The strategies I’ve collected here represent a greatest hits of sorts, culled from my years of experience battling distracting task lists. This advice is unified by the notion of containment. Several of these ideas focus on containing the overhead tax of tasks you cannot avoid tackling. In many cases, it’s not the actual execution of a small commit

Whenever you can, divide problems into smaller and smaller pieces until you’re able to deal with them completely and quickly. Simply rearranging your tasks this way can have an amazing impact on your productivity and motivation.

Putting things on a to-do list frees your mind. But always question what is worth doing first. Find your delegation pool—there are always people you can ask for help. Try limiting yourself to no more than eight tasks per quadrant. Before you add another one, complete the most important task first. Remember: It’s not about collecting tasks—it’s abou