Master Your Workday Now: Proven Strategi

In Stephen R. Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 2 is called Begin with the End in Mind. In discussing that “habit” he describes how all things are “created twice.” There is what he calls a mental or first creation, and then what he calls the physical or second creation. The idea is that you should visualize the outcome you

Use the following test when placing items on that list: would you stay late at work tonight to complete this task if it were not finished at your normal departure time? If the answer is no (you would not stay late), then don’t put it inside the Critical Now tasks section. Reserve that section only for tasks that really must be done today.

I believe our mission came with us when we were born and stays with us throughout our lives. It is part of the soul we were born with.

Therefore I recommend the following approach for paper users. In your mail system, create a new mail folder, or category, or tag, and call it Task Mail. Then, when you get an e-mail with a task, copy the e-mail into that folder (or set the category or tag) and attach to it a sequential task number (you can easily see the next number by glancing at

So we’ve described what sorts of tasks not to put on your Now Tasks list. All other types of tasks are candidates: all ad hoc tasks, all next steps on projects and goals, actions from e-mails, actions from meetings, and actions from phone calls. All of these should go on your tasks list. In fact, the very first and most important thing you can do t

Mark Forster’s assertion to write most tasks down instead of doing them makes sense. That can avoid a lot of wasted activity.

“What is the very next physical action I need to do to accomplish this task?” The goal is to identify the most discrete and significant next action possible, and write that down on the task list.

determining whether the need for the task is illusionary or not is often impossible at the time of first seeing the task; our emotions cloud our judgment.

activate some goals and keep activating them every day over time. What that does is it keeps an ongoing, below-the-scenes intention active in the subconscious mind. Then when you take your think-time, the subconscious finally has the opening to deliver some ideas on how to achieve those goals.