Plan it the night before
About a week ago, I read this interviewwith Andrew Hsu. He said one of his ways to be productive is making your todo-list the night before. I’ve tried this for a few days now, and it seems to work. For the last few day, I really got a lot done.
One of the reasons why I think it works is because it can help you focus on the right tasks. Stephen Covey wrote about his four quadrants, which can help to classify your tasks. On one axis, you have important and non-important tasks, on the other axis there are urgent and non-urgent tasks. We naturally give priority to urgent tasks, whether they are important or not. What often gets postponed is the important but non-urgent tasks. By making your todo-list the night before, it can help you to focus on the important tasks.