5 Tips on Finishing Your Tasks
There are hundreds of books and articles about personal productivity. To be honest, I may have read only a few even though I know I would benefit from them.
Over the past year I have slowly improved my approach and it seems to work pretty good. Here are my personal tips:
Set aside task time in your calendar. Many of us share our calendar views with others. In doing so, we are always at risk of someone else filling up our "empty" time slots with meetings. If we have a lot of meetings, we don't get work done. I pre-set some of my calendar hours as hold for focused work time. This prevents others from adding meetings that overtake my time to get work done.
Assign targeted tasks that can be accomplished. I try not to lump a bunch of tasks in a day and plan on getting as far as I can. I found that when I did this I would be tired and disappointed at the end of each day. It was better to break up the tasks into the number that I know I can get done with at least 80% confidence. Finishing my day's list feels really good! We can always go for more as a bonus, but stay energized.
Give room for the unexpected tasks. Sometimes there is an unknown critical task that lurks. Once it reveals it’s head, you may be caught off guard so be sure to keep your week schedule for task work flexible.
Break down monster tasks. Sometimes you run into a task that can take days to get done. Break those tasks down into components. In Pie, we have a subtask feature. If you need to go more granular, a task or a subtask can have its own checklist.
Use the right technology. There are a number of good task management options in the market, so find the one that works for you. I religiously manage all of my tasks in our Pie project management application. However, find whatever works best for you.
What are you favorite approaches to getting tasks done?
Written by Paul Dandurand, Pie CEO/Founder
