don’t even have to use your email inbox as a to-do list, as you can drag and drop emails into Swift To-Do List, one by one.
When you are not close to your computer, stick to a single way of capturing tasks, notes and ideas. You can keep a small paper handy, or use your smart phone. When you get back to your computer, immediately put all the captured tasks into Swift To-Do List and throw the paper away or clear the file in your smart-phone. (Swift To-Do List also has a companion mobile web-app that you can use to input tasks on a smart phone directly into your Swift To-Do List.)

Once you do this, you will quickly find that you are way more efficient and relaxed. Overwhelm, stress and forgetting will disappear from your life.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to post a reply below. I will be happy to help you and answer any of your questions.

Centralize Your Lists with Swift To-Do List is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

How to murder your productivity

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 07:16:54 +0000

In this post, you are going to learn proven techniques that you can immediately put to use.

I am going to show you exactly how you can:

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

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

Become completely insignificant
Earn less money
Repel successful and capable people
Be slave to the random whims of others
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:

Email notifications
IM notifications (ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Google Talk)
Skype
Twitter, Facebook, and other social media
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.

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

What are you not going to do?

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:13:42 +0000

I’ve recently finished book called “Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management” by Mark Forster. It’s about efficiency, productivity and creativity – you know, the usual stuff I read. But I actually enjoyed this book more than usual.

The book talks about 7 principles, and I see a common theme between the principles. It’s the question What are you NOT going to do? (By the way, the word “decision” originally means “to cut off from”. So – are you decisive?)

I think that Mark Forster is brilliant; a true time management veteran with a lot of experience under his belt. Some of the ideas and principles he presents are truly eye-opening. It’s so easy to forget them – or worse, never realize them.

Because the book doesn’t present a coherent productivity system (Such as GTD or One Minute To-Do List), it can help you even if you are already organized or use some organizing system.

It is mainly a collection of principles and concepts that you can use to improve your efficiency and creativity, and make your output more predictable and streamlined.

In this post, I am going to summarize the 7 main principles presented in the Do It Tomorrow and provide additional insights of my own.

#1 Commitment vs. Interests

We can have many interests (e.g. writing), but only a fairly limited amount of commitments (e.g. getting a regular column published in a local newspaper).

Was Beethoven interested in music?

Was Einstein interested in physics?

Was Bill Gates interested in software?

Was Abraham Lincoln interested in politics?

You get the idea.

Most people have many interests, often conflicting. That’s because they have no clear vision.

If you are committed to something, it means excluding everything else that might conflict with that commitment. So, by definition, we can have only a very small amount of commitments. Commitments are the deciding factor when it comes to success in your personal and work life.

Whenever you are thinking about starting something, you also must think about stopping something else.

Do many things badly, or be excellent at a few things.

#2 Have a Clear Vision

Good vision includes what you are not going to do.

Our vision should bring us clarity and focus. Far too often, vision statements act as smokescreens – don’t make that mistake! Just ask yourself: “What am I actually trying to achieve?” Make it sharp and narrow.

#3 One Thing at a Time

It is well known that multi-tasking diminishes your productivity, but the same goes for being committed to too many projects.

It is best to focus on one thing, finish it, and then go to the next thing.

We tend to think that unsuccessful people sit on their butts and do nothing, but the opposite is often true – they do so many things that they never properly finish anything. Ever heard the term “Serial entrepreneur”? These are entrepreneurs that build a series of successful businesses – and they do it one at a time.

As Steve Jobs said: “Real artists ship”. So be a real artist.

#4 Little and Often

Whenever you are tackling a large task or project, it is best to work on it in smaller chunks, but often. This applies to learning a foreign language, learning to play a musical instrument, exercise, and many other things. Our mind is the most effective when it has the time to properly incubate and develop the project. Forcing yourself to do large things in one sitting builds resistance and diminishes your creativity. Great ideas often come from sub-conscious, and take time to incubate.

And, of course, the key here is consistency. Once you commit to a project, put the effort in with religious consistency. Every day is best.

#5 Define your Limits

Counter-intuitively, we are the most creative when we are limited. In the book “Made to Stick”, many examples of this principle were presented. For example, try to think of 5 white things that you have at home. Then try to think 5 white things that you have in your fridge. For most, the latter is easier, yet it is more limited.

It is the limitations that encourage creativity.

What this means to you is that you should have very clear boundaries between your projects, both personal and work related. Once again, decide what you are not going to do.

Having no focus and no boundaries is a deceptive illusion of freedom that goes nowhere.

This is also the reason why working on a particular task in a strictly defined time burst works (Pomodoro).

#6 Closed Lists

Closed list is a list with a line drawn at the bottom, so nothing can be added to it. It is the opposite of open list, which grows endlessly.

It is easier to work with closed lists for multiple reasons. First, it’s motivating – the closed list can get only shorter, but open lists gets longer. Second, it acts as a buffer between you and new incoming work. It enables you to properly plan your work and then execute it without being distracted with new things. Closed lists reduce randomness.

One example of closed list is dealing with email in batches at specified times of the day, rather than dealing with it randomly during the day. Another example of closed list is a checklist.

When you create a to-do list, it always tends to get longer, because you will put the new incoming tasks to it. The idea of Do It Tomorrow, however, is to close the list – and do all the new incoming things the next day – tomorrow. Hence the name of the book – “Do It Tomorrow“.

Closed lists are a very effective tool for clearing backlogs: You can just seal your to-do list and isolate it as a backlog, then start completely anew. First, make sure you handle all the new incoming tasks, and second, slowly work through your backlog, which is now a closed list. Because it is a closed list, it will eventually grow to zero and you will clear it.

#7 Reduce Random Factors

Interruptions are the number one reason for preventing people to complete their work. Today, it is truer than ever.

While we probably can’t completely eliminate random distractions and interruptions, we can (and should) minimize them.

By the way, Eben Pagan, who is an extremely successful internet marketer and businessman, said that eliminating distractions might be the most important business skill of all – and his entrepreneurial training programs cover hundreds of skills! So this is definitely something to think about. (And if you want to learn how to focus, check out my post Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?).

With the right approach, you can be proactive, not reactive.

Do you run your day, or does it run you?

What are you not going to do? is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

One Minute To-Do List

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:45:17 +0000

“The One Minute To-Do List” is a new organizing method by Michael Linenberger, who is also the author of “Master Your Workday Now”, which is probably the best alternative to Getting Things Done (GTD) method.

One Minute To-Do List method is perfect for people who want to quickly start using some proven organizing system, instead of doing things haphazardly and randomly on their own, or learning some complex organizing system.

One Minute To-Do List approach is very simple compared to both GTD and “Master Your Workday Now”. And since it is so simple, I will explain it to you – along with some of my own insights and remarks – and show you exactly how to use it with Swift To-Do List.

Once you read this this post, you will:

Learn the proven One Minute To-Do List method
Know exactly how to use it with Swift To-Do List for Windows

But what this really means to you is that you will get your workday and life under control and bring intelligent system into your to-do lists. Your to-do lists will finally help you to eliminate stress, not add to it!

I’m so glad that Michael Linenberger developed this simple method that I can now teach to you. Sure, perhaps the method could be even little bit simpler, but I believe that anything simpler probably wouldn’t work. This is as simple as it gets. Do you know the 80/20 principle? 20% of the effort will bring you 80% results – and that’s exactly what One Minute To-Do List is about.

Michael is a truly brilliant guy. This method is backed up by a real-world experience of him as a very successful coach, seminar organizer and best-selling author, who has helped 10.000s of individuals to eliminate stress and become organized. It really works, and it is proven. Michael trains employees of Microsoft, GE, GE, US Coast Guard, and other organizations. And I really believe that you can reap the 80% benefits of his expertise by learning this simple method.

We will cover 4 areas here: Prioritizing Tasks, Capturing Tasks, Reviewing Tasks, and Keeping the List Reasonable. Feel free to skip the “Why this works” box for each area, although the boxes can provide you with better understanding.

You can start using this method today. Just follow the instructions. Let’s get going!

1. Prioritizing Your Tasks

The One Minute To-Do List method works with just 3 task priorities, all based on urgency:

Critical Now
Opportunity Now
Over the Horizon

The Critical Now priority is for tasks that are urgent and must be completed today. At any point, you shouldn’t have more than 5 tasks with this priority. This priority should be used only when necessary. If any action is not urgent and doesn’t absolutely have to be done today, then don’t prioritize it as “Critical Now”. It is perfectly OK to not have any “Critical Now” tasks.

Opportunity Now is for tasks that you would like to do today or this week, given the opportunity. You shouldn’t have more than 20 tasks with this priority.

Over the Horizon is for everything else. It’s great for tasks that are not concerning you right now, but that you don’t want to lose. You will revisit these later.

Why this works: Prioritizing by urgency makes much more sense than prioritizing by importance, because we tend to think that nearly everything is important. There is always some reason why any particular task is important. Yet, if everything is important, nothing really is. Also, it is the urgent tasks that are the most stressful. You simply need handle these first in any case. Mark Forster (Author of “Do-It Tomorrow”) also agrees that prioritizing by importance is a guaranteed failure. If you stop doing do the less-important things, they will eventually pile up and clog up your work.

How to implement this with Swift To-Do List: Because Swift To-Do List is very flexible, there are multiple ways of implementing this. You could either edit the inbuilt task priorities using menu Manage – Priorities, or, you could create a separate to-do list for tasks of each priority. Let’s go with the priority customization here, as that will allow you to use the to-do list tree for something else than priorities (e.g. project/area categorization).

Start Swift To-Do List (Download it if you haven’t already). Then, use menu Manage – Priorities:

This is how the default priorities look like:

Let’s delete the “High” and “Low” priorities, so only “Highest”, “Medium” and “Lowest” remain. Then, we will rename these remaining priorities:

Edit the “Highest” priority and rename it to “Critical Now”.
Edit the “Medium” priority and rename it to “Opportunity Now”.
Edit the “Low” priority and rename it to “Over the Horizon”.

This is how it should look once you are done:

And hey, feel free to change the colors. It’s your to-do list after all!

2. Capturing Your Tasks

Always use the next action necessary to accomplish the task as the task name. That way, all task names will be actionable. It will be obvious what you need to do to move things forward.
All your tasks should be in one place. The best place is your computer.
All new incoming tasks should be put into your to-do list, regardless the source (email, phone, notes from co-workers or family members, meetings).

Why this works: Having actionable task names removes friction when it’s the time to actually do the task. You won’t have to think about what’s the next step, and it will be less intimidating. Having all your tasks on your computer is important, because your computer is the place where you carry out most of your work. Even if you would have your to-do list somewhere else, you would still need it on your computer. To-do list software has many advantages over paper to-do list. You can easily re-prioritize things, easily capture new tasks, write notes for each tasks, create reminders or recurring tasks, attach files and emails to your tasks, email tasks to others, and many other advantages. If you ever need a paper to-do list, you can simply print it. Mobile devices are useful for capturing new tasks, which you can put later into your main to-do list on your computer.

How to implement this with Swift To-Do List: Not only you should put all new incoming tasks into Swift To-Do List, but you should move all your existing tasks and lists into Swift To-Do List as well. This includes any tasks you have on your phone, on paper, in text files on your computer, or in other software.

To quickly enter multiple tasks, use menu Task – Add Multiple Tasks (Ctrl + H), then enter one task per line. If your tasks are in other software or spreadsheet, you can usually export them to CSV, and then import the CSV file into Swift To-Do List by using menu File – Import Wizard.

With Swift To-Do List, it is especially simple to create tasks from emails. If you use Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, The Bat, or other desktop email client, you can just drag & drop the emails into Swift To-Do List to create tasks. Here is a quick video how to create tasks from emails.

3. Reviewing Your Tasks

You should review the “Critical Now” tasks about once per hour.

You should review the “Opportunity Now” tasks once per day or more often.

You should review the “Over the Horizon” tasks once per week.

Why this works: If you review your urgent tasks often, you will feel in control, always know what needs to be done, and therefore greatly reduce stress. But it’s not enough to review just the urgent tasks, because non-urgent tasks will eventually become urgent too. You need to “catch” these before they get the chance to become urgent, and that can be accomplished with the daily and weekly reviews. Additionally, the reviews will help you to constantly re-focus to adjust your efforts. If you are focused on the right things at the right moment, you will be very efficient and productive.

How to implement this with Swift To-Do List: First, to be able to quickly review the Critical Now tasks, learn to use the global hotkey for quickly displaying Swift To-do List. This will allow you to review your tasks as often as you need. The default hotkey is Ctrl + Alt + S, and can be changed using menu File – Options. (In the Options window, it is located in the Hotkeys section.) Start using the hotkey often. It is useful especially whenever you are not entirely sure what to do next, and/or if you get distracted or interrupted.

Second, make it a habit to review your Opportunity Now tasks either when you start your workday or when you finish it.

Third, create a recurring weekly task to remind you to review all your Over the Horizon tasks. To do that:

Click the Add Task button.
Then, in the Add Task window, enter the task name: “Review all my Over the Horizon tasks”
Select the Priority – this task will have the “Over the Horizon” priority.
Go to the Recurrence tab, select “Weekly” as the interval, and in the Action dropdown, select “Set undone and remind me”. This way, Swift To-Do List will remind you once a week to review all your Over the Horizon tasks.
Press “OK” to add the task.

4. Keeping the List Reasonable

With a little discipline, it’s easy to stick to the rules of having no more than 5 tasks with the Critical Now priority, and no more than 20 tasks with Opportunity prioriy Now. If you have more than that, simply move some tasks to the lower (less urgent) priority.

The real problem here is that your list of tasks with “Over the Horizon” priority can quickly grow out of proportions. This is a problem, because you want the weekly review to be fast and easy. No one wants to read hundreds of irrelevant tasks.

To keep things manageable, Michael Linenberger recommends using the Start Date field for this purpose. Using the following clever technique, you can defer some Over the Horizon tasks for later review. That way, your list of Over the Horizon tasks that you review weekly won’t become too long. This is how it works:

First, all new tasks should have the Start Date set to today.

Second, all tasks that have Start Date in the future should be hidden.

Third, you can start deferring tasks by setting their Start Date to future. So, if don’t want to (or need to) review some tasks for some time, then set its Start Date to a future date. This will hide the task, and when that particular future date comes, this task will start appearing on your to-do list again.

Why this works: The number 1 reason people abandon a to-do list or organizing system is because they get overwhelmed. They put in too many tasks – and the once helpful tool now just adds to their stress, instead of reducing it. That’s why it’s important to regularly delete irrelevant tasks from your to-do list, and hide things that you don’t need to worry about for now. That way, your to-do list will stay relevant, up-to-date and useful.

How to implement this with Swift To-Do List: First, to make sure new tasks get the “Today” Start Date automatically set, do this: Use menu Manage – Columns, and enable the Start Date field (if it’s not already enabled). Then, use menu File – Options, and in the New Tasks tab of the Options window, select “Today” upon “Start Date”, as shown below:

Second, to hide all tasks with Start Date set to a future date, we will create a new filter: Use menu Manage – Filters, then click Add. In the Add Filter window, check “Start Date” and select “Today”. At the bottom, check “Include tasks with expired dates” and “Include tasks with unspecified dates”. Name the filter “Started” (or anything else) and click OK:

After you add this filter, apply it the main window by clicking the Filter toolbar button:

That’s the whole setup part. Now, every time you want to defer any task for a future review, edit it, and set its Start Date to the desired future review date. That will immediately hide it, and the task will start re-appearing in your to-do list on the future date.

And by the way, to move multiple tasks to another priority (e.g. from Opportunity Now to Over the Horizon), select them (e.g. using Ctrl + Click), then right-click them, and use Batch Edit – Priority in the popup menu.

And that’s it!

We’ve now covered all 4 main components of the One Minute To-Do List system: Prioritizing, Capturing, Reviewing, and Deferring. You are ready to use it. Just stick to the simple rules described in this short guide and you will reign over chaos and improve your life. For the best results, re-read this guide a week later or so once you have some experience with the system.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me, or submit a Reply in the form below. I am here to help. I am also very much interested in your results, so don’t hesitate to let me know them once you try this.

And by the way, this is what Jason, one of our customers/fan wrote me recently as reaction to this post:

I’ve read most of your blogs over the past couple of months as I’ve been looking for ways to calm down the task crisis that I’ve had. They have been very helpful and I thank you for taking the time to post them all! The One Minute To-Do List blog [post] is what finally clicked with me and that’s when I finally broke down and bought the Ultimate Edition. I’ve been using ideas from that along with my own tweaks to help organize all the tasks I have for all the work and personal projects that I have going on. I love how I can set a new start date to review something in the future and know that it won’t be forgotten nor in the way as I focus on my current tasks.

One Minute To-Do List is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

5 Counter-Intuitive Productivity Tips

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:00:05 +0000

Since I decided to become an expert on productivity and time management and started studying these topics, I’ve run into many examples of counter-intuitive advice that actually works.

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.

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

Hidden Procrastination

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:14:55 +0000

Are you genius at wasting time, fooling both yourself and others?

The common sense is that you are either procrastinating, or you are not. And if you are procrastinating, you always know it.

Well, I don’t agree with these statements.

There are multiple levels of procrastination.

But I plead you to stop reading this if you know that you are currently procrastinating. Do yourself a favor and go fix your procrastination issue first. You are lucky because your procrastination is NOT hidden. You can absolutely fix it. You can start by reading my detailed summary of The Now Habit, which is one of the best books on procrastination. Spending more time on proactive tasks instead of reactive tasks also helps. Fooling yourself into working works, too.

OK, with half the audience still remaining, let’s get back to the original question: Are you a genius at wasting time?

You probably had the experience of joyously cleaning/polishing/organizing stuff instead of doing THAT important task. That is the regular garden variety of procrastination. But what I am going to suggest here is that there are multiple levels of procrastination.

Sometimes it might feel like you are working and being productive, but the reality might be that you are, in fact, procrastinating – and you don’t even know it!

It works like this -

If you should do:	But instead do:	Then it is:
Important task	Less important task	Hidden procrastination
Important task	Unimportant task	Procrastination
Unproductive task	Something even more useless	Wrong planning, buddy.

“Hidden procrastination” is wasting time in an elaborate way. It might be actually productive (albeit less productive than THAT task), or it might be just pseudo-productivity.

You might object: “HEY! If I am working on something important, then I can’t be possibly procrastinating!” Good point sir, thanks for bringing that up! Well, you might be working on something that actually is important – but if there is something else that you know to be more important, then it can be helpful for you to think of what you are doing as procrastination. Why? Because you can use the same approach to fix your “prioritizing” issue as you would use to fix a blatant case of procrastination. E.g. you can apply the techniques from The Now Habit book.

Detecting hidden procrastination

Sometimes, you just need to take one step back and ask yourself:

Is this the most important thing I could be doing right now?.

And:

What am I missing here, in the grand scheme of things?

Sometimes, these questions will help you discover where you stand, and sometimes, they will make you drop what you are currently doing and make a quantum leap to an entirely different level. If you spend most of your time zoomed in, you need to zoom out from time to time – just to make sure what you are doing still makes sense.

That’s it. This is the most important thing I wanted to tell you.

More on pseudo-productivity

In case of pseudo-productivity, you might absolutely convinced that you are doing something important, and you might very well convince others as well, but it might be entirely irrelevant a month from now.

The signs that you are possibly pseudo-productive include:

You are not working on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd most important thing.
What you are doing now won’t matter 1 year from now (And if it won’t matter 1 month from now on, I think you should reconsider your long-term strategy!)
You should’ve already moved to the next task, others would confirm that when asked.
You are obviously over-delivering with only an abysmal chance of payoff.
You are over-worked, tired, or daydreaming a lot.
You are having trouble staying focused.
Excessive organizing or planning.
You are eternally grateful for any external stimuli or distraction that prompts you to do something else, and you’ve mastered rationalizing how it might be useful or important.

Oh, and if your environment forces you to spend more time on bureaucratic tasks than real tasks, then the whole environment has systemic problems. Change the environment – either transform it or leave. You can’t possibly be happy in such a place.

Traps of complex organizing tools

Pseudo-productivity is often related to over-organizing, over-planning, and thus, your task management software. Such tools can be so complex that you fiddle with it all the time instead of doing the actual work.

The sole purpose of your organizer is to allow you:

Always know what to do next
Capture everything – tasks, ideas, notes (task details), knowledge snippets, and maybe even related documents and emails
Delegate and monitor tasks – even if you are not a manager, you will be responsible for tasks that require work of someone else, and you need to stay on top of such delegated assignments.
Do some basic planning

Everything else is just more or less a waste of time. You don’t need super detailed plans that include toilet breaks.

The purpose of always knowing what to do next is to ensure that you are working on the most important thing, and that your work is friction-less and focused.

The purpose of capturing is that it frees your mental RAM. You take it out of your head, and put it into the organizer. Then keep working on THAT thing.

My experience is that my organizing needs vary a lot in time. Sometimes, a single sticky note might be enough to keep me organized for a day, and sometimes I really need to overview hundreds of to-do items and write notes for some of them.

In case you didn’t know, I’m the author of Swift To-Do List, a task/notes organizer for Windows.

Perhaps you don’t even use Windows – but let me quickly tell you about some of the things that I think are important in task management software in general, and that I’ve implemented into Swift To-Do List. It might help you find the perfect tool for you.

When it comes to prioritizing, you can just drag and drop tasks around, or sort them by multiple columns at once (First by Due Date, then by Priority). Color codes for priorities help me to highlight THAT important tasks.

Capturing is also thought-of in Swift To-Do List. Not only you can write rich-text notes for each task, but you can create task-independent notes and organize them in the hierarchical tree along with to-do lists. Having that integrated with task-management is invaluable for me. Also, you can attach files and emails to tasks, and even embed the files directly into the database. A killer feature is ability to drag & drop emails from email clients (such as Thunderbird, Outlook, Lotus Notes, The Bat) into Swift To-Do List to instantly generate tasks from them, complete with the attachments.

Delegating is handled simply using the Assigned To field, plus the ability to email the task directly to the assignee right from the program.

When designing Swift To-Do List, I’ve put into tremendous effort into customization and flexibility. When I don’t need some features, it is very important for me to be able to hide them. In Swift To-Do List, the whole GUI changes based on what columns you use (Start Date, Due Date, Priority, Context, Type, Assigned To, Time Estimate, Time Spent, etc.) This keeps things simple.

Wrapping this up or TL;DR

1) When you are not working on your most important tasks, it is helpful to think of it as procrastination. It allows you to correct the problem by utilizing the existing infrastructure of procrastination solutions (books, techniques, tools, experts).

2) Sometimes, you just need to take one step back and ask yourself:

Is this the most important thing I could be doing right now?.

And:

What am I missing here, in the grand scheme of things?

3) Make sure your organizer is actually helping you to prioritize, capture everything, and stay on top of things.

Hidden Procrastination is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Managing Actions Horizontally and Vertically

Jiri Novotny — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:31:23 +0000

As we’ve established in past GTD Basics posts, the adage that “knowing is half the battle” generally rings true wherever productivity is concerned. In order to succeed in Getting Things Done, you can’t just jump right into the tasks at hand (however tempting that might be). Instead, you need to approach tasks more slowly so that you can move quickly once you’re actually working. Preparation is essential, and as David Allen explains in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, a crucial component is managing your actions.

The practices that promote productivity and GTD are somewhat akin to fractals – if you keep looking closer and closer, the same patterns inevitably recur. At a macro level, GTD requires managing your commitments and tasks through organization and clarification. And at a micro level, GTD requires managing the actions, or steps, each task requires.

Horizontal task management is the macro level. Vertical management is the micro level.

Managing actions helps to further the process of converting the overwhelming mass of your commitments into a coherent, organized and, most importantly, workable set of steps you need to take. Managing actions gives you a clear plan of attack, a manageable group of goals and an improved perspective. And, because breaking things down as far as possible helps make things easier, we’re going to divide your actions into two categories: horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal Action Management

Horizontal action management may sound like a complicated fitness move, but it is simply a means by which you can accomplish actions relating to a number of tasks efficiently. You can think of it as your ‘two birds, one stone’ system, because horizontal action management looks at all of the tasks you have and identifies a common action or actions that moves multiple tasks toward completion.

For example, if your tasks include washing your dog and taking a shower, securing towels is an action that will help you move toward completing each task. Instead of getting one towel when you need it, a horizontal action management system would have you get both towels at once so they are ready when you need them.

If horizontal action management sounds difficult, you can use Swift To-Do List to simplify matters. The program allows you to attach notes and documents to tasks on your list, which is perfectly suited to action management. I like to create bulleted lists of actions for each task in the notes area so I know what steps I need to take to complete a given task. To perform horizontal action management, I look at the bulleted list for each task and identify actions common to multiple tasks. Then, I create a sub-list and enter these actions as my priority/efficiency actions – the steps I can take to make progress on multiple assignments at once.

After a while, you may notice that your horizontal action management tends to reveal preparatory actions, like gathering supplies or research. If the same actions recur in an organized manner, you can use Swift To-Do List 7 to send you reminder e-mails on a consistent basis. Often, the common actions are “first steps” in completing tasks, and by managing them all at once, you can have a head start on future projects.

Vertical Action Management

Vertical action management doesn’t have as much of a “big picture” scope as horizontal task management, but it is still important. Vertical action management is, as Allen puts it, “’project planning’…focusing in on a single endeavor, situation, or person and fleshing out whatever ideas, details, priorities and sequences of events may be required for you to handle it.”

You can think of vertical action management as a checklist or a to-do list, which makes Swift To-Do List 7 such an effective tool for this technique. For vertical action management, you need to list all of the steps required for completion of a task. It’s important to be as detailed as possible and list even preparatory actions. Breaking down tasks into as many actions as possible is important because it makes them more manageable and allows you to identify common actions in the horizontal action management process.

Discover more about the benefits of “breaking tasks down” in the very popular post called “10 best tricks of fooling myself to work“.

The smaller the actions, the more likely you will be to knock them out during the time you have between meetings, lunch or major task work. If you don’t break down your tasks, they can be overwhelming and you’ll need to set aside large blocks of time to accomplish anything and you’ll miss out on the consolidation of actions offered by horizontal action management. Additionally, having a list of actions enumerated for each task allows you to assess your progress more often.

Putting It All Together

Both horizontal and vertical action management are effective tools, but they are most effective when used together. Typically, beginning with vertical action management can be helpful, because when you finish you’ll be able to see the common actions you need to consolidate in the horizontal action management stage.

While action management is time-consuming initially, it will save you time later and can help keep you focused while working on projects. Breaking tasks into steps will also help you understand what tasks need to be completed and how you should work on them. Finally, action management gives you a better appreciation of the scope of your tasks and how much time will be required for completion. With experience gained while using this approach, both your time estimates and productivity will soar.

Post by Brian J. Willet

Managing Actions Horizontally and Vertically is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Best Of This Blog (Part 2)

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:36:46 +0000

Since publishing the first summary of the best posts, many new posts were written on this blog. It’s time for another recap baby!

The posts published since the last summary can be divided into three main categories:

Productivity posts: How to do more in less time and be happier
Swift To-Do List related posts: Tips, tricks, news, highlights.
Getting Things Done posts – GTD tutorial by our guest writer Brian

So, without further ado, here goes. Enjoy!

Productivity posts:

10 best tricks of fooling myself to work – this post went viral: over 100.000 readers!
Creating Lasting Happiness In 5 Minutes a Day – super-powerful yet simple journaling technique
The Now Habit Summary – detailed summary of the best book on procrastination
Accidental Genius Summary – detailed summary of the best book on creative thinking and writing
The next actions and prioritizing – how to keep track of what to do next
Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon – do you want to attain your goal badly?
10 quick fixes of motivation – feeling down and unproductive? This should get you going again.
Why plants on workdesks boost creativity by 15%

Swift To-Do List related:

Turn emails into tasks – just drag & drop them into Swift To-Do List! – the greatest new feature?
Synchronize Swift To-Do List with Dropbox
What’s New in 7.33 – learn about recurrence after completion, recurrence preview, and how to permanently delete to-do lists
What’s New in 7.307 – learn about tree export to HTML
What’s New in 7.30 – learn about in-place editing.
What’s New in 7.26 – learn about time-tracking
What’s New in 7.25 – learn about the Import Wizard and the improved Batch Edit
We’ve just sent the first $50 donation to WWF! – you help us to help charities!

GTD posts:

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Basics – what’s GTD all about?
Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Do I Need to GTD?
Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Perspective
Getting In The Ready State (To Get Things Done)

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Commitment Management – manage what’s on your plate
Managing Actions Horizontally and Vertically

What I think

I’m really happy about the direction this blog is taking. While I am usually fully focused on development, you bet I will keep bringing you new intriguing posts in the future.

The exceptional success of the “10 best tricks of fooling myself to work” post has really humbled me as a writer (and marketer). It was the most successful piece I’ve ever written – just the thousands of shares on social media are truly mind-blowing to me. That being said, I am still better software designer than blogger and writer. But I will keep working at it ;-)

And hey, check out also the previous “Best Of This Blog (Part 1)“

Best Of This Blog (Part 2) is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Commitment Management

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:06:39 +0000

The basic idea of Getting Things Done, or GTD, is not simply accomplishing the tasks you need to accomplish but doing so in an efficient manner. Obviously, the end product – a finished to-do list with all of your jobs well done – is essential to success, but the GTD methodology focuses more on the process than its product. As such, GTD is geared toward creating a system to manage your work that is self-sufficient and reduces your stress level rather than increase it. Creating such a to-do list is relatively easy when you’re using a good personal organizer.

Unfortunately, modern life presents with a dizzying array of commitments, both work-related and independent of work. Thus, a major component of GTD stressed by author David Allen is that of commitment management. Commitment management offers a way to clear your mind prior to taking on tasks so that you can focus all of your energy on the task at hand.

The first component: Identifying commitments

The first part of commitment management is essentially a brainstorming session in which you identify all of the commitments you have and put them on paper. These commitments can be new assignments or ongoing projects – “anything you consider unfinished in any way,” says Allen – and can be work for your boss or chores you need to do at home. Because these thoughts are cluttering your mind, merely thinking about them won’t help you focus on anything in particular. Instead, you need to put them into what Allen calls a “collection bucket,” and what we like to call a Swift To-Do List task list.

The key features of a “collection bucket” are that you can easily see all of the individual tasks and that you can revisit them whenever you need to. A Swift To-Do List 7 task list satisfies both of these, as the list is just a mouse click away. Using Swift To-Do List 7 actually improves upon the traditional “bucket” design thanks to the to-do list tree. You can create different lists and sub-lists to keep commitments organized. This is particularly helpful if you have multiple projects going on.

Virtually everyone has multiple projects – at minimum, you have your work and personal life. Both can be divided into additional sub-projects.

Second component: Clarifying commitments

According to Allen, the second part of commitment management is clarifying commitments and actions you need to take to complete them. This allows you to further free your mind and understand the scope of your projects. Swift To-Do List 7 is particularly well-suited to this task, as you can write notes and attach files to each of your tasks. This creates an individual workspace for each of your projects, so you’re not muddling your mind with ideas. And instead of worrying about jotting down new ideas on the nearest napkin, you have a place to keep things organized.

Swift To-Do List 7 allows you to attach not just text but images and files to each task in the notes area; consider using this option to create flow-charts or other visual aids to enhance your understanding of the requirements of each task.

The use of sub-lists can also help you plan ahead – further easing and clearing your mind for work – and assess your progress as you move toward your goals. In fact, being aware of your progress and the next step you need to take for any given task is essential to complete commitment management. If you fail to clarify the actions required, the uncertainty will remain on your mind and compromise your focus.

Third component: Creating organized reminder system

The third component of commitment management – and arguably the most important – is creating an organized reminder system that you can review whenever you need to. While you can rely on your brain for this, Allen notes that your brain’s reminder system is often inefficient and tends to kick in only after you needed to take action. Thankfully, Swift To-Do List 7 is tailored to take on this task as well.

Swift To-Do List 7 allows you to set reminders not just on your desktop but as e-mails as well, so even if you’re away from the office but have your mobile device, you can stay informed. This is particularly useful if you often travel for business or have a mixture of commitments in and out of the office. If you’re a freelancer or self-employed, e-mail reminders are invaluable, as your workplace is often mobile. Relying on an external reminder system can eliminate the distraction of trying to keep track of commitments in your mind.

Summary

While identifying absolutely every commitment at once would be ideal, it doesn’t often happen. But don’t be discouraged – remember that commitment management is an on-going process, so you can always add more later. This will ensure your mind is fresh and focused until you’ve checked all of the tasks off of your list.

(…) remember that commitment management is an on-going process, so you can always add more later (…)

Commitment management is a simple yet effective way to take the pressure of juggling all of your assignments off of your brain so you can be totally committed to the task at hand. All it takes is (1) identifying commitments; (2) clarifying completion requirements; and (3) creating an organized reminder system.

Post by Brian J. Willet

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Commitment Management is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting In The Ready State (To Get Things Done)

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:34:11 +0000

There is no dispute that preparation is the key to success, and the same principle holds true for increasing productivity. Such a conclusion shouldn’t surprise you; it would be difficult to expect a job well done if you don’t have the right tools at your disposal. And while accruing resources – a subject for another blog post – is a key component of preparation, one aspect is often overlooked: getting into the zone. The zone, referred to as “The Ready State” in David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, is not a physical place but a mentality, a mind-set that is just as important a resource as your word processing software or earplugs to insulate you from your cubicle neighbor’s snoring after lunch.

Although you may not need to be in the Ready State to do work, it is a definite prerequisite for Getting Things Done. This is because GTD is focused on achieving your ideal level of productivity and efficiency; likewise, the Ready State is an ideal psychological environment. As Allen notes, this state will help you get more done with less effort; the Ready State is “a condition of working, doing and being in which the mind is clear and constructive things are happening.”

Thankfully, the Ready State is achievable for anyone and can be reached more easily than you might expect. To reach this zone, you need to do three things (and Swift To-Do List can certainly help):

Understand the Task
Eliminate Distractions
Embrace the Task

So, let’s look at these in detail:

Understand the Task

The first step to reaching the Ready Zone may seem like the most obvious, but it is also the most frequently overlooked. In order to Get Things Done, you need to know what the things are. However, this step entails more than just reading the subject line of an assigning memo. Rather, you need to engage in PREP:

Figure out the Priority
Identify Resources that are required
Identify End goals
Acquire proper Perspective

While the PREP factors are relatively self-explanatory, a brief explanation can help eliminate misunderstandings. Assessing the Priority should be simple, as it’s often explained to you by your supervisor. If it isn’t, ask; you should also ask other authorities for whom you have assignments where the new task falls into place with your existing assignments. Using the Task Type and Priority fields in Swift To-Do List 7 can ensure you don’t mistake the Priority.

Assessing and acquiring the Resources you need can be easy but time-consuming, and it’s important to forget that your best resources can include your coworkers and work you’ve already done. Obviously, there’s no need to redo work you’ve already finished, but even if your task is a completely new one, you may be able to enlist data or techniques from past work into your new assignment.

Your End goals will determine what exactly you do and how you go about doing it; do you have specific budget or time constraints? Or do you simply need to say, reach 10,000 Likes on Facebook by any means necessary? Be sure you know what the End goals are and what time frame you have to reach them.

Lastly, you need to adopt the proper Perspective; we explained the importance and methodology of this step in this post. Briefly explained, the proper Perspective is acquired by understanding where the task at hand falls in your workflow and the overall company objectives; see the task for what it is and don’t be overwhelmed; do only what you need to but never less than that.

Eliminate Distractions

Just as you might expect Understanding the Task to be the easiest step, you probably have an inkling that Eliminating Distractions will be the most difficult. And you’d be absolutely correct. Thankfully, difficult does not mean impossible, and over time you will tackle this task with increasing ease.

Eliminating distractions requires willpower, but it doesn’t require you to make sacrifices; instead, you can make compromises. Using Swift To-Do List 7’s inbuilt timer can help you set productivity goals – you can work on the task at hand for a specific amount of time before you take a break and then time your break to ensure you’re not wasting too much time. By setting out specific blocks of non-productivity, you will be less likely to get off task when it’s time to work.

Additionally, you don’t need to eliminate everything that could qualify as a distraction; listening to music, for example, can provide stimulation while you work on a task and help stave off boredom. It is up to you to assess what is distracting and what is not; common culprits include eating, chatting with coworkers, browsing the internet and multitasking.

Embrace the Task

Embracing the Task is what Allen describes as making your “mind like water,” or in simpler terms, going with the flow. This crucial step involves simultaneously letting go of everything else in your mind – work and family commitments, worries and expectations, etc. – and allowing your mind to focus simply on your assignment. Instead of thinking about what else you have to do, start thinking about how anything that does enter your consciousness can help contribute to your task. For example, if a coworker engages you in conversation, ask for feedback on what you’ve done so far. Or, if your computer crashes, let IT staff handle the task and outline strategies on paper.

Often, making the act of emptying your mind of internal and external commitments and refilling it with concerns relating to your assignment can help. Do this by typing out your non-assignment related commitments as a new to-do list in Swift To-Do List 7, and then fully concentrate on a separate to-do list for assignment-related needs. This can set your mind at ease and help you truly Embrace the Task at hand.

Another powerful technique is to utilize the task notes in Swift To-Do List to write down all the details related to the task. See more about this in 10 best tricks of fooling myself to work

Post by Brian J. Willet

Getting In The Ready State (To Get Things Done) is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Perspective

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:05:52 +0000

Changing Your Perspective: From Primary Outcomes to the Big Picture

Getting Things Done is often touted as a revolutionary system, as it provides a significant departure from the productivity practices ingrained in the workplace. Obviously, overthrowing tools and methods that have been established as ‘the norm’ in offices around the country and world can be a hefty task, so it’s best to approach the task in manageable pieces. So where to begin? By changing your perspective.

Embracing the Big Picture

In the traditional work place, tasks are assigned as individual projects, completely out of the context of the larger overall project of which they are components. Assignments such as memos, spreadsheets and press releases are typically presented as existing in a vacuum, just one project afloat in a sea of unrelated work. And while this may seem to make work more manageable – you only have to think about the page in front of you – it’s actually doing you a disservice. One given document is merely an ingredient in the recipe that your company uses to present a finished product, so it should be treated as such.

As GTD author David Allen notes, “focusing on primary outcomes and values is a critical exercise,” but to be successful, you “must incorporate the results of big-picture thinking as well as the smallest of open details.”

In other words, you need to keep the overarching goals of your company (or business) in mind when you perform each task. By considering what place your assignment has in the larger scope of the project, you can refine your task and focus on what you need to do and what will be accomplished by other components of the project performed by your coworkers.

Big-Picture Benefits

This big-picture mindset can also take pressure off of you and open you up to more stress-free productivity. Altering your perspective – from seeing your task as the end-all, be-all to seeing it as a component in the scope of a larger project – can help alleviate anxiety and bring a feeling of teamwork into even your individual projects. The mindset can aid in promoting collaboration, which facilitates improved productivity and enhanced consistency with end products.

Collaboration is a breeze with Swift To-Do List 7, as you can assign tasks to others, email tasks to others, use notes to capture input from others, and utilize attachments to attach files (such as others’ work product) to tasks on your list. Since version 7.32, you can even create tasks from emails. Swift To-Do List 7 will also soon have full-blown online synchronization and collaboration feature (currently in beta).

From Outcomes to Inputs

But changing your perspective from focusing on small tasks in a vacuum to seeing them as part of the big picture can also work in terms of your own personal workflow. To help you make this transition, it may be helpful to adopt the vocabulary Allen uses in his book. The author classifies tasks as ‘inputs,’ which demonstrates the idea that your projects are means to an end, namely the company’s overall output. Your inputs are all interrelated and support overall project goals; this can be visualized easily with Swift To-Do List 7’s to-do list tree.

If that conceptualization doesn’t help, try a favorite of mine – consider your projects as ingredients in the overall recipe of your workflow.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The big-picture perspective is crucial because it promotes prioritizing in your workflow. For example, if you’re making chocolate chip cookies (trust me here, I have a lot of experience), some ingredients, such as flour and sugar, are more important than others, such as vanilla extract or chocolate chips. Thus, you need to dedicate more resources to the tasks that represent your flour and sugar, because if you concentrate too much on securing chocolate chips, you may not have dough in which to incorporate them.

Perspective-Promoting Tools

By using Swift To-Do List 7’s filtering feature and ability to view all tasks at once, you can more easily assess the big picture for a given span of time; the feature allows you to view tasks due only in certain time ranges. Additionally, you can assign priorities to each task and sort the list by priority, due date, task type or name for proper perspective. You can even sort the list by multiple columns at once (eg. by Priority first, and by Due Date second).

Often, your mindset can determine your overall productivity. And while it can be tempted to imagine every project as a massively important event, you should remember that completion of an input task is merely a primary outcome, a component of the big picture. This realization will help prevent you from doing overlapping work on multiple tasks and increasing your workload inadvertently.

Seeing your tasks in perspective as part of your Swift To-Do List can alleviate the anxiety associated with getting weighed down in the details of individual projects. GTD guru Allen suggests that a combination of a calendar, to-do list and priority coding are more effective in combination than when used individually, as you may still be susceptible to distraction and lack of appropriate focus. Thankfully, Swift To-Do List 7 incorporates these features and more into one convenient, streamlined piece of software.

Post by Brian J. Willet

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Perspective is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Do I Need to GTD?

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:45:04 +0000

Guest post by Brian J. Willett

Acknowledging that you need help can be a difficult thing. But rather than wait for some sort of efficiency intervention, it’s always best to come to the conclusion yourself when it pertains to your productivity. Although the realization that you need to enhance your efficiency and better organize your workflow won’t instantly improve your results, it can act as a definite indication that you need to adopt GTD practices. Taking simple steps within the large realm of GTD practices – such as changing your perspective and taking control — can put you on the path toward increased efficiency and improved work performance. So how do you make this determination? Many telltale signs of the need for GTD exist, but here are a few that stand out in our minds.

Top 5 Reasons You Need to GTD

You’re reading this article
You’re falling behind
You have trouble “getting motivated”
You’re not sure if you’re productive
You’re overwhelmed by stuff

You’re Reading This Article

Knowledge is power. But power doesn’t equal results, so you’re going to have to move from awareness of the issue – which is commendable, as ignorance is anything but bliss in the workplace – to action on the issue. So if you’re reading an article to help you decide whether GTD is relevant to your interests, great. But that’s not going to make you more productive. In fact, investigating the issue without acting can be what I call a ‘procrastination proxy.’ That is, instead of just being full-out unproductive, you’re putting off tasks that are seemingly beneficial but are still keeping you from the tasks you need to accomplish. Sometimes, your needs have to come before your interests. Reading about GTD may ease your conscience, but it doesn’t address your productivity problems; it’s a proxy for procrastination.

When I work from home, sometimes I feel an incredible urge to clean the kitchen or read up on a topic somewhat related to my work. And while these activities can be described as productive, they don’t help put words on paper, which tends to be my primary goal. When you are seeking out information related to GTD, be sure you’re not just a passive spectator, but are instead consuming the information with the intent to utilize it – be sure your activities are productivity partners, not procrastination proxies.

You’re Falling Behind

No one likes to be behind on work (or play, for that matter), but it’s better to reach the conclusion than to be told about it. If your to-do list grows by the day and tasks keep getting pushed from one day to the next, chances are you’re not keeping up. That’s why Swift To-Do List is so advantageous – it provides a clear, easy-to-understand list of your tasks so you can see individual items that need work and an overall view of the big picture. Swift To-Do List 7 lets you prioritize items and provides customized reminders of your choosing to keep you on task. A personalized, prioritized task list with deadlines makes you accountable and can prevent you from falling behind.

You’re Having Trouble “Getting Motivated”

There are many reasons why you don’t feel motivated to complete work. Stress, lethargy and a lack of interest are possibilities, but a common cause is not knowing where to start. A big part of GTD is gaining perspective; thus, getting your goals and tasks on paper is essential. Visualizing the work you need to complete, in the order you need to complete it, provides a framework for productivity and an impetus to get started because your goals are clear and attainable.

Using Swift To-Do List 7 can get you motivated with on-screen reminders, e-mails, printed task lists and settings for types and priorities of list items. Thus, you won’t just know where to start but you’ll want to start. The ability to attach files and maintain notes on each list item can also help you get over the anxiety of getting to work because you’ll already have some work done to get you off on the right foot.

You’re Not Sure If You’re Productive

At this point, you may be wondering if GTD is really for you. If you’re not consistently behind on tasks or receiving warnings from superiors, you may feel as though you’re productive enough. But could you be more efficient? Honestly, we all could.

One way to tell is to time your tasks. Swift To-Do List provides a timer so you can see how long your work takes you; this allows you to track your performance and see if there is a trend – perhaps you work quicker in the morning or on Tuesdays or after having pancakes for breakfast. Whatever the circumstances, a timer allows you to take notice and take control.

But a less common, though equally advantageous, use of the timer is timing how long you are not on task. Create a task “not working” and time track it every time you surf over to Facebook or start shoe shopping. This will show you just how long you are at work but not working; the results can be astonishing. Tracking this downtime can help you avoid being unproductive in the future by making you cognizant of the time you’re wasting and by making you re-think what you’re about to do; the act of starting and stopping the timer is a reminder that you’re not being as productive as you could be. Save the aimless surfing for your lunch break or you might find yourself permanently on break.

You’re Overwhelmed By “Stuff”

In the workplace, “stuff” can loosely be defined as all of the things standing in the way of you and your work. Whether it’s remembering to grab ice cream on the way home from work or filling out an office survey, having a lot of stuff floating around is never beneficial for productivity. GTD can help you cut through the stuff, if you have the right tools. Stuff tends to be most distracting when it’s floating around your head, so putting your stuff on paper to keep track of it can help you move through it. But still, the stuff remains. What is truly useful is a tool like Swift To-Do List 7’s filters – these allow you to choose what stuff you see, based on due dates, status, start date, priority or task type. This makes your stuff more manageable and keeps you from seeing your stuff until it’s absolutely necessary to do so.

Make your stuff work for you – prioritize appropriately by using lists and sublists (the colored icons can serve as great mental reminders) and your stuff won’t seem so imposing any more.

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Do I Need to GTD? is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Basics

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:52:31 +0000

GTD – you’ve seen it, heard about it and perhaps even meant to look into it, but never got the chance. So what is GTD, and what does it stand for? In the most basic terms, GTD stands for “Getting Things Done.” The term is borrowed from a book of the same name, subtitled “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity,” written by David Allen, a productivity consultant. However, since the original publication of the book in 2002, the concept of GTD has expanded far beyond the book, with Allen’s teachings inspiring a new generation of time management methods and efficiency-enhancing tools.

The explosion of mainstream technology, in the form of smart phones, net books and tablet computers, has served to provide ample opportunities for employing your own personal GTD methods, but it has also created an atmosphere ripe with distraction and potential for inefficiency. The key is creating a balance by – to borrow terms from Allen’s book – maintaining proper perspective and control of the tools of your trade.

While you may be tempted to cut corners as a means for GTD, that’s not what GTD is at all. Rather than forcing you to accept impaired productivity due to the inefficiencies of your resources and your efforts, GTD allows you to streamline the work process to get everything that you need accomplished finished and polished in the time you have. Instead of cutting corners, adopting GTD practices is a process of rounding off sharp edges so that your tasks fit into the time allotted and in a properly prioritized order. It all comes down to perspective and control.

GTD on a Digital Desktop

Although GTD should be easier in a digital age, it is often more difficult. From the minute you start up your computer, you’re under assault by information – warnings from your anti-virus software, pop-up ads from the internet and perhaps underneath it all, information you actually need. For this reason, it’s important to make your desktop work for you. The best way – in addition to removing unnecessary startup tasks from your computer’s settings – is to employ a desktop GTD client, such as Swift To-Do List 7. Having such a tool essentially gives you a desktop secretary, as this program in particular not only allows the creation of a to-do list, but also offers multiple settings for reminders, the attachment of files and notes to items on your list and the ability to time how long you’re spending on each task. Swift-To-Do List 7 cuts to the heart of GTD, as it puts you in control of your work and gives you a broad perspective on what needs doing, when it needs doing, and how it can be done.

GTD and YOU

The primary benefit of GTD is that it takes stress off of you so that you can focus all of your efforts on the task at hand, one-by-one, until everything is finished. A tenet of GTD is not relying on your memory to put things in proper order and remember when assignments are due. GTD preaches creating external reminders, which is exactly what Swift To-Do List 7 does. You can choose to get desktop and e-mail reminders, and upon each reminder – or any other time you review your tasks – you can also see your personal notes, attached files, images, links and other relevant information associated with the task. And instead of seeing just one task in isolation, you can see all of the items on your to-do list, which gives you ample perspective and opportunity to control your workflow. Swift To-Do List allows you to relieve your brain of its mental notes so that you’re less prone to distraction and a wandering mind.

Timing is Everything

A key component of control and perspective is being aware of timing. You should have a timeline of your tasks and know not just how long you are spending on your tasks, but how long you can afford to spend. Thankfully, Swift To-Do List 7 has a timer integrated with the program, so you can see where you’re putting your temporal resources. And take it from me – having a timer on your screen keeps you on task!

In essence, GTD is what you know you should be doing but just haven’t had time to implement yet. Luckily, as soon as you adopt GTD practices, you’ll enhance your perspective and control and have more time than ever to tackle your tasks.

This tutorial is written by Brian J. Willett.

Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Basics is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The next actions and prioritizing

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:12:43 +0000

Effectively prioritizing is a very important skill to master in order to work efficiently. One of our customers, Gary, has been curious how I personally do this with Swift To-Do List. I’m going to share some techniques that I use myself in this post.

Next tasks

Next tasks are tasks that you are currently working on. You should always know what tasks to currently work on. At any given moment, you should be able to easily pull a list of these “next tasks”.

There are two main approaches that work well for me personally:

1. The “Next” priority: I’ve created a new priority called “Next”, and I’ve set it a bright green color. Now I always assign this priority to tasks that I want to complete today or in the next couple of days. I usually have around 5-20 tasks with this “Next” priority.

The downside is that these tasks are in various to-do lists, so I need to use the “View All To-Do Lists” view mode to view all tasks. Then, I either sort the tasks by priority to see what’s next, or use filter to display just the tasks with the “Next” priority.

2. The “Next” To-Do List: This is an alternative approach. In this case, I create a new to-do list called “Next”, and I drag & drop tasks that I want to work on now into it. The rest of my to-do lists act as a database (or library) of tasks that I pick tasks from.

The downside is that the tasks moved to the “Next” To-Do List will lose their original to-do list categorization. However, the upside is that it is ridiculously easy to display the list of next tasks, and I can also reorder the tasks in the list. Also, I usually delete the completed tasks anyway, so the loss of the original to-do list categorization is no big deal for me.

Next actions

Every of your tasks has a certain sub-tasks (or steps, or actions, however you call it). GTD (Getting Things Done) uses the term “Next action”.

It is very important to know the next step necessary for completion of any of the tasks you are currently working on.

Task notes are usually the most efficient way of recording the next actions. Simply write mini to-do list into the notes of the task you are currently working on. You can be very specific and write lots of details and thoughts. Once you complete any step, simply delete it from the task notes.

Since Swift To-Do List 9, you can create subtasks. You can now have the next steps in form of sub-tasks directly in the task-view. This is probably the most powerful approach.

Prioritizing in fast-paced environment

The above techniques of managing next tasks and next actions work pretty well in majority of cases. However, there is one exception.

Some complex tasks (eg. software development) are in constant shift, and you can complete literally over 50 small steps (sub-tasks) every day while working on such major task or project.

In such cases, I simply create a new memo for any complex task that I am currently working on. The large text area works great for “chaotic” and complex tasks that require a lot of thinking and are changing constantly. Memos give me a great deal of freedom and flexibility in these cases.

How about you?

Please don’t hesitate to share your own approach to prioritizing in the comments below.

The next actions and prioritizing is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

10 quick fixes of motivation

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:01:12 +0000

Perhaps you are in a rut. Or just feeling like not working. Or your whole world is falling apart. Perhaps your friend have sent you a link to this post to help you get back on track.

Do you need to get motivated again? I’m here to help.

If you realize the following 10 things, it might not be so hard to get back on track.

Let’s get started.

1. You are GOD!

You are creating something from nothing. In my book, you are a god.

As Megaherz sing in their tune “Gott Sein ’04″:
Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein.

It means: It is not easy to be a god.

But damn, it is worth it!

2. The sky is NOT the limit!

In the grand scheme of things, you are literally building the universe. You are accelerating the process of evolution.

There is nothing more noble than making the world a better place. For you, for me, for everyone and everything.

3. I love you

Sometimes, it might seem like no one can appreciate what you do. It might seem like no one cares.

But know this: I do care. I have a deep admiration for all builders. I love you. You are the reason why life is great. I’m your raving fan in the first row, chanting your name, even when the hall is empty.

You are the DJ in this galactic party. If it weren’t for beings like you, there would be just rocks and stupid bored amoebas sucking the rocks, all covered in dust and darkness… or something like that :-)

4. Don’t forget to be grateful

Be grateful for what you have, whatever it is, because if you would’ve behaved like a quitter in the past, your life would completely suck now. I guarantee that.

It is easy to forget your past successes. But just stop for a moment, and think about all your past achievements. You’ve probably forgotten the excitement that came with each milestone in your life, but the excitement still lives inside you. Find it, and bring it out.

Sometimes I wish I could go back a couple of years, hug myself, and say to myself: “You are awesome. Thank you so much for clenching the teeth and spilling the sweat and blood when things got tough. My life rocks now – and I owe it all to you!”

5. Already given up? Bullshit!

If you think that you’ve already given up, I’m telling you: That’s bullshit!

The fact is that you’ve just paused for a while. We both know that you are now ready to resume rocking!

6. Figure it all out

If you need to catch your breath and figure things out, then do that. Take the time to think your life through. Make sure that you really want what you are striving to achieve.

Pen and paper (or a word processor) is the best friend of your sanity. Use them. Think on paper. Resolve all the lingering issues and insecurities, then recommit fully to your goal.

7. It is worth it

When you struggle, repeat this like a mantra: It is worth it. It is worth it. It is worth it

The pain and emptiness will always go away. It is worth it.

8. Shut the world off

When everything is screaming into your face, demanding attention, it’s hard to focus.

But you can always either make the distractions go away, or go away from them yourself. Letting the world spam your mind is entirely optional.

9. Grind on

However hard it is, you can always grind on. You may crawl like the tiniest worm, but crawl. Do the tiniest baby micro-step towards your goal, but freaking do it! And do it now.

10. Never stop dreaming

Never stop imagining how great your life is going when you achieve your goal.

Day-dreaming feels great. It can quickly pull you up from the dark cold reality.

Imagining the end brings you closer to it.

10 quick fixes of motivation is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:20:46 +0000

Do you wish that your goals were on auto-pilot, and automatically finished themselves? Well, that is probably impossible, but what I’m going to talk about here is very, very close to it. Ladies and gentleman, I bring you yet another extremely powerful life-hack. Let’s rock and roll!

But let me make one thing straight first: This incredible goal achievement technique is not for the faint of heart. If you are scared yet, better go away now. There is no turning back ;-)

You’ve probably heard that the bad boys (or Klingons) always get the girl, and nice guys are left wallflowering on the sidelines.

Well, it’s the same with goals. Nice goals finish last.

The nice goals are rarely achieved, but bad-ass goals that will make your life hell, unless you accomplish them, will get accomplished. It’s not like that there is any other option, really (unless you like living in hell :-).

“Whoa, OK, buddy, wait a minute… What are you talking about?!”

I’m talking about my beautifully simple and scary-effective way of accomplishing worthy goals.

The truth is that whenever I’m fighting with my willpower, I usually lose. I have only precious little amount of willpower available to me every day, and I use it to outsmart myself. The technique described here gives me an incredible leverage.

When I want to get from nothing to something great, this is what I do. You just need to:

Choose a worthy goal.
Double-check that you really, really want it.
Commit to it like a madman. (Read on!)
Plow through like a Klingon. No looking back.
Celebrate.

BUT! The tricky part is the point 3 – the commitment. I’ve discovered that’s where 99% of the trouble lies whenever I want to achieve any goal. I’ve been experimenting with various forms of commitment, and I’ve drawn a conclusion that it is the commitment will make or break your goal.

The “commitment” we usually do is something like „So, OK, I’m going to do this. Maybe. One day. Hopefully. Anyway, what’s on the TV?“

Sounds lame? It is. What works much, much better is: “Yes! I’m going to do this, no matter what. And I will make sure that my life will be a total hell if I won’t. That’s how committed I am! In your face, laziness!” (Following that by a raging Klingon battlecry and frantically throwing the TV from the window is entirely optional).

Whenever I use this technique, all I need is to want the goal badly enough, so I don’t mind that it is so freaking scary to commit to it like a madman. Once that little hurdle is solved, the rest will take care of itself.

Let’s go through the “5 rules of achieving goals like a mad Klingon” now. The rule 3 is the most important one, as it contains the super powerful “madman commitment” technique.

Rule 1: Worthy Royal Goals

Crappy goals should be dropped. How about the noblest blue-blooded audacious goals of the awesome breed? Now we are talking!

Worthy goals are goals that can change your life for the better, forever. Building a new business to the point it can provide you with a financial freedom, shedding weight, gaining weight, learning a new language (or two), writing a book and getting it published, creating a successful blog with 30.000 readers, making your first successful iPhone or Android app – you name it. No one else can name it for you, anyway. It’s your life we are talking about here.

Your goals must be worthy of you – your time, your effort, your energy, your mind.

For example, some goals that were worth my time in the past were: Achieving financial freedom by creating the best to-do list software for Windows and building a successful business around it, creating the habit of exercising daily, attaining excellent health by eating right, building and furnishing my dream home, learning to understand women (no easy task, trust me ;-), etc. And I’m freaking glad I’ve accomplished these goals. I’m getting a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about them now.

I always make sure that the goal is a perfect match for me. It should be focused on the area where I need to grow the most.

And most importantly, the goal must make me happy. Just thinking and day-dreaming about it should make me happy. Remember: It’s our own happiness that should ultimately guide us.

Rule 2: Double-check that you really, really want it

Here is a quick mental check list that I always do before committing to any goal.

Quick checklist:

How badly I want it? (Nothing less than “Real bad” won’t cut it!)
Do I want it, or it’s my boss, spouse, or parents that want it? If it’s not I who wants it, full-stop! I’ve recently finished reading the great classic Atlas Shrugged, and I think it’s no coincidence everyone who wanted to live in the Atlantis valley (while the world was falling apart) had to make this oath: “I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Do I actually want it, or do I want to want it? This happens to me when I’m scared to get out of my comfort zone in a particular area of my life in order to grow in it, so I’m choosing goals in safe areas where I’m already getting good results.
Can I accept the consequences? If it’s a big goal, my life will probably be quite different once I accomplish the goal. Am I ready to accept all the consequences?

Rule 3: Commit to it like a madman

When I complete the two previous steps, I am 100% sure that I want to achieve my goal. Time to bring the heat up. The goal is on fire, we don’t need no water!

I can now fully commit to it. The word “fully” here probably means so monstrous commitment, that all other commitments you have ever made to yourself look tiny, like the human-ants running around the Discworld on the back of a giant turtle Great A’Tuin. *Gulp*, indeed.

What doesn’t work

Just before I give you the ultimate madman commitment technique, I would like to pin-point what doesn’t work. The usual ways we commit to goals just don’t work. All of the following is not a bad advice, but it’s not very effective:

Make the commitment to yourself. Tell yourself that you will achieve the goal, and that you are ready to pay the price.
Print the goal in a huge font to a sheet of a paper, and post it to a prominent place at home.
Edit your PC wallpaper in MS Paint (or other graphical editor), and write your goal all over it.
Create a small card with your goal, and place it in your wallet as a constant reminder.
Publicly announce that you will work on your goal, and that you are going to post regular daily or weekly updates regarding your goal. Announce it on Facebook, Twitter, and tell this to everyone you see regularly, etc.

All of these points make sense, and I usually do them anyway, but they are nothing compared to:

THE MADMAN COMMITMENT!

The madman commitment works like this:

You make a deal with a partner you can trust. It can be your friend, your roommate, one of your parents or grand-parents, or one of your other family relatives.
You tell them exactly what goal you want to achieve, by what deadline (if applicable), how are you going to measure the progress, and how are you going report to them (eg. by sending them a text message every day, by messaging them on Facebook or emailing them every day, or by calling them once a week, etc).
If you fail to work on your goal the way you plan to, promise that you will do something that is going to be hell for you – like giving them $5000, or cleaning their toilet once a week for a year. Be creative – it should be something great for them, and hell for you.
Their duty is to hold you accountable and demand that you fulfill your end of the deal, shall you fail to work on your goal as planned.
If you ever forget to report to them as you’ve agreed, they should call you to check your progress.

Before I tell you why it works so well, let me give you an example:

Let’s say that you want to build a new online business selling Android apps. You want to release your first app and have it in the Android Market in the next 6 months. You might not know much about the development of Android apps, but you know if you put in the effort, you can definitely make it. So you make a deal with your best friend:

“I will work on my Android app at least 2 hours every single day for 6 months, or until the app is released. Every day, I will send you an email report of what I’ve learned or accomplished that day, and how many hours I’ve roughly worked. If I skip a day, it’s OK, but if I ever skip two days in a row, I will give you $2000, and do your laundry and clean your windows every week for the next 12 months. You are to hold me accountable, and demand that I hold my end of the deal. If I ever forget to send you an email, you are to call me and ask me about my progress.”

Want to make it extra serious? Put that in writing, and both sign it.

Suddenly, there is no place for excuses. Hell or achievement. Pick one.

Why it works so well?

Just imagine that you made the example deal above, and that you’ve additionally decided to work on your app in the morning.

Your typical day will look like this: You wake up. You think: Should I work on my Android app for 2 hours, or wire my friend $2000 and be his housemaid for a year? Achievement or hell? You will always choose to put the work in.

You even do not have to think about it! It doesn’t even require your willpower! It is a done deal! You are simply choosing the more pleasant option, like we humans tend to.

Now imagine that you have not made that deal with your friend, and made a commitment only to yourself. Your typical day will look like this:

You wake up, and you think: Should I work on my Android app, or sleep some more? Well, I guess I will sleep some more. It can’t hurt. 45 minutes later, you get up, and think: Should I work on that Android app, or check the Facebooks, the Twitters, and the Wonderful Worlds Of The Internets first? I guess that Facebooks it is! And so on.

Without the madman commitment, your choice will always be: Work or some random pleasure? You will tend to choose the more pleasant option. A lot. Yes, sometimes, you might work on your app a bit, because you really want to or it’s fun, but you won’t push yourself too hard. You will take it easy. Time will fly by, days will get wasted, time lost, and in 6 months, you might not have more than a crude prototype, when you could already had an awesome polished app released, first sales, and another app under-way, thanks to the ultimate power of the madman commitment.

Another part of the magic is that what gets measured, gets done. Just the fact that you are systematically tracking your progress (and reporting it to someone) will make you infinitely more likely to accomplish your goal.

Rule 4: Plow through like a Klingon

Putting in the actual work is usually the hard part, but the funny thing with Mad Klingon Goals is that this is the easiest part. As illustrated in the example above, doing the actual work will be ridiculously easy. The hard part is making the commitment.

Every day, you are like an angry Klingon that is choosing between a glorious battle or exuberant humiliation. You just don’t have to think about it. It’s a done deal. Glorious battle it is, from the moment you wake up.

Rule 5: Celebrate

Once your goal is achieved, throw hell of a party. Or don’t. You can now bend matter to your will. You deserve it all. The reality is your oyster.

Think about the possibilities…

Powerful, powerful stuff, right?

A tiny bit of willpower to make the madman commitment is much more effective that battling yourself every day to do the work. You can just pre-decide all the battles – all that is needed is the madman commitment.

Leave a reply below. What has helped you the most when achieving your goals? Has this inspired you? Can you imagine making such a commitment? Have you ever made any similar deal with someone?

If you have a business, would you be scared if your competitors were using this technique?

Shameless plug: I’m the author of Swift To-Do List for Windows. If you want to get your stuff organized and have all your notes, tasks and reminders in one place, Swift To-Do List is the tool for you. I use it myself every day. I love it, and I’m not alone.

You might also enjoy my post 10 best tricks of fooling myself to work. And if you do not know what goal to set, then the post Raise your awareness of your life might help.

Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

10 best tricks of fooling myself to work

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:30:32 +0000

UPDATE July 28, 2011: If you need to trick yourself into writing (blog post, article, book, etc), then read the Accidental Genius summary.

UPDATE April 29, 2011: There is a new post Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon if you want to trick yourself into achieving goals.

In order to be successful, we have to work hard, no matter what. We can’t always be at the mercy of our motivation.

I am lazy. But that’s okay, because I have some tricks for fooling myself into working, every single day. Actually, I’m quite productive thanks to these tricks. I’m going to share the tricks with you now.

I will mention my own software, a task and notes organizer Swift To-Do List, in 2 of these tricks, but these tricks can be done with other programs (or pen and paper) too.

1. The ultimate trick

When I really don’t feel like working, and it would take a superhuman force to get me working, this saves me. Every time.

Actually, I think what follows is the best way of fooling yourself to work, because it works so well. It’s scary-effective.

So what’s the trick? Well, when I have a “Task X”, and I don’t feel like doing it, and I would much rather do anything else, but I know that doing this particular task is the best choice, I do this:

I tell myself that I will merely write down the steps needed to complete the task. Just a rough draft, at first, and that’s it. Maybe just 3 steps. I then add more steps, breaking the 3 steps into smaller sub-tasks. I then add some details, and thoughts, notes of things that I shouldn’t forget when doing this task. I just think the task through and write everything down. After a little while, I will be a proud author of “The Complete Guide To Finishing Task X for Dummies”.

(The actual way I do this is that I open my Swift To-Do List and fill the notes of the task I want to accomplish with all the steps and thoughts.)

Now, for some unknown reason, when there is nothing else to think about, and there is no way to screw this task up, because everything is laid out in front of me, I just start working on the task automatically. I might do just the first baby micro-step at first, but that’s OK. It follows to the next, and to the next, and before I know it, the task is finished.

When I am thinking about how to accomplish the task, I am already actually accomplishing it. And once I think it through, it seems ridiculously easy.

2. Not eating at the computer

I don’t know about you, but I have never accomplished *anything* while eating at my desk. I usually just read articles, or gaze at the code in Visual Studio while day-dreaming, at best. What’s worse, I even don’t enjoy the food that much this way, as my mind is split among 5 different things.

Oh, and did I mention that my keyboard used to be a huge mess? I swear that there was a delicate living ecosystem inside it. Even if I am really trying to be super-neat, some of the foodstuff will fall into the keyboard. It happens to the best of us.

So what I do now is that I always sit to an actual table, like a civilized man, and enjoy my meal without staring at the addictive hypnotic evils of my computer screen.

Now, while I am enjoying my food at the table, I also kinda miss the computer. I’m eager to return to it and do some real work. The fake feeling of productivity while eating at my computer is eliminated.

3. Rudder of the day

When I sit down to my computer for the first time in the morning, I immediately start working. Because my brain is still half asleep, he doesn’t fully realize that I’m actually working, so he won’t protest. Poor little bugger.

Whenever I begin the day this way, the whole day flows in the productive-tone. But if I start by messing around on the social networks and reading news and articles, the whole day seems lazy and I accomplish a lot less in the end.

This trick has probably the biggest ROI (return on investment) of all of these. What’s the investment? Well, it takes just a little spark of my willpower to start working in the morning. This little morning-spark can ignite an enormous day-fire of productivity.

Being the navigator behind the rudder is easy in the morning. Much harder during the day.

Whatever you do, start working when you sit at your computer for the first time. Even if just for a couple of minutes.

In my opinion, any work done “first thing in the morning” counts triple.

4. Real relaxation

Fake relaxation sucks. When I need a break, I do not eagerly launch Facebook, ICQ or solitaire, but I actually get up and get away from the computer! :-) I can go for a walk, read a book, prepare myself a fruit snack/smoothie/juice, take a nap, do some yoga, chat with a co-worker, or just generally chill out without looking at the darn computer screen.

When I return, I don’t do some random thing on “The Internets”. Oh no. I open my Swift To-Do List, see what’s next, and immediately start working.

5. “Back to work” mantra

I’ve learned this one from Brian Tracy’s Time Management and Maximum Achievement programs. I just keep saying “back to work”, whenever appropriate, until it starts humming in my mind automatically whenever something distracts me.

Completed a small task? “Back to work.” Someone interrupted me? “Back to work.” Answered a call? “Back to work.” Had to reboot my computer? “Back to work.” Velociraptor looking at me behind the window, then leaving? “Back to work.”

“Back to work” is my Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. I just feel great every time I tell myself “Back to work” and resume working.

6. Always knowing what to do next

Whenever I finish a task of any size, and I do not know what to do next, my productivity goes to the drain. So, I’ve come up with an easy way how to avoid this.

Whenever I need to know what to do next, I just bring Swift To-Do List up using a system-wide hotkey and I immediately see what’s next.

Not having some productivity software associated to a system-wide hotkey is like riding without a steering wheel. You will get somewhere, but not where you want to go.

I have many separate to-do lists (a couple for each project), and I’ve created a new Priority called “Next”, highlighted by a bright green color. I assign this priority to tasks that I want to accomplish next.

View modes, filters, sorting etc make this really easy. I can also manually reorder the tasks (see a video) to decide the exact order of my tasks.

7. Sheet of paper with the most important task

Although Swift To-Do List is awesome ;-), good old physical paper has an intricate quality that no software can offer: It exists outside of your computer.

When I have 1-3 super-important tasks, I often write them down on an actual physical paper, and put the paper in front of me. It will be a constant physical reminder of what I want to do. Works like a charm.

And don’t forget the exquisite pleasure of physically checking the tasks off, and joyously manufacturing a paper-ball as a token of your greatness.

This has the biggest effect when you prepare such a paper before leaving work or going to bed, because it will be the first thing you see when you get back to work the next day.

8. Eliminating distractions

It’s a fact of this age that focusing is nearly impossible if you do not have some personal distraction-management strategy. I’ve ellaborated on this topic in one of my previous posts Create more productive environment at your desk (10 tips).

9. When falling asleep…

When you are falling asleep, think about the most important task for the next day. Your subconscious mind will do half the job for you during the night.

This might sound bananas to you, but I swear that it works. Your mind is busy during the whole night anyway (we all have dreams), so why not give it something productive to ponder on?

What’s your trick?

I lied. There are only 9 tricks. However, here is the Captain You to save the day!

See that comment box below? I would love to hear your tricks of fooling yourself to work, or any other comments.

Bring it on. How do you fool yourself into work?

10 best tricks of fooling myself to work is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

10 Benefits Of Being Organized: From Chaos To Freedom

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:31:45 +0000

This is a motivational post. The simple truth is that being organized can bring you more time, money, success and happiness. We happen to have a great organizer to help you to get organized in no time.

Getting organized with Swift To-Do List 7 is really easy, and has many benefits:

1. You will upgrade your brain to version 2.0

If you take all the work-related stuff and to-do’s from your head and place them in Swift To-Do List 7, a wonderful thing happens – suddenly, your mind has 100% resources available and 100% focus just for the current task at hand.

2. You will advance in your career faster

Stop wasting time on tasks with zero impact and go straight to the juicy, meaty stuff that really matters and that can move you forward in your career. This is possible only when you are organized using a great task list manager like Swift To-Do List 7 that allows you to prioritize your tasks.

3. You can double or triple your productivity

With less time and mental resources wasted, you will have more time for the important stuff. The real game changer comes from your upgraded brain though – if you can finally fully focus and always know what to do next, you can double your productivity easily. If you are unorganized or stressed, you are much less productive than you think.

4. You will be more motivated

Success brings motivation. It is so much easier to achieve success when you are organized! In fact, work can sometimes feel like fun.

5. You will have more time

It’s really simple: If you are more productive, you get more done, and you have more time.

6. You will have more money

We all know that time is money, but success brings you money too, which can be a really significant benefit. By using trusted gold trading platforms, you can turn your time and effort into smart opportunities that help grow your wealth even faster. For example, exploring opportunities like wholesale gold bullion Melbourne can also complement a well-planned financial strategy by adding long-term value and stability.

7. You will eliminate any possible stress

With all your tasks and notes in one place, safely stored in reliable task list management software like Swift To-Do List 7, there is nothing to worry about. You can even use inbuilt reminders and recurrent tasks to make sure that you will never forget anything again. Liberate yourself from clutter and stress.

8. You will reach your full potential

If you get organized, you can achieve much more than if you are limiting yourself by being disorganized.

9. You will be able to achieve your goals more easily

All the benefits work together and give you more power to do what you truly want, and that is the real freedom.

10. You will love your work and life

How can you NOT love your life when you are successful, happy and without stress?

With the right attitude, Swift To-Do List 7 can literally change your life. I personally use it myself every day not just to run and manage our whole business, but to take control of my own life.

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10 Benefits Of Being Organized: From Chaos To Freedom is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

5 Ways How To Deal With Low Priority Tasks

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 09:38:58 +0000

We all have lots of low priority tasks lying around our to-do lists that will probably never get done. You simply have much more important tasks to do first. New important tasks pop-up all the time, so it’s unlikely that you will ever get to your low priority tasks.

You might ask: “Do I even have to write the task down, if it’s not important?” The definitive and final answer to that is – maybe! :-)

Let me tell you why: If you are even considering writing the task down, then your subconsciousness has already identified the task as somewhat important, and the task would subconsciously bother you. If you write it down, your mind can discard it, as it knows that it’s safely stored in your to-do list program, and move on to more important stuff.

On the other hand, if you can consciously decide that doing the task would have zero or negative benefit, then it’s safe to not write it down, as you consciously know that you don’t even want to do it.

So, the promised 5 ways how to deal with low priority tasks. *drum roll*

1) Can you delegate it?

This is not really a solution, unless you have a very reliable person to delegate the task to. Otherwise, you have to create a task “Check that Wally has done Task X”. And besides, doesn’t Wally have something more important to do, like drinking coffee and eating donuts?

2) Will it resolve itself?

If you know that the task will take care of itself, then just skip writing it down and let it go.

This approach is not always wise, as some tasks “solve” themselves not the way you would like them to (eg. your bills will get paid with the friendly help of executor :-)). It’s important that you are sure the task is really of low priority before using this approach.

3) Do I even want to get this done?

As I’ve said above, if there is zero or negative benefit for completing the task, then just move on.

4) Is it really low priority?

Sometimes you might label important tasks that you are not feeling like doing as low priority. That’s a really bad habit! If the task is important, admit it. Don’t run away from the truth.

Also, sometimes it is likely that finishing a task will have zero benefit, but it might also pay of handsomely. Eg. calling a client might likely not result in more business for you, but what if he places a huge order? (Now or in the future, because you’ve called him today)

5) Write it down and forget it

That’s my favorite way of dealing with unimportant tasks. I recommend creating a new to-do list just for tasks like this. You can name the to-do list something like “Maybe”, “Future”, “Procrastination Ideas” or “Never to-do” :-).

Alternative approach: Place the low priority tasks in your normal to-do lists, and get them out of your sight, either by sorting your to-do list by priority (from Highest to Lowest), or using filters (eg. you can create a new filter preset that will automatically hide all unimportant tasks).

Did you know that you Swift To-Do List 7 allows you to fully customize priorities? For example, you can delete or rename the default “Low” and “Lowest” priorities. Read more about it in our previous blog post: How to use 4-Quadrants Time Management using your own custom priorities

Don’t let low priority tasks undermine your productivity!

Having lots of low priority tasks that never get done haunting you can be *really* demotivational. I hope that this post has given you some insight into this issue and ideas how to deal with them.

5 Ways How To Deal With Low Priority Tasks is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Swift To-Do List Blog » GTD

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