Swift To-Do List Blog » productivity

Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2023 Goals

Ondrej Zabojnik — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 16:18:00 +0000

First of all, if you don’t have any New Year resolutions yet, then STOP and make some. Why? Setting goals in January is better than setting them later, because you will get an edge: extra motivational boost of the New Year. Everything is fresh and the opportunities of the New Year are ripe to be harvested! Exploit this little life hack. Do it now. I will wait.

Ready? Got some?

If you now do have some New Year resolutions, then you are probably already failing. Or know that you will eventually probably fail. In the end, most people do. I know I fail. What’s worse, we are, in fact, sabotaging our resolutions and we don’t even know it.

Whether you appreciate my twisted sense of humor or not, you might ask: How can I be already failing and sabotaging my resolutions if I have only set them a minute ago? Well, good question.

Ladies and gentleman, prepare to be shocked, but…

It’s not about putting the effort into your resolutions!

Wait a minute! If it’s not about putting the effort into your resolutions, then what is it all about?

Well, here comes the $64,000 answer:

It is about making sure that you will keep putting the effort into your resolutions.

Big difference.

In my experience, I am either making damn sure that I will keep putting effort into my main goals, or I am inevitably failing – it’s just a matter of time, really. It works the other way around too though – done properly, the success can be inevitable.

Don’t let the fate of your resolutions be doomed before you equip them with the right weaponry necessary to succeed in the Age of Distraction. Oh look, a butterfly! It’s so pretty! It’s flying onto twitter! No, it’s Facebook. No wait, it’s reddit! (… 3 hours later…) What was I talking about? Oh, right. Distractions. They are getting worse every year. Are you getting better at making sure they don’t control your life? I will show you how I personally do this nearly Sisyphean task.

But first, I will have to disagree with Mr. Albert Einstein. Just for fun. Because that’s the way I roll. Actually, not for fun, I’m trying to make a point here. Seriously now – I believe it was this particular gentleman who said:

“Compound interest is the greatest invention in human history”.

Hear hear, but how about compound effort? Now we are talking!

Compound effort

There are two main ways of making sure that you finish something: Using someone else to make sure that you will keep putting effort into it (the Mad Klingon way), or making sure you will keep putting effort in yourself. I’m going to talk about the latter, as it is much more powerful and flexible, and can be combined with the first way anyway.

No working complex system that exists was built at once. All such systems gradually evolved. It is the same with non-trivial goals (or resolutions). The only way to ensure that you will fulfill your goals is to keep putting in effort over time and not stop doing that.

However, even if you use tricks to fool yourself into working, there is no guarantee you will keep doing that consistently. Year is a long time, and there are a lot of butterflies flying around, if you catch my drift.

How I don’t sabotage myself

I don’t know what the perfect solution is for you, but after many years of trial-and-error, I’ve finally discovered mine. Some credit is to Sebastian Marshall who has written about time tracking on his blog extensively. However, what I do is not really time tracking. I’ve crafted the following technique for my purposes.

This is what I do –

After I am done for the day, I print a checklist template for the next day and fill my 3 main objectives for the next day into it. Then I go happily to sleep. (Added bonus: As I fall asleep, my sub-consciousness is already working on these 3 objectives.) After I wake up, I check things off the checklist as the day progresses, either marking that I’ve done them or not. Loop this for 365 days in a row.

Timeless truth: What gets measured gets done.

What to put on the checklist depends on your goals. You should start simple. The essence of what I have there is roughly this:

Y / N Get up before 8 AM
Y / N Stretch after waking up
Y / N Drink water after stretching
Y / N Work on 1 main goal first thing on my PC, even before email or starting the browser or IM (5 min is enough)
Y / N Work on 3 main goals (specific tasks were chosen yesterday):
- _________________________________________________
- _________________________________________________
- _________________________________________________
Y / N Work on blog post or article (5 min is enough)
Y / N Prepare checklist for the next day and write the main goals into it
Y / N Send a report of what I’ve accomplished today to my friend
Y / N Go to bed before 11 PM

My real checklist is like 4 times longer, because I want to keep track of at least 15 different areas/projects. I have no intentions of working on all of them on any particular day, but just having them as suggestions on my checklist, which always lies beside my computer, is extremely powerful. I maintain the template in my own Windows software Swift To-Do List as I like pretty print-outs, but you can use almost about anything – even notepad will do.

At first, it might seem a lot of hassle and paper, but the effort is absurdly low for the enormous benefits. I also file the old checklists into a binder. I simply can’t miss a day, there is no excuse. If, God forbid, something like that were to happen, I would print 2 checklists and fill in the missing info.

If you have daily checklist, the only way you can fail is not to fill the checklist. Even if you don’t do anything else and just fill the checklist, the day is a success.

Why it must be printed? First, I don’t want to begin my morning routine on the computer. I would much rather stretch, drink some water, and review the checklist first. Second, I want to be able to end the day with the computer turned off. Plus it’s more fun and you can’t overlook the paper. That white paper sheet is just glowing there. (Unless, of course, you have a pile of trash on your desk. In that case I can’t help you; I guess you should just burn the desk down and go home.)

For me, it is actually easier to work on my main goals every single freaking day, instead of just 3 days in a week or now and then or some other complex or random pattern – that just never works for me. I like it simple and consistent.

Endless power

Just imagine the raw sheer power of my daily checklist. Whatever I put into it, I’m 100% sure I will think about it, every day, for a year. And I will actually usually do it too, on most days.

I’m sure you can relate to this: If you are working on an internet project or have a business, you are juggling 7253 balls (or so). Sometimes, you forget that some of the balls are even there and let them silently drop on the ground. And sometimes you notice some of these balls got dropped and you feel bad about not juggling them for so long. Solution? Daily checklist.

What I am describing here is the most powerful productivity technique I’ve ever encountered in my life. I already have a lot of experience both with other methods and this one. For example, 2 years ago, I’ve used this technique for my personal life (habits, exercise, diet, not going insane) and stuff like that. And I’ve actually really filled over 340 check list in a row, not missing a day, before stopping. The effects have sunk in and the habit changes are permanent. I’ve also learned quite a lot about myself. My life is better forever.

Believe me – it’s not that important to work on your goals every day. What is important is to make sure that you will keep working on your goals and that you won’t forget about them.

Press “F5” in your brain to refresh your goals

… and push them back up in the endless list of thoughts, where everything quickly falls down and drops out of view. And do it often.

I personally fanatically adhere to the checklist routine – as long as I am printing and filling my daily checklist, the year can’t be bad. It’s just not possible. This ensures I will keep putting effort into my main annual goals.

I don’t care how you do this, but do it! Tattoo it on your forehead, carve it out of dead pixels into your screen, rearrange the keys on your keyboard so they read like the name of your goal, if you must. But do it!

However, there are certainly other ways of making sure you won’t forget about your goals and eventually finish them – please leave a comment: What has worked for you? What do you think could work for you?

Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2023 Goals is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

This one simple habit will help you get everything done

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 08:41:31 +0000

There is one habit that trumps all the other habits.

It’s the most powerful habit there is.

It’s the only habit you need.

So what is it?

It’s the habit of tracking your habits. The Meta-Habit™.

With this ultimate habit, you can easily start or stop any other habit. And it’s fun! Best of all, if you stick with it, your success is guaranteed.

It’s quite simple, really:

Create a spreadsheet for tracking all your habits daily
Put each habit into a separate column
Each row in the spreadsheet represents a calendar day, so put dates in the first column
Every day, fill the spreadsheet, indicating if you have done a habit or not

Now there’s more to it, but that’s it in the nutshell!

You can print the spreadsheet and use colored markers (green = performed the habit, red = not performed the habit), or use electronic spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets, or a spreadsheet in Swift To-Do List.)

Here’s how a quick-and-dirty version looks done on paper:

As long as you keep filling the Meta-Habit™ spreadsheet every day, you will eventually succeed and start doing the habits. Even if you actually don’t perform any of the habits, if you’ve filled the sheet, the day is a success. Because eventually, you will start doing the habits consistently. It’s just a matter of time.

In the Meta Productivity video training, I go into a great detail of the Meta-Habit™ method. The Meta-Habit™ is the second module of 5 total.

It’s one of my favorite techniques, and perhaps the most powerful one when it comes to changing your life and creating success.

Money, career, family, relationships, health, education, happiness… you can improve ANY area of your life with the right habits, and Meta-Habit™ is the best way make yourself actually do them!

Feeling inspired? Go get the Meta Productivity training, it’s completely risk free for you! You are 100% protected by our 90-Day Unconditional Money-Back Guarantee: If you won’t love it and it won’t change your life, you will get all your money back, no hassles, no questions asked!

This one simple habit will help you get everything done is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Introducing Swift To-Do List subscription plans

Jiri Novotny — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 12:24:19 +0000

We’ve just released Swift To-Do List 9.50, which includes new, greatly improved Secure Sync and new team sharing options!

New mobile apps were released as well – it’s important that you update them if you use them.

We are also excited to announce Swift To-Do List subscription plans.

Swift To-Do List is now offered exclusively as a subscription.

Full Package For a Single Price

For a single annual fee, you will get:

Swift To-Do List for Windows, always the latest and highest version with all the features. After 1 year, you can keep the Windows version forever, even if you do not renew your subscription.
Swift To-Do List mobile apps for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.
Swift To-Do List web app.
Use of Swift To-Do List on unlimited number of devices.
Updates for everything, including major upgrades.
Secure Sync of all the Swift To-Do List apps.
Team features (multi-user plans only).
Secure Cloud backup of your tasks, notes and spreadsheets. Even if your computer crashes or gets stolen, your data is safe.
Friendly tech support and customer service.

To use Swift To-Do List in a team, you need to have a multi-user plan (Mini, Small, Medium or Business).

For new customers, Swift To-Do List no longer comes in 3 editions (previously: Home, Professional, Ultimate). Every new subscriber automatically gets the equivalent of the Ultimate edition.

Also, Swift To-Do List no longer comes with 1-user-3-PC-Packs. With a valid subscription, you can now install and use Swift To-Do List on an unlimited number of devices.

Simple and Fair terms

Once you purchase a subscription, you are fully protected by our 90-Day Money Back Guarantee: During the first 90 days of your subscription, if you are not happy with Swift To-Do List for any reason, we will give you all your money back. After the first 90 days, no refunds are offered.

You can cancel the auto-renewal of your subscription at any point with just a few clicks directly from Swift To-Do List. Use the Manage Sync button to do so.

After the first year of your subscription, you can keep using the Windows version of Swift To-Do List forever, even if you do not renew your subscription.

To downgrade to a lower plan, simply let your current plan expire, then sign up for a lower one.

To upgrade to a higher plan, click Manage Sync button in the Sync tab of Swift To-Do List, the click the “Upgrade to a higher plan” link. You will get a discount based on your current plan.

How does this affect existing customers?

As a previous owner of a Swift To-Do List license, you have two options. You can either keep your current license under the original terms, or, you can subscribe to the new Swift To-Do List subscription.

If you keep your current license under the original terms:

You can keep using Swift To-Do List for Windows indefinitely.
You keep your current edition (Home, Professional or Ultimate).
If you own a single PC license, you can use Swift To-Do List on 1 computer. If you own 1-user-3-PC-Pack, you can use it on up to 3 computers. If you own a multi-license, you can use Swift To-Do List on corresponding number of computers.
You get v9.xx updates and support. You do not get major upgrades (10.xx, 11.xx, etc).
You get 30-day trial of Secure Sync & Secure Cloud Backup, mobile apps, web-app and team sharing.

If you purchase a Swift To-Do List subscription, you will get:

Automatic upgrade to Ultimate if you do not own it already.
The ability to use Swift To-Do List on unlimited number of computers and devices.
Swift To-Do List mobile and tablet apps for iOS and Android.
Swift To-Do List web-app.
Updates for all the apps, including major upgrades.
Secure Sync of everything.
Secure Cloud Backup.
The option to use Swift To-Do List in a team.
Discount on the first year of your subscription.

To claim your discount on the subscription, download the latest Swift To-Do List, then click the “Upgrade to Subscription” button on the top-right of Swift To-Do List window.

Swift To-Do List Accounts, Organizations and Subscription Plans

If you want to use use any of the online features (Secure Sync, mobile apps, team collaboration) you need to create your own Swift To-Do List Account. You can do so directly in Swift To-Do List for Windows when you sync your tasks for the first time.

We are now also introducing “Organizations” into Swift To-Do List -

To use Swift To-Do List in a team, you can now create an organization inside your Swift To-Do List Account. Each organization can have unlimited number of databases and up to 50 members. Organizations allow you to take advantage of multi-user plans, and they also allow you appoint admins and invite only specific people to databases owned by the organization.

Organizations come with 30-day trial. Then you need to purchase a valid multi-user plan for each Organization. We offer Mini plan for up to 5 users ($495/year), Small plan for up to 10 users ($995/year), Medium plan for up to 25 users ($2495/year) and a Business plan for up to 50 users ($4995/year).

Members of the organizations can also create their own personal private databases inside their Swift To-Do List Accounts.

If you want to use Swift To-Do List as a single user, then you also get a 30-day trial for the new online features. You then need to purchase a Personal plan. If you already own Swift To-Do List, you will automatically get a discount on your plan.

If you have been already using the beta sync feature, then we’ve created an organization inside your Swift To-Do List Account for you automatically. We’ve also moved all databases with more than 1 user into the organization for you, and made you an “administrator” and “owner” of the organization.

The Secure Sync background story

The Secure Sync features were in development for several years. All this time, we’ve been intensively working on them. And now, they are finally finished! It is the main reason we are introducing the new Swift To-Do List subscriptions.

During the public Beta period, the Secure Sync features were free. However, there are ongoing costs associated with running, maintaining and supporting the Secure Sync service, its infrastructure and the ecosystem of apps (Windows, Android, iOS, web), so subscription payments are necessary.

However, there’s a silver lining. Besides the new functionality, the switch to subscriptions comes with additional benefits to you – for example, we can now ship new features immediately, and do not have to bundle them into “major upgrade” packages like we did previously with Swift To-Do List 7, 8 and 9, or with the Ultimate edition.

Questions and Answers

Q: What if I am not interested in the online, mobile and team features?
A: First of all, all these features are optional. And even if you are not interested in any of the online features, you can still purchase Swift To-Do List for Windows! Just subscribe for 1 year, and even if you do not renew your subscription, you can keep using it forever (although without updates). Or, if you already own it, just keep using it.

Q: So, how can I use Swift To-Do List in a team?
A: If you were using Swift To-Do List in a team during the sync public beta, we’ve automatically created an organization for you. Feel free to rename it using the Manage Sync button in Swift To-Do List for Windows. If you are a new user, see above in the “Swift To-Do List Accounts, Organizations and Subscription Plans” section.

Q: How about license codes?
A: When you purchase or renew a subscription, you will also receive a license code for your Swift To-Do List for Windows. You can enter it using menu Help – Enter License Code. You should do so even if you’ve already purchased Swift To-Do List in the past or renewed your subscription. In the future, the license codes will be downloaded automatically for you.

If you have purchased a multi-user plan, you should email the license code to each member of your organization.

Q: How can I move a database from one organization to another one, or from my personal Swift To-Do List Account into an Organization?
A: Currently, you have two options. The first option is to email contact our support at support@dextronet.com – we can do this for you.

The second option is to un-sync the database using menu Sync – Un-Sync, then sync it again with the desired new “owner” organization. You then need to invite everyone into the database again. Everyone else then needs to create a new local empty database file using menu New – Empty Database, and sync it with the new cloud Organization’s database that you’ve invited them into.

Q: How can I upgrade to a higher plan?
A: Use menu Sync – Manage Sync. Then click the “Upgrade to higher plan” or “Upgrade to multi-user plan” link on the top-right of the “Manage Sync” window.

Q: How can I downgrade to a lower plan?
A: Simply let your plan expire, then purchase a lower plan. To cancel auto-renewal of your plan, use menu Sync – Manage Sync, then click “Cancel auto-renewal”.

Q: When I am a member or an admin of an organization, can I also have my own personal databases?
A: Yes. When you are a member of an organization, you can have your personal databases directly inside your Swift To-Do List Account that are completely separate from the organization. When syncing a database, make sure that you select “You” as the owner in the Secure Sync Wizard.

This also means that when you have a multi-user plan, or are a member in an organization, you do not need a Personal plan if you want to use Swift To-Do List for your personal tasks as well.

Q: How do I know when to renew the subscription?
A: If you have auto-renewal enabled, you don’t have to worry about it at all – it will auto-renew for you automatically, unless you cancel the auto-renewal. If you do not have auto-renewal enabled, then you can click the Manage Sync button in the Sync tab to see how many days are left in your subscription. During the last 14 days, Swift To-Do List for Windows will also display the days left on the top-right part of its window.

Q: What’s the pricing?
A: Please see our Secure Software Store.

Introducing Swift To-Do List subscription plans is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

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

How to Sleep Better and Increase Your Productivity

Jiri Novotny — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 07:14:29 +0000

A single night of bad sleep can wreak havoc on your productivity for days to come. Sleep is critical for high productivity and well-being.

So, is there something you can do to sleep better at night? Yes, there is! I have 16 tips for you -

Hydrate

It’s better to get up during the night and go to the toilet, than to be woken up by a thirst.

Drink plenty of water during the day, and drink some water before you go to bed. If you have to get up to pee during the night, so be it – it’s better than waking up dehydrated like a mummy.

Tip: You are most dehydrated right when you wake up. Drink 2 glasses of water right after you wake up to get yourself going.

Reduce CO₂ in your bedroom

Just 30 minutes of 2 people breathing in a mid-size room can increase CO₂ in the room dramatically. High CO₂ in the air is bad, because it can increase your heart rate. This leads to poor sleep.

Do you know why people weigh the least in the morning? It’s because we breathe out CO₂ during the night. The carbon molecule in the CO₂ we breathe out makes most of the weight we lose during the night – the rest is mostly sweat.

To sleep better, ventilate – a lot. Fresh air is important.

Tip: Some smart devices (body scales, thermostats, etc) can measure and track CO₂ in the room.

Empty stomach – but not too empty

Digestion takes a lot of energy. For most people, sleeping on a full stomach makes sleep worse.

Tip: Sleeping on a completely empty stomach can also decrease sleep quality for some people. If you are hungry, try eating a banana before bed.

Darkness works

Make your bedroom as dark as possible. Remove any lights, including small LED lights. Blinking lights are the worst. Use the blinds.

The closer the bed time is, the less light you should expose yourself to. This will increase the sleep hormone melatonin production.

Tip: Try wearing an eyemask during the night for a week. If it helps, keep using it!

Tip: Dim all your displays in the evening.

Tip: “F.lux” for PC/Mac can automatically adjust the color temperature of your screen during the day.

Silence works

Remove as much noise sources from your bedroom as possible.

This can be a challenge because you need fresh air too. Open windows brings noise, but they also bring fresh air.

Tip: Try wearing ear plugs.

Love your bed

You spend one third of your life in your bed.

You should get a bed that you TOTALLY love. You should love the mattress, the pillows, the bed sheets, your pajamas. If you don’t, get better ones!

Your bed and everything on it should feel great and be extremely comfortable.

Tip: Try buckwheat pillow. It helps you sweat less during the night and doesn’t deform.

Vigorous exercise, but not right before the bed

If you exercise vigorously during the day, you will have easier time falling asleep.

For most people, exercising right before bed is a bad idea. But stretching might help.

Are you sensitive to caffeine?

Many people are sensitive to caffeine. I sure am. I discovered that when I don’t drink any, I will sleep much better.

In fact, most of my terrible nights were caused by caffeine.

Try this – don’t consume any caffeine for a week or two, and see if you sleep better.

Alcohol makes your sleep lower quality

Consuming alcohol is a trap. It might seem that you sleep just fine after consuming it, but the sleep will not be as restorative.

Alcohol also dehydrates.

Remove the clock

Does the bedroom clock just make you worry that you won’t get enough sleep? Put it away!

If you use an alarm clock, you can usually put it in the adjoining room.

Lower the temperature during the night

Our bodies expect the temperature to be lower during the night. If you can lower the temperature by a few degrees during the night, you will probably sleep better.

Track your sleep

If you are serious about improving your sleep, start logging how many hours of sleep you get each night. Or use a smart wearable to track it for you automatically.

Meditation helps

Meditating just 5 minutes a day has proven positive psychological effects, and can help with sleep as well. Having a better control of your mind makes falling asleep easier.

How to meditate? Just sit with a straight spine for 5 minutes, and focus on your breathing. Whenever your mind wanders, re-focus on the breathing. That’s it.

Consider supplements for better sleep

Supplementing with melatonin can be be useful especially for older people, because melatonin production diminishes as we age. For younger people, it can be useful when travelling or switching time zones.

There are also many herbal teas that promote sleep.

Tip: Lavender has a relaxing effect. You can get a small lavender herbal pillow.

Take a nap

When you don’t get a good night’s rest, take a nap during the day. It actually helps!

Power-naps of about 20 minutes work great for most people.

Get organized

When everything important is written down, you don’t have to worry about remembering it. When you are better organized, you will sleep better.

Tip: When thoughts are racing in your mind while you are lying in bed, write them down.

I’ve written more about this in the post “Why You Can’t Sleep“.

This post has been inspired by Tomas Baranek’s research into sleep [Czech Source].

How to Sleep Better and Increase Your Productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Meta Productivity training now includes an audiobook!

Jiri Novotny — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 12:27:29 +0000

The personal productivity training by Jiri Novotny – Meta Productivity – now also includes an unabridged audiobook version.

If you are a busy professional, the audiobook is a big boon. You can listen to it while commuting, exercising, doing chores or running errands. It allows you to easily learn the material or to review it, so you can become dramatically more productive, eliminate procrastination, master your habits, and more.

Meta Productivity is a very important training, because as Peter Drucker said: “For the first time in human history, we will have to take responsibility for managing ourselves”.

Click here to learn more!

Meta Productivity training now includes an audiobook! 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

How to “Cure” Procrastination [video]

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 08:37:00 +0000

The key to ending procrastination isn’t to “just do it” – or to get yourself “psyched up”.

In fact, the answer is something that most people would never even guess.

If you’d like to cure your procrastination, and get more of the important things DONE in your life, then watch this new video from Eben Pagan (just opt-in to watch it free):

How To Cure Procrastination

Inside, you’ll learn:

How to cure and overcome procrastination for the LONG-TERM
How to create a habit of taking action, so you have less and less procrastination in your life automatically
The place to invest your attention and energy to get the HIGHEST return (in both your personal and business lives)
Why it’s critical to understand how willpower works, and how to use it for maximum results and productivity
How to design and create habits that last, and that keep “paying you back” for the long-term

There’s also a couple of downloads on the page with the video, including an exercise and a list of tips for curing procrastination and building lasting habits, so make sure to get those while you’re there.

Here’s the link again, just opt-in free to watch the video and get the PDF downloads – and to learn how to cure your procrastination:

How To Cure Procrastination

If you ever procrastinate, you need to see this.

By the way, the Eben’s Wake Up Productive training will open on Monday, and it will be available only for a few days until it closes, so watch out for the announcement on our Facebook page!

I am currently preparing a bonus package for you if you decide to enroll in the Eben’s Wake Up Productive training once it opens next week.

One of the bonuses I would like you to get is an exclusive preview copy of my new “Meta Productivity” training that I’ve been working on for the past 2 years – it’s 5 short e-books jam-packed with golden nuggets of productivity wisdom.

Once you combine it with the Wake Up Productive training, you will have your productivity, habits and procrastination solved for life.

I will tell you more and give you all the details soon. For now, enjoy the new video from Eben.

How to “Cure” Procrastination 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

The Key To Higher Productivity [video]

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 09:14:15 +0000

Here’s a new fantastic video from Eben Pagan that explains the 1 most important key to increasing your productivity, success and profit in your business and personal life (just opt-in to watch it free):

Free Video: The Key To Higher Productivity

Make sure to get the PDF download, and the 1-page summary sheet download as well, and do the exercise to identify the ultra high-value “money making activities” in your life and business.

In the video, Eben explains how he transformed and dramatically increased his productivity with one simple mindset and action change.

He also shares:

How to use the little bit of willpower that you get each day to leverage UP your productivity for the long-term
How to identify the activities in your business and work that make you the most money – so you can do more of them every day (and make more profit
The one consideration that richest and most successful investor of all time uses to decide where to invest his attention, time and money
The exercise that he uses to discover where he is wasting time – so he can re-allocate it to doing things that create success, growth and profit
And much, much more…

This video is about 18 minutes long, and will change the way you think about time management and productivity.

The best part is that you can watch it for free, by just opting-in here:

Free Video: The Key To Higher Productivity

Watch it now (it will be up only for a limited time), and don’t forget to download the PDF exercise and summary tip sheet!

The Key To Higher Productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

“Touch it once” – Why being picky destroys your productivity

Jiri Novotny — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 17:40:30 +0000

Every time you re-evaluate a task, you are wasting time. This often happens with emails, bills, or just tasks in a to-do list in general.

Repeatedly coming back to a task and thinking: “OK, I will do this later” is very unproductive.

Not only you are wasting time, you are also literally training your brain to habitually procrastinate.

So, instead of repeatedly reading your to-do list and “randomly” picking a task to do next, apply a more systematic approach, such as this one -

Keep your to-do list well prioritized, and then just work on the first task until it’s done. Then mark the task as done and work on the current first unfinished task, and so on.

Huge benefit of this approach is that it completely removes decision paralysis, and it makes it much easier to get started on complex or unpleasant task.

When you decide that you will always do the first thing on your to-do list first, your brain has a much easier decision to make: To work on that task, or not work at all. That’s a simple decision, right?

On the other hand, when all tasks on your to-do lists are fair game, your brain has dozens or hundreds of options to choose from — which makes it hard to get going. You will then burn a lot of energy on inner conflict due to “decision paralysis”.

Also, keep these two pitfalls in mind –

Sometimes, it’s not possible to finish a task because you are waiting on someone or something – in that case, just proceed to the next task.

Also, re-prioritize your to-do list just once a day – at the start or the end of your workday. Remember, you want to “touch each task once”– and not constantly re-read and re-prioritize your to-do list.

And one final tip – sometimes, the best thing to do with a task is to just delete it. It’s like when you have leftovers in your fridge that you just know you won’t eat – but you delay throwing them out. That’s exactly what you DON’T want to be doing with your tasks.

Just “touch it once”!

“Touch it once” – Why being picky destroys your productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:05:01 +0000

The following 3 techniques are extremely powerful and work instantly. I’ve been developing and refining them over the years – they are based on solid proven psychological and productivity principles.

In order to beat procrastination, first of all, pick just one important task you are procrastinating on. Then use the following 3 techniques, and I personally guarantee you that you will stop procrastinating and start working on the task immediately.

1. Explore and map the task

Procrastination is often related to fear. We are often afraid of unknown work. After all, it might be too much work, or we might be unable to do it. The easiest way to reduce this fear is to explore, map and research the task.

So, how do you explore a task? Well -

Just break the task down into subtasks! This is the best way to “explore” it, unpack it and see what’s really going on.

If you use Swift To-Do List, to break a task down into subtasks, simply select it, then start adding subtasks with all the steps necessary for completing the task.

Add even all the small steps. Try to order the subtasks roughly in the sequence they need to be done.

While you are adding the subtasks, pay extra attention to all the “research” actions – steps that require you to gather extra information and data in order to move forward. These “research” actions are what you want to do first, because doing them will help you to unpack the original task even further.

Once you break the task into subtasks AND start gathering all the necessary information, materials and data, and possibly discuss it with your co-workers or boss, the fear of unknown will diminish, and as a result, you will be able to start doing the task right away without procrastinating anymore.

2. Find the smallest possible next step – then do it!

When we procrastinate, we often feel that we are simply unable to do the task. However, when you identify a tiny easy action to get started on the task, you will be absolutely confident that you can do it.

For example, you might be procrastinating on this task: “Write the 70-page Q3 report”

So, you quickly think about what you actually need to do to get started on it, and determine this smallest possible next step: “Open MS Word and write a rough half-page outline of the Q3 report”

Can you open MS Word and write a rough half-page outline? Of course you can! You know you can absolutely do it. You are confident. So there is no reason to procrastinate anymore. You can just do it. So you do it.

And once you do it, you can simply repeat this process – what is the next small easy step?

3. Schedule fun and limit the work

This technique might seem counter-intuitive at first, but it’s extremely effective. It uses powerful reverse-psychology.

Get this -

Another big reason for procrastination is the fear you will miss out on all the fun and pleasant things in life.

The solution is ridiculously simple: Guarantee the fun first. Then limit the time you have available for work.

Simply schedule some fun! Plan and schedule a night out. Or, schedule any of your favorite relaxation, entertainment, sport or fun activity that you just love.

Ideally, schedule this pleasant activity right after work.

Next, limit the time you have available for your work. Give yourself a hard time limit that forces you to stop working at a specific time of the day. Absolutely no overtimes allowed. This will motivate you to stop procrastinating and get to work, right now.

Tip: When scheduling the fun activity, ideally pick an activity right after work that involves other people. You will know that you HAVE to be there because of the other people, so you will know that there is a very real time limit on your work today. This will strongly motivate you.

As an extra bonus, the fun activity will help you recharge your batteries and sharpen your saw, so the next time you get to work, you are strong. Obviously, this also makes you immune to burnout.

How procrastination works

If you want to learn more about how and why you procrastinate, you will love this.

Here’s my summary of The Now Habit, which is probably the best book on procrastination ever written.

This summary will give you the most important insights from the book in just a few pages.

In the summary, you will also learn additional causes of procrastination (perfectionism, fear of judgment, fear of success, and more).

3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating 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

New research explains why you can’t get anything done

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 12:17:58 +0000

Since publishing my super-popular post “Are you a Zen Coder or a Distraction Junkie“, I’ve been doing some more research.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bottom line is this -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The perfect workflow

Your workday can look like this:

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

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

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

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

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

So, do you want to build 100 tiny houses, or 1 skyscraper?

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 13:42:24 +0000

I see this all the time.

People love starting new projects, businesses and ideas.

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

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

Here’s the deal -

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s my question to you -

Can you stick to something for 30 minutes?

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

Yes? Can you? Maybe you can.

Well, how about for 5 years?

Have you even considered it?

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

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

The world will love and reward you for it.

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

Freedom vs. Structure …and Productivity

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:40:37 +0000

Myers-Briggs (personality type indicator) distinguishes between extroverts and introverts, sensors and intuitors, thinkers and feelers, and judgers and perceivers. The last dichotomy (judgers vs. perceivers) fascinates me the most.

The common description of judgers is that they are organized, have their life structured and everything planned, arrive on time (or even early), want everything to be decided and settled, often seem rigid – but also responsible, and like closure. It is unacceptable to them not to get things done, not to get results, not to finish. (Note: “judger” does not mean judgmental.)

On the other hand, perceivers seem chaotic, are spontaneous and flexible, often arrive late (or not at all), don’t like making decisions, always feel it’s premature to make a decision, always want more information, like to keep their options open, want things to be open-ended, tend to procrastinate, and prefer starting new things to finishing them.

Which one are you?

Now, there is other, much more interesting definition: Judgers try to “lock down” the external world, so they have internal freedom. Perceivers try to “lock down” the internal world, so they have outer world freedom.

And to evolve ourselves to the next level, we need to develop and integrate both our Judging and Perceiving aspects. It is usually our weakest aspect that limits us the most.

Perceivers have problems making decisions. The word “decision” originally comes from Latin, and it literally means “to cut off”. When you decide, you cut the other options off. Perceivers hate that – they want to keep as many options open as possible. However, this comes at a price: When they keep postponing decisions, they might never decide. When they not get on a particular train, because they are afraid they might miss a better one, they might miss all the trains.

That being said, it seems to me that ultimately in the end-game, it’s more advantageous to be an “enlightened” perceiver – and have the outer world freedom. Part of Nathaniel Branden’s definition of self-esteem is knowing you are competent to cope with the basic challenges in life. But how about knowing you will thrive, regardless the challenges in life? Regardless the environment? To me, that seems worth striving for.

However, I also think that if you really want to be efficient as a perceiver, you have to develop your judger muscles. And no, there is no other option (even getting someone else to structure your life isn’t sufficient). Developing those muscles and going through a “judger stage” can be very challenging. You need to structure and organize the outer world (your life), so it pushes you to be efficient and get things done. This also gives you the opportunity to master the control of your inner impulses, and discover which structures give you the most leverage on yourself and when to use them.

The ultimate idea is that as an enlightened perceiver, you have an inner compass so strong and powerful, that you move forward regardless all hell breaking loose. The inner compass must be stronger than the low inner impulses from your reptilian brain, and it must be stronger than distractions and interruptions from the outer world.

All that being said, it will probably always be advantageous (from the efficiency standpoint) to outsource a significant amount of your daily decision making to outer structures (= being organized, having things pre-decided and planned). It just makes sense – the same way it makes sense to buy socks rather than to tailor them yourself.

What once seemed an extreme measure becomes a natural thing and a necessity when the stakes are high (in your life and mission).

For example, do you know what these people have in common?

They have or had a wardrobe full of completely identical clothes. Why? They don’t want to waste time and energy deciding everyday “bullshit” like “What am I going to wear” – not to speak of having to buy new clothes every 3-6 months.

Einstein is said to be probably the most famous INTP (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinker, Perceiver). But he’s not your common garden-variety perceiver: There is no way he could’ve accomplished what he has done without building his judger muscles.

To sum this up, here’s what you can do to get to the next level:

If you are a perceiver, get organized, embrace structure, stop procrastinating, start finishing things and learn to make quick decisions. Go overboard… for a year. Then, loosen up.

If you are judger, first loosen up, then work on your inner compass (discover your values and goals), and work on your flexibility. Do a lot of soul-searching. Then, play on your natural strength and become as efficient as you can with your new inner compass.

This is true freedom.

Freedom vs. Structure …and Productivity 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

Start your workday the right way

Jiri Novotny — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:45:50 +0000

Take a moment to answer the following 4 questions:

How do you start your workday?

Do you start your workday by reacting to whatever comes at you first?

Or, do you start your workday with an ingrained routine?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Start your workday the right way 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

Tasks and oranges

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:34:19 +0000

Complex tasks are like oranges. It’s rather difficult to “eat” them, until you “peel” them and divide them into pieces (subtasks).

The wrong way

You can’t just eat a whole orange -

Likewise, you can’t just “do” a huge, complex task. You can only do the actions (subtasks) that lead to its completion.

The right way

Break the task down into subtasks -

Following the steps is easy. Anyone can do it if the steps are small and clear enough.

Write all the subtasks for your dreaded task X. Write a “How to do task X for dummies” manual for yourself. Then follow it and have fun.

Goodbye procrastination, hello productivity!

Once you break a complex unpleasant task into subtasks, you will be much more inclined to take action.

It just works. If you make something easy, it is easy. Dead simple.

I think that the orange is a perfect metaphor for this. It took me several weeks to come up with it.

In case you are wondering about the illustrations, they were drawn by my girlfriend Eileen, and are part of my new e-book “Swift Mind Freedom“, which explains 11 Principles of getting (and staying) organized. Breaking tasks down into subtasks is Principle #8.

Now it’s your turn – which task are you afraid of the most? Write down the steps you need to take. Then do them. It’s quite refreshing.

PS: Check our new Swift To-Do List 8 for Windows. I am especially proud of the new killer subtasks feature.

Tasks and oranges 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

Using to-do lists efficiently

Jiri Novotny — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:54:06 +0000

Everybody knows what a to-do list is.

Almost everybody uses a to-do list, too. (At least occasionally, if not regularly).

But almost none asks: “Hey, how should I actually use a to-do list?”

I think that might be a big mistake.

There are intelligent ways of using to-do lists, and not-so-smart ways.

By using a to-do list the right way, you can eliminate forgetting, stress, overwhelm, procrastination. In fact, you can increase your productivity and efficiency. Tremendously. You can feel like you are in control.

On the other hand, by using to-do lists in not-so-smart-way, you can achieve the exact opposite.

More stress, anyone?

Today, we are going to learn how to use a to-do list intelligently. It’s dirt-simple, and once you implement it, it feels just great.

How to use a to-do list in an intelligent way

Using a to-do list intelligently is deceitfully simple.

This is what you need to do:

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.

That’s all.

It is ridiculously simple, isn’t it?

And yet, very few people have actually really mastered this.

If you look at the instructions, they simply say to create a to-list list with all your current stuff, look at it often (whenever you get interrupted, distracted, or finish something), and always write new stuff into it immediately when it comes to you.

These simple habits can change your life.

Since these are habits, it takes time to fully establish them. But once you ingrain them, you will do them automatically.

Do this for 2-3 weeks, and you will be doing it automatically, without even having to think about it.

At any point, you either want to be working on a task, looking what to do next, writing down/organizing your stuff, or truly relaxing.

This might be the best well-kept hidden secret of productivity.

With these habits, it’s easy. But without these habits you will spend most of your time in a gray-zone, not really doing anything. Since you’ve read this far, I bet you don’t want that.

How could you start using this intelligent to-do list approach today?

Using to-do lists efficiently is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Custom Task Priorities

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:47:07 +0000

How do you prioritize your tasks?

Do you use High – Medium – Low prioritizing, or do you use something more useful?

“What? There is something else besides High/Medium/Low? Nobody told me!”

Well, with Swift To-Do List, you can create your entirely own custom priorities. Even all the inbuilt priorities are fully customizable. In fact, you could have just 1 priority called “Octogoat” (8-legged goat) and that would be it. (Yeah, this particular prioritizing system probably wouldn’t increase your productivity! :-)

All you have to do is to use menu Manage – Priorities:

(And in case you are not using Swift To-Do List, as you read on, you might still find this article quite useful.)

Why does prioritizing matter?

Prioritizing is very important, because it help you fight off procrastination. By not having your tasks prioritized, you risk decision paralysis, which is one of the leading causes of procrastination. Since you are not sure what to do (e.g. many items are very important), you will tend to do something completely else, usually not important at all (e.g. checking social media and new sites, checking email, cleaning and re-organizing your office, etc.)

Alternative prioritizing methods

“High/Medium/Low” might not be particularly useful to you either, because it is vague. I bet that you could find at least 5 reasons why any particular task on your to-do list should be High priority – or Low priority. Oftentimes, you will have so much High priority tasks that you will be left clueless as what to actually work on next.

However, there are more useful prioritizing systems, such as One Minute To-Do List (which I think is pretty good) or Stephen Covey’s 4-Quadrants. It is also curious that GTD (Getting Things Done methodology) has no prioritizing, just contexts (which, in my opinion, is suboptimal for most). You can also use my own prioritizing system, which you will learn in this post.

Most prioritizing methods are either based on Importance, or Urgency. I think that prioritizing by Urgency is far better, because there are…

3 reasons why prioritizing by importance is WRONG

There are at least three serious problems with prioritizing by importance:

First, if you ignore urgent (but unimportant) tasks, you will be anxious, stressed and less effective. Urgent tasks are like swords hanging over your head, causing you stress. Urgent tasks should be always handled first, as they are time-sensitive. When urgent tasks are not attended timely, then in many cases, it can have long-term negative consequences. But even more importantly, almost invariably, avoiding or postponing urgent tasks places an emotional and mental burden on you.
Second, almost all tasks can be classified as important for one reason or another. You can try this right now – pick any task from your list- and then try to think up of at least 2-3 reasons why it is important. Usually, you will not have any problem coming up with the reasons, even if the task is of a very low priority. Too many tasks get classified as highly important- the prioritizing thus becomes useless, as it’s impossible to distinguish what really matters. (If everything is important, nothing really is.)
Third, many tasks which are not important still need to be done. Without doing seemingly unimportant tasks, such as paperwork, computer and office maintenance, it would be soon impossible to do the important tasks. The wheels would get stuck.

In light of this, the urgency-based prioritizing approach of the One Minute To-Do List method seems very solid. But still, you don’t have to use it as it is. You could take it and customize it to suit your needs. Or, you could use…

My better prioritizing system

I’ve been developing the following prioritizing method for quite some time. It will be part of my own productivity/organizing methodology which I am currently developing. Think of this as a little preview – the final system will be have much more depth to it.

I’ve been also testing it extensively on myself, and so far, the results are great.

My prioritizing method is urgency based.

The priorities are as follow:

Urgent
Current Focus
Do Soon
Do Later
Maybe
Info/Reference

And here are quick description of the priorities. The individual priorities are for tasks that you…

Urgent: Absolutely must do today. If necessary, you would stay late at work to get these done.

Current Focus: Want to do today.

Do Soon: Want to do this/next week, and even today if given the opportunity.

Do Later: Want to do eventually, but don’t have to worry about now at all.

Maybe: Are not yet sure if you want to do at all.

Info/Reference: This is for non-tasks. Items with this priority are not actionable at all.

At any point, try to have no more than 5 Urgent tasks, no more than 10 Current Focus tasks and no more than 20 Do Soon tasks. The other priorities can have unlimited number of tasks.

You can easily apply this system with the Manage Priorities window. Once applied, it looks like this:

And have fun with it, if you want! For example, when I was submitting a support ticket to Dreamhost, I noticed I could choose priority too, and they have funny options like “OMG CRITICAL EMERGENCY! PEOPLE ARE DYING!” So albeit my system works pretty well, feel free to choose names that make sense to you.

Have you already customized your priorities? What priorities do you use?

Custom Task Priorities 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. 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

Best Of This Blog (Part 3)

Jiri Novotny — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:35:48 +0000

There are many recent incredible posts that you might have missed – so here goes a third “Best of This Blog” summary!

I am very happy with the direction this blog is taking; it is now attracting some serious attention, and many post quickly become quite popular.

Knowing that I am becoming a better writer is a terrific feeling.

Enjoy this summary!

Productivity, goals, procrastination posts:

One Minute To-Do List – The simple and awesome alternative to GTD
How to Overcome Resistance to Work – 4 Techniques – another very popular post with extremely valuable information
Centralize Your Lists with Swift To-Do List – Even if you are not using Swift To-Do List, learning the concepts in this post can dramatically improve your productivity and eliminate stress in your work life.
5 Counter-Intuitive Productivity Tips
How to murder your productivity – This hilarious post went viral and became extremely popular. It is actually useful, too.
Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2012 Goals – was republished on Lifehacker
Hidden Procrastination
Outsmarting Yourself for Success
What are you not going to do? – Time management upside down
Why change is so hard and how to make it happen – on changing ourselves for good
Be Successful First Thing in the Morning – another quite popular post with a valuable tip

Swift To-Do List related:

Overcome procrastination with new Swift To-Do List – learn how the new Time Tracking feature can transform you from procrastinator to super-achiever
New Swift To-Do List 7.60: Calendar Panel, add tasks from any application, more!
What’s New in Swift To-Do List 7.46
New Swift To-Do List 7 Ultimate edition released
Swift To-Do List Review by Darryl Benjamin
Swift To-Do List Review by Chuck Gallozzi – Chuck is a personal development expert
Blind Man and Swift To-Do List

What else?

We’ve also released brand new FastPaste 3 for Windows, and published a post on it: Declaring war on stupid typing with FastPaste 3.

Check out the previous “Best Of This Blog (Part 2)” and “Best Of This Blog (Part 1)“

Best Of This Blog (Part 3) is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

How to Overcome Resistance to Work – 4 Techniques

Jiri Novotny — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:30:16 +0000

Even if your approach to work is excellent and you are self-disciplined, from time to time, a nasty task will appear. Task that you will feel extreme resistance to, which will cause you to procrastinate. Rationally, you will want to complete the task, but emotionally – no way. Your emotions will overwhelm your rationality, and you simply won’t be able to do it.

However, with the right approach, you can easily overcome resistance. All you have to do is to use your mental resources efficiently. Just a little bit of the right mental effort can get you happily cranking on that horrendous task in just a few minutes.

As I’ve been experimenting with various productivity techniques over the last 7 years, I’ve discovered 3 extremely efficient techniques that I am using to this day. I am going to share these with you. I will also give you a fourth supporting technique, and show you how you can combine it all for maximum power.

1. Break it down

Break the dreaded task into the largest possible amount of sub-steps. Write it all down. Also write all related thoughts and notes that will occurr to you during this process.

After just 5-10 minutes, you can be a proud author of “How to do task X for dummies”. With such a how-to guide in hand, there will be little else to think about. You will just do it.

The magic of this approach is that the breakdown is an actual work on the task! Thanks to the breakdown process, you will think the task through and discover possible pitfalls. You will create a mental map of the unexplored scary territory which was causing the resistance.
This technique usually completely dissipates any resistance.

2. Discover the smallest possible next step you can do

Don’t confuse this with the “Next Action” principle from the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. Next Action in GTD is the next specific action you can take to move certain project forward. The problem is that this very action can be the one causing the resistance.

However, there is a simple algorithm which you can use to discover a next step that you will actually want to do, and feel no resistance to.

Let me give you an example from my own life. I am writing a book, and one day, it happens that I will feel enormous resistance to writing. However, with the following dialogue, I can go past the resistance and start writing in just a few moments.

It goes like this – this is the inner dialog I have with myself:

Q: Can I write a book right now?
A: No!

Q: Ok… how about a single chapter? Can I write a chapter?
A: No!

Q: Well how about just one page, can I write one page?
A: No.

Q: Well, can I at least open MS Word?
A: Yes, I can do that.

So now I have Word opened, and the process continues:

Q: Can I write something?
A: No.

Q: Can I read a few random paragraphs I’ve already written?
A: Yes, I can do that.

So I start reading, and sure enough, I will want to edit some of the things I wrote during the previous sessions. I edit them, and sure enough, before I know it, I am writing new text. Once I run out of things to write, I take a break, and then I continue the dialog with myself like this:

Q: Can I write some more?
A: No.

Q: How about some freewriting, writing completely random stuff at the end?
A: Yes, I can do that.

So I start writing random things at the end of the book, whatever is on my mind (Freewriting), clarifying my thoughts, playing with ideas – and sure enough, before I know it, I am yet again writing valuable new content for the book.

As you can see, I am always trying to find the smallest possible next step I can take. Sometimes, I do this dialogue on paper (or on a computer). You can experiment with that, too. This technique works like a charm. It is simple, yet powerful.

Once I discover the micro-step I am willing to do, and actually do it, I usually have no problem going forward with further action on the task. If it doesn’t help, I start looking for another micro-step I can take.

3. Set a time limit

Kitchen timer or any other kind of timer can be priceless. Pomodoro works great, but sometimes, even 20 minutes limit is too much to make us feel like doing something. So, why not try 5 minutes? Or 2 minutes? Still too much? How about 1 minute? Or 30 seconds. Seriously, why not?

Are you willing to work for 30 seconds on that terrible task? Yes? Great. Set the timer and… go! The rest will follow, starting is half the success. If not, do another time block, and gradually make them longer.

You can learn more about this in my previous post Overcome procrastination with new Swift To-Do List.

4. Discover the hidden cause of resistance and solve it

Sometimes, all you need is a few minutes of contemplating with a pen or a keyboard. Think about why you don’t want to do the task so much. If you can discover the hidden cause of the resistance, you can oftentimes easily solve it. The causes are usually very specific and individual. Try to look at it from multiple perspectives.

For example, you might not want to start with some big task because you are afraid that you will have no time for fun if you start working. So the solution could be to schedule some fun activity with friends for the evening, then happily get to work, knowing that the fun is already guaranteed.

The Now Habit is a wonderful book on procrastination. It explains all the possible causes of procrastination in detail, and it provides strategies to overcoming them.

It might be also helpful to remind yourself that you don’t have to do it. In life, everything is voluntary.

Combine the above

For maximum effect, you can combine all the techniques above:

Think about the reason you don’t want to do it, and if you discover the possible cause, try to solve it.
Break it down into a list of sub-steps (write your own “for dummies” how-to guide).
Discover the smallest micro-step you are willing to do
Start a timer and work on it for 2 minutes

Here is a final tip for you: When it comes to success in life, the speed of implementation is critical. You should use what you’ve just learned immediately, right now. Pick some task that you feel especially large resistance to, and engage it. Now you know how. Tomorrow, you probably won’t – unless you do this, right now. Get cranking.

PS: Download Swift To-Do List, a task and notes organizer for Windows which will amaze you. It’s just a few clicks away. Can these few clicks revolutionize the way you work?

- By Jiri Novotny+, the obsessed author of the number one to-do list software for Windows, Swift To-Do List. Jiri’s life quest is to become productivity and achievement world-class expert to empower others to achieve their full potential. If you liked this post, then definitely follow this blog on G+.

How to Overcome Resistance to Work – 4 Techniques is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Overcome procrastination with new Swift To-Do List

Jiri Novotny — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:45:54 +0000

You don’t need to dread your tasks or beat yourself up for procrastinating anymore. With the new Swift To-Do List, you now have a tool that will help you to start working in no time.

We’ve just released new juicy update of Swift To-Do List, version 7.63. As usual, this update is free for all existing customers. (If you don’t have Swift To-Do List yet, download it now.)

It includes new countdown timer, which is the most interesting new feature, because it allows you to overcome procrastination and resistance to your tasks.

If you learn to utilize the new timer feature as explained below, it can literally change your life, especially if you are struggling with procrastination or have hard time focusing and managing your attention.

As you read on, you will learn how you can benefit from the new timer feature, and how it can help you to focus and overcome procrastination.

Oh, and other than the timer, the new update also adds overdue tasks information in the info panel – with just 1 click, you can immediately see all overdue tasks. The new version can also email task reminders to assigned persons, and it allows you to open a folder where any file attachment is located, and much more.

How to overcome procrastination with the new Timer feature

The new countdown timer expands the existing Time Tracking feature.

Procrastination is caused by resistance. We feel resistance to tasks because the oldest and most primitive part of our brain, amygdala, is feeling threatened. It dreads the work, because it’s uncertain how long will it take or what else will you have to give up to finish it. However, this feeling can be eliminated by setting a time limit for your work session.

For example, to overcome resistance to any particular task, you can say to yourself: “I am going to work just 20 minutes on this task”. Then, start the 20 minute Timer for that task. You will have no problem getting started this way.

This has 4 very significant benefits:

First, it eliminates resistance, because it is now obvious that you will be working for just 20 minutes, so the task is no longer perceived as a threat by your primitive part of brain.
Second, it sets you free. During the countdown, you don’t have to worry about anything else. It frees you from everything else and gives you the permission to focus absolutely on that task.
Once the 20 minutes have passed, you will probably continue working. You will get into flow and you can actually feel euphoric while working!
The floating timer window will constantly shift your attention to the task. It acts like a magnet for your focus, which is invaluable in today’s ADD world full of distractions.

As a result, you can easily be 300% more efficient during these 20 minutes than usual. It can be quite revolutionary, actually. I’ve personally gotten some extraordinary results by using a timer, and I know of many others. It is proven. It just works. And it’s very, very effective.

20 minutes is just an example. You can use any time limit, from 5 minutes to 90 minutes. Heck, you can even set any custom number of minutes.

And by the way, if you have trouble focusing, you can also use the new Timer feature in combination with Pomodoro Technique, which is basically about structuring your whole work day in short 25-minute focused bursts and 5 minute breaks.

The Timer is in Ultimate and Professional editions only.

This is how you start it (by right-clicking any task):

And this is how the actual timer looks. On the screenshot below, you can see it on my desktop. It’s a floating window that can be set always on top, and you can of course customize the color and other things by right-clicking it. You can move it anywhere (it’s sticky).

When the time is up, “Finished” will start blinking on the timer, and you can either close it or reset it to start another session. You can also set a new timer with different time limit, for a different task or the same one.

Swift To-Do List keeps track of total time spent on any task when the timer or time tracker is running. If you display Time Spent column in the task-view, you will be able to see how much time have you spent total on each of your tasks.

Other new features

As always, there is also a bunch of other improvements to make you more efficient, productive, and make your life easier. These include:

Info panel now contains “Overdue Tasks”. You can click that label and see all overdue tasks. The label displays the number of all overdue tasks. This gives you instant overview.
New calendar mode, “Due Date or Start Date”. This allows you to see tasks starting OR due on any particular day (or days) with just a single click.
New Filter option for Due Date and Start Date filtering: “In next 14 days”. This is similar to the “In next 7 days” option.
For added convenience, you can now upgrade your license to a higher edition or purchase extra discounted copies using menu “Help – Buy Upgrades or Extra Licenses”.
Attachments right-click menu now contains “Open File Location” for file attachments. This allows you to open the folder where the attachment is located. When it comes to embedded attachments, the folder from which they were embedded is opened.
Email reminders can be now emailed to the person the task is assigned to. The same goes for recurrence notifications.
Import from Task Coach added.
You can now choose choose default task Type and default Context for your tasks. Do that using menu File – Options, then go to the New Tasks section.
When creating a recurring task, the Due Date of the task is set automatically immediately based on the recurrence. E.g. if you create a task to recur in 7 days, its due date will be immediately set to 7 days from now.

Getting the new Swift To-Do List

All you have to do is to download the latest version and install it.

It’s just a few clicks away. Can these few clicks revolutionize the way you work?

PS: You might be also interested in my summary of The Now Habit, which is probably the best book on procrastination.

Overcome procrastination with new Swift To-Do List 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

10 Ways to Get More From Your Work Day

Jiri Novotny — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:43:22 +0000

We’ve all had those times where we wish we could add hours to the skimpy 24 hour days we’re limited to on this planet. As the work day rolls along, we look at the clock and say “Hey, where did the time go?” Well I haven’t figured out a way to actually add hours to a day, but here are 10 ways to at least preserve the precious hours you do get:

When a task comes along that you can do in less than 2 minutes, do it and be done with it. E-mails are a great example; it takes time to read an e-mail, so when it’s something quick, deal with it right at that time.
Related to tip number 1, don’t be a slave to your inbox. Studies have shown that it’s better to concentrate on one task and finish it before moving on to the next. Turn off your e-mail notifications, finish your project, then check it and follow rule number 1 for e-mails that you can address quickly.
Make phone calls standing up. Research shows that you’re less likely to shoot the breeze when you are standing. (As an added bonus, you actually burn more calories for those of you interested in that).
Batch similar activities. If you have several calls to return or e-mails to send, group them together to do at one time.
Use a scheduler. I know it sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how many people don’t schedule their day – plan the work and work the plan.
Don’t multi-task. Research has shown that you actually get less done when you try and pack 10 activities in at the same time. Sequential is better.
Use information management software. Statistics show that office workers spend an average of 48 minutes a day just looking for misplaced information.
Delegate. Not all of us have this option, but for those of you who do, there are probably plenty of tasks that could be done by someone else. Even if you work alone, you can get outsourced help for just about every task imaginable online these days.
Cut down on your e-mail newsletters. Most people are subscribed to way more e-mail newsletters than they’ll ever read and having them in your inbox still takes time to deal with them. Take the time to unsubscribe.
Limit the amount of socialization you engage in. I know it’s fun and it does provide a nice break, but try to limit it to a set amount of time.

These 10 tips come from Telexis. Telexis produces software that helps offices stay organized and manage their time: GroupReady scheduling software and PHONEslips office management software.

10 Ways to Get More From Your Work Day 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

Outsmarting Yourself for Success

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 07:31:43 +0000

Is the following familiar to you?

You set a goal, or take on a new project. You are excited! But soon you discover that your progress is, frankly, a joke. If you are getting closer to achieving your goal or finishing your project at all, your progress is SO-DAMN-SLOW than it COULD have been! You know it, but you just CAN’T get yourself to take the right actions necessary for success.

You are both the grand visionary and architect of your life, and your worst enemy that sabotages your dreams.

Why is that?

You have two brains: A rational brain and a caveman brain (also known as “reptile” brain).

The rational brain wants you to achieve that goal or project.

Caveman brain wants you to pig out, watch TV, play games, surf the web, read news and lay around.

The bad news is that until you learn to co-operate with your caveman brain, you will never be successful. It will sabotage your best efforts when you set goals, it will slow your progress when working on an important project, and when you want to diet – oh Lord – it will stuff your face with asinine amounts of food with 150% of jolly-saturated fat.

The good news is that the rational brain is much smarter than the caveman brain. Better yet, I will show you exactly how you can outsmart the caveman brain and succeed.

It’s all about stacking the deck in your favor. Here, let me show you what I mean:

Before Stacking the Deck for Success

After Stacking the Deck for Success

Unless you love partying with black dragons, hydras, ghosts, and the smell of fresh lava, you are more likely to succeed in the environment “After Stacking the Deck”. So, how to do it? Well, my friend, read on! I promise we will have some fun too ;-)

When it comes to achieving your dreams and goals, this might be the most important thing you will ever learn. If you have trouble with focusing, I urge you to close everything else to make sure you finish this – because this can change your life.

I’ve discovered lot of these concepts by studying behavioral psychology and the science of success, yet I kept only what has worked for me personally and ruthlessly eliminated everything else. It took me over 8 years of experimenting to figure out this stuff. It’s tested and it works. It will work for you, too.

And by the way, the caveman brain is not always our enemy. We need the caveman brain. Not just to pig out, but to survive in dangerous situations, avoid accidents, and dodge huge boulders rolling on us in narrow corridors.

The problem: You know WHAT, you know HOW, but you don’t know HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF DO IT.

You know exactly how to accomplish your goal, because you know the actions to take to accomplish your goal. That’s not the problem! After all, knowing this is rather easy: It doesn’t matter how epic or big your project is, you can just break it down into smaller tasks. A few hours of thinking/writing, tops, and you have a very detailed action plan.

Even if you don’t know all of the action steps, you surely know the first few steps that will move you closer to success; and by taking these steps, you will quickly discover the rest of the steps.

So you already know everything you need to do now, but you don’t know how to make yourself do it. The problem is entirely in the execution.

What is NOT the solution

You don’t need to rely on motivation. Don’t make the same mistake as I once did and focus just on motivating yourself. It is far better to focus on taking action! Once I stopped worrying about motivating myself and focused on taking massive action instead, my productivity went supernova. When you start taking action successfully, motivation will always come as a result. Just make sure that your goal is something that YOU really want.
You don’t need to rely on willpower. There is a body of conflicting research on whether willpower is a limited resource or not, but for our purposes, it doesn’t matter! By stacking the deck in your favor, you won’t need to rely on willpower. Betting on willpower is unreliable. You need the willpower just for stacking the deck – and that doesn’t require that much of it.

What IS the solution

You need to outsmart yourself to make yourself do it.
You need to discover and fix your Failure Patterns.
You need to stack the deck in your favor.
You need to take massive action. Once the deck is stacked in your favor, it will be a breeze. Heck, the caveman brain will enjoy himself by actually helping your rational brain!

Two Behavior Patterns

Every time you say to yourself that you will do something (“Intention for action”), one of the following will happen:

The Success Pattern:

Intention for action=> Action => Success!

The Failure Pattern:

Intention for action => Caveman brain feels threatened or has a “better” idea => Different action => Failure!

Perhaps the “different action” was pleasant, but the end result is that you feel like crap for failing – again.

What you must do is to fix the behavioral Failure Patterns in your life and transform them into Success Patterns, one pattern at a time.

That way, the rational brain will be at the helm. You will finally be in control.

How do you fix the Failure Patterns? There are several ways. The optimal way depends on the particular pattern and situation.

Let me give you an example from my own life.

Example of Fixing Failure Pattern in My Life: Waking Up Early

I wanted to become an early riser, and get up at 7 AM or sooner. I was already waking up early, but every time I woke up, I looked at the clock, and if it was “too early” (e.g. anything before 8 AM), I wanted to sleep some more. So I did. Mind you, I was not really tired. It was just “too early” for my caveman brain. Sleeping some more actually made me tired. Long story short, I continued to get up at 9 AM or so. Not cool.

But once I realized what is going on, I was able to instantly fix this Failure Pattern:

Goal: Get up at 7 AM or sooner each day.
Actions necessary: First, make sure I wake up before 7 AM, either by going to sleep soon enough, or by setting an alarm clock. Second, get up immediately after waking up.
The Failure Pattern: I wake up at 6 AM => the caveman brain sees the clock, feels threatened, and wants me to sleep some more => I sleep some more => I get up at 9 AM, feeling tired.
The solution: Before going to bed, I turn the digital clock to face the wall so I can’t see it.
The new Success Pattern: I Wake Up => I can’t see the clock, but because I feel well rested, the caveman brain doesn’t feel threatened and assumes I have slept enough => I get up. It’s 6 AM and I feel great!
Stacking the deck in my favor even more: I don’t eat after 7 PM, so I need less sleep. I make sure the blinds are up when I go to bed, so there is natural light in the morning. I make sure I am warm in the morning. After getting up, I immediately open the window, breathe deeply and look into the light to energize myself. Then, I jump on my mini-rebounder for 5 minutes while thinking about my goals and getting energized and excited about the new day.

The solution, in my case, was to break the Failure Pattern by eliminating the source of undesired behavior. Seeing the early time on the clock was a trigger for caveman brain to take over and make me sleep in. It was a perfect excuse. Eliminating the clock eliminated the trigger for undesired behavior.

Then, I stacked the deck in my favor even more, to absolutely conquer this goal. There is no chance of me sleeping late now. I LOVE GETTING UP EARLY! The excitement and energy feels great to the caveman brain too – remember, the caveman brain is all about positive emotions and good feelings. This is the co-operation you should aim for.

Life-hack tip: While jumping on the rebounder in the morning, or while walking to the office, I often listen to my own custom “motivational” tape (in mp3) that I got produced professionally for $5 dollars. It reminds me about my goals and floods me with positive emotions for the day. It invokes tremendous enthusiasm and desire for action in me. I will talk about getting your own completely custom motivational tape for $5 in a blog post that is coming soon. If you don’t want to miss it, subscribe: G+, Facebook, twitter.

How To Turn Your Failure Patterns into Success Patterns

By seeing my example, you might already have some ideas of how to fix the Failure Patterns. Let’s look at it -

First, you need to be intelligent and observant enough to discover and understand your own Failure Patterns. That might be a bit tricky, as these patterns are often unconscious, but now that you know what to look for, you can do it.

Second, you need to be creative in breaking your Failure Patterns and transforming them into Success Patterns. This is the fun part!

Third, you need to stack the deck in your favor some more, to make the success inevitable. This is fun, too!

Where to look for Failure Patterns? Whenever you want to do something, but end up not doing it, or doing it late, or doing it badly, look for Failure Pattern. Whenever you wonder where the time went by and how you ended up not doing anything again, look for Failure Pattern.

So the whole process looks something like this:

Pick a goal that you really want.
Make a quick action plan so you know the steps to achieve your goal.
Start with the first step immediately.
Take massive action and observe what’s going on – both in your thoughts and behavior.
Discover Failure Patterns.
Once discovered, break the Failure Patterns. Stack the deck in your favor as much as possible to transform them into Success Patterns.
Go back to 4, repeat until the goal is achieved.

How to Stack the Deck in Your Favor for Inevitable Success

The easiest and most powerful way of eliminating Failure Patterns is by changing the environment. Changing the environment is by far the easiest way how you can stack the deck in your favor. It’s easy, because caveman brain doesn’t feel threatened when you change the environment, so it won’t sabotage the changes. That is your leverage.

Remember, the caveman brain will always choose the easy path. And as shown in the images at the beginning of this post, we can exploit that!

Changing the environment is just one possibility. Your situation is unique. You need to discover strategies that will work best for you. Before you cry out “Lame!” – here is a BUNCH of ideas to get you started. This is what I would do (or already do).

A) Make it harder to do the wrong thing

Watch too much TV? Turn the TV around to face the wall. Unplug it. Or just give it away!
Spend too much time on some website? Block it. Better yet, redirect that website to your own HTML file with list of your goals and the next action you need to take now. You can easily create this in any word processor.
Eat too much junk food? Throw away all junk food and make a COMMITED DECISION that you won’t buy it again. Also make a decision that you won’t shop when hungry. If you fail and shop when hungry, don’t buy the junk food! If you fail and do buy it, throw it in the thrash on your way home [I actually did that once]. If you fail in that too, throw it in the trash later at home. If you fail in that too, then just don’t eat it. Now you have to fail FIVE times in a row to do the wrong thing. Before, all you had to do was to fail ONCE and eat it.
Check email too often? Make your email client forget the password so it forces you to manually retype it every time. Move the shortcut for the mail client into some obscure location.
Play too much PC games? Uninstall the games. Sell the DVDs. Cancel your accounts. [I once sold my account in a MMORPG game for a laughable amount, and it was one of the best things I've ever done. Since then, I never played any MMORPG again.] Too hardcore? Then at least use some parental control software on yourself to limit the time when you can play the games or play casino games at kasinotilmankierratysta.fi. Then – and I don’t care what it takes – substitute the game playing with taking action towards your goals! If you love games, in what ways could you gamificate your life?
Procrastinate too much? Write baby-steps for your top action. Work just 5 seconds on the first micro baby-step if you must. BUT TAKE ACTION! RIGHT NOW! It’s ridiculous not to take a 5 second action! How hard is to procrastinate on that? Very. Clean your plate so there is nothing else you can do. Die of boredom or do that 5 second action.
Sleep in instead of waking up early? Setup 3-5 different alarm clocks. Tell your lover to kick you out of the bed and take your blanket in the morning. (Hey, I told you this is fun!)
Always forget that you want to do something important for you in the morning? Close your laptop and turn it upside down, so the next day, you remember: “A-ha, I wanna do that thing first!” Or, place a chair in your way from the bedroom. Break the Failure Pattern by any means necessary!
Eat at night? I would suggest locking the fridge, but most fridges can’t be easily locked, and turning the fridge around is not very convenient either – but it would certainly interrupt the eating pattern :-) Maybe a frakking scary boogeyman in the fridge with a loud car horn would do the trick for you!

B) Make it easier to do the right thing

This is mainly about removing obstacles and adding as much convenience as possible.

Want to run each morning? Prepare your running gear before going to bed, so you see it immediately after waking up and can put it right on. Then go for a walk to enjoy the crisp morning air [caveman brain won't protest – after all, it feels good!]. Then run.
Want to go to the gym regularly? Hire a personal trainer. You won’t be overwhelmed when you arrive at the gym and see 1000 machines. The personal trainer will tell you exactly what to do and how. He will adjust the machines and weight. (Personal trainer has many other benefits too – for one, you will know you are doing the exercises right.)
Want to finish your project? Schedule a time just for your project in which you can’t be interrupted. Create an action plan with all the steps for finishing your project, so you always know the next step. Make sure that you always know the next step. Write it on paper and place beside your computer.
Want to eat light before going to bed? Make sure you always have an early satiating dinner – so you are not hungry later. Make sure you are not bored in the late evening, but fully engaged in something exciting.

C) Make it painful to do the wrong thing

You can also make it so that if you do the wrong thing, it will have painful consequences.

For example, as I described in Achieving goals like a Mad Klingon, you can promise your best buddy that you will give him $1000 if you won’t do X. Talk about leverage!

As far as your caveman brain is concerned, it will be more painful to part with $1000 than to do the action X. After all, do you have any idea how many bacon flavored marshmallows you could buy for $1000?!

D) Eliminate distractions

Being the spontaneous dude he is, the caveman brain loves distractions, So… make sure there aren’t any!

Why are distractions so horrible? Here is a hint:

Intent for action => Distraction => Entirely different action => Failure!

Distraction equals destruction. Distractions are pure poison. They rob you of your life and potential.

Declare full scale war on distractions. Show no mercy.

Simplify and unclutter your workspace.

Simplify and unclutter your computer desktop – and for crying out loud, disable all notifications!

E) Eliminate commitments to irrelevant projects and people

You can do few things right or many things badly.

Clean your plate. Unburden your load.

Drop as much irrelevant commitments as possible. Decide that you will NOT do.

Commitments that are not aligned with your goals are nothing but distraction factories.

F) Train Focus

Focus alone can’t save you – but it sure as hell helps!

Focusing makes it harder to get distracted, helps you to avoid the mental burden of context switching, and increases the likelihood of finishing any action successfully from beginning to the very end.

I’ve described a simple yet powerful way of focusing when working on the computer in my post Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

G) ALWAYS have a PAPER to-do list in front of you with the NEXT action

Before going to sleep (= leveraging the subconscious mind), prepare a paper list of actions for the next day that you MUST do the next day (= leveraging focus).

Place it on your desk (= leveraging the environment.) You can start with just 1 or 2 actions, and ramp it up over time. After waking up, immediately begin working on the first action (= leveraging the peak state of the freshly rebooted mind)

If you do this, your day will be completely different. How different? Successful different.

More on this in Be Successful First Thing in the Morning and Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2012 Goals.

H) Have a list of goals on your wall

We need to constantly re-focus. Every time you focus on your goals, it will push other distracting thoughts out of your mind (at least a little bit).

Print your goals and post them on the wall. Read the list once or twice daily. I read mine after waking up, and before going to sleep.

I) Manage your emotional state

It’s hard to be successful when you are lethargic or angry. But you CAN control your emotions. How? Take actions that are INCOMPATIBLE with any negative emotions you might be feeling. Move. Jump. Dance. Walk. Run. Smile. And then, TAKE ACTION! Believe me; taking the right action WILL make you happy. Being successful will make you blissful.

J) Get Creative and Do Something Else

Your situation is unique. You need to get creative, and whatever it takes, break the Failure Patterns. Stack the deck in your favor as much as possible.

Summary

You have two brains: Rational brain and caveman brain.

The caveman brain prefers instant gratification over long-term success. By stepping in, the caveman brain slows or halts our progress towards your goals set by the rational brain.

You need to learn how to outsmart the caveman brain and cooperate with him.

There are two behavioral patterns that humans executes all the time:

The Success Pattern: Intention for action => Action => Success!
The Failure Pattern: Intention for action=> Caveman brain doesn’t like and has a better idea => Different action => Failure.

You need to break the Failure patterns and transfer them into the success pattern. To do that, we have to be creative and stack the deck in our favor, by making the success easy and failure hard.

You can stack the deck in your favor by:

Making it harder to do the undesired behavior
Making it easier to do the desired behavior
Making it painful to do the undesired behavior (e.g. by making a significant commitment to others and placing cash on the line)
Eliminating distractions
Eliminating commitments to irrelevant projects and people
Training focus
Always having a paper to-do list in front of you, and writing tasks for the next day the day before
Having a list of goals on the wall so you can constantly re-focus
Managing your emotional state by taking actions incompatible with negative emotions
Being creative and breaking the Failure Pattern by any means necessary

The whole process of achieving goals by outsmarting yourself for success works like this:

Pick a goal that you really want.
Make a quick action plan so you know the steps to achieve your goal.
Start with the first step immediately.
Take massive action and observe what’s going on – both in your thoughts and behavior.
Discover Failure Patterns.
Once discovered, break the Failure Patterns. Stack the deck in your favor as much as possible to transform them into Success Patterns.
Go back to 4, repeat until the goal is achieved.

Now it’s your turn!

If you’ve read this far, you are determined to succeed. So put this in action!

What are some of the Failure Patterns in your life? How do you plan to fix them? Post in comments below.

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And if you want to make my day, link to this post and/or to www.dextronet.com. Thank you.

About the author

Jiri Novotny+ has started programming when he was 7, and gotten interested in personal development at 14. He reads 40-50 books a year, and always does crazy experiments to improve and grow.

Jiri is the author of Swift To-Do List 7. His ongoing goal is to create the best task and notes organizer for Windows.

Jiri’s life purpose is help others reach their full potential.

Outsmarting Yourself for Success is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Be Successful First Thing in the Morning

Jiri Novotny — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 07:06:48 +0000

Again and again, it is proving to me that if I begin my day by immediately doing the most important goal for that day, the day will be a tremendous success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be Successful First Thing in the Morning 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

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 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

Swift To-Do List Blog » productivity

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