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losing my mind


First, it's important to establish some definitions to be used within context of this discussion. Within the category of "things I need to take care of" I group actions into two buckets; reminders are those items which I estimate will take me less than 10 minutes to accomplish, tasks are associated to projects which have dependencies on other people and other tasks. By far the most dynamic of these two are reminders and when properly managed yield the most significant reduction in anxiety and have the greatest impact on personal productivity.



Tool selection is critical and should have the following attributes and features;

  • add reminder in less than 10 seconds
  • edit reminder in less than 10 seconds
  • journal or comments specific to reminder as many things evolve over time
  • search for current and historical actions
  • platform agnostic, conveniently passes information between desktop, tablet, mobile device
  • operating system agnostic, works on Windows, iOS, Android, etc.

NOTE:  I've used many tools over the years and currently the best one I have found, and use daily for business and personal, is Microsoft To-Do. 



Habits

Regardless of the tool, getting into the groove will be your biggest challenge. It's funny, most people agree with this logic yet perceive that they are "too busy" to start something new. Ironically these folks are the ones who will benefit the most. As with many things the first step of the journey is always the most difficult. Individuals which learn to juggle many competing priorities are the ones who have discovered that simple disciplines can make the difference between mediocrity and magnificence.



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Next post:  from the field to the office

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