How to Clean Up Your Productivity System for Better Results

Prioritize Action

Photo by Crema Joe on Unsplash

I don’t think there is a single productivity system out there that doesn’t recommend some sort of periodic review, usually weekly. This allows you to double-check priorities, follow up on waiting or someday tasks, and generally just make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Then why to the cracks end up filled anyway?

I think in the beginning, we all have the best intentions when approaching a weekly review. We have a process; we are following a well thought out plan.

But as time goes by, we begin just doing it by rote. The weekly review pops up on our task list. We switch to a calendar view or a broader list view. We glance at everything and think, yep, that’s what I have to do next week. Then we put a checkmark by the weekly review task and get back to watching YouTube videos.

Another failure in both our daily procedures and weekly review is how we deal with things that don’t get done. We just move them to the next day. And the next. The low urgency, unimportant tasks just keep getting moved into some future, imaginary date we will finally do it.

But we never do.

Because the tasks at that level just keep getting piled up. Today, we have one task at the bottom…