I probably have ADHD. Distractions and time are my enemies.
Finding a practical and sustainable productivity system is an ongoing struggle.
If sticking to a plan is hard, if you get distracted all the time and you tend to procrastinate a lot, then I feel your pain.
Here are some ideas that might help:
1. Weekly Goals
Put down your goals for the week. If you have a quarterly plan, then your weekly goals can be derived from that to align your short-term objectives with the long-term.
2. Task prioritization
Take your bucket list of ideas and tasks for the week and plot it on a 2 X 2 grid of Urgent-Not Urgent, Important-Not Important. (Eisenhower Matrix)
3. Micro tasks
When you’re writing down tasks, break them down into smaller pieces of 20-30 minutes duration.
4. Daily Plan
- Create your daily plan the previous night before going to bed
- Write down times for each task based on your start and end time for the day
- Fix your start and end time for the day as your hard constraint.
- Divide the day into blocks of time for journaling, writing, deep work and shallow work etc.
- Based on task prioritization, pick tasks and put them into the above blocks
- Set mini breaks of 5-10 mins between tasks. Longer if context switching is involved.
5. Time it
Use a kitchen cooking timer if you don’t want to keep your phone around.
Set your phone and computer to Do not distrub/Focus mode
6. Reset routines
With all of the above structures in place, you will still fail on occasions. But having reset routines can help us recover and get back on track quickly.
Here’s what you can try:
- Shut down all apps and windows on your device.
- Clear your mind – Take a walk or meditate or write in your journal for 10 minutes
- Take the unfinished task and break it down further into 5 minute chunks.
- Start with the smallest 5 minute chunk and go from there
