Time Management Made Easy: Do the One Thing

I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of my day feeling overwhelmed.

My to-do list runs several pages, which does not exactly instill a sense that I might ever actually accomplish what I'm outlining for myself. And it's true… every day, only a few of my to-do's get checked off and moved to my to-done list.

I know I'm not alone in my overwhelm.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend, who was feeling less than productive. I asked if he had a clear to-do list, and he began to read it to me. The first item was a pressing document that had to be completed by the end of the day, and the second item was to organize his to-do list.

I had to laugh. It's true that in our world of overwhelm, we have to organize our organizing.

I want to try something different. I want to narrow my focus, and so I'm going to try a new tack.

I'm going to try to just do the one thing.

For the next weeks, I'm going to work on making sure to do the one thing that is most important that day. No matter what, I will commit to completing that one thing.

I'll have to choose one most important task, of course, and break it down to one piece that can be done in the time I have, and that takes some evaluating and ranking the things on the list.

Start by ranking on the "Urgent vs. Important" scale.

Time management expert Stephen Covey created the urgent/important matrix. Every task on our list can be ranked by these two criteria.

• Important and Urgent: Urgent tasks are asking for your immediate attention. Things that are both urgent and important could be a crying infant, a report for a major client that is due tomorrow, or dealing with the computer virus that just crashed your computer.
• Important but Not Urgent: Things that are important but not urgent might include writing the copy for your new website, working out, or doing the research for finding a new job. These are often the things that we keep pushing to the back burner until they become urgent, leaving us scrambling to get them done.
• Urgent and Not Important: Tasks that are urgent but not important could include your ringing telephone, the coworker dropping by to ask you a question, and the new batch of emails in your in box. These are the things that eat up our time, and when the end of the day rolls around, we wonder how we could have been so busy and not gotten anything important done.
• Not Urgent and Not Important: And last, and definitely least, are tasks that many of us spend far too much time on: things that are neither urgent nor important. This might include doing that online survey for your credit card company, watching that viral YouTube video and cleaning an already-pretty-clean house.

Using this matrix, rank the things on your to-do list.

First, rank by importance. Mark each item and whether or not it's important to you in the greater scope of your life. Does doing this thing move you closer to your life and career goals? Is it something that, if it's not done, will have a negative affect? Is it really a priority?

Next, rank it by urgency. Does this need to be done today? Are there people waiting for it, or will something bad happen if it doesn't get done as soon as possible?

Now choose the one thing.

From the items on your list that are both important and urgent, select the one thing you want to accomplish today. If it's too big to get done in the time you have today, define a part of it that can be done. Getting this one thing done is now your primary focus, so set the other things aside.

Protect yourself from the "urgent but not important" interruptions. Turn your phone off and let every call roll to voicemail. Close your email and anything you don't need in order to accomplish your one thing. Clear your desk, and your computer desktop, so your one thing is the only thing you see.

Now, do it.

I know, getting one thing done in a day doesn't seem like enough. But if we choose the one thing that is important to us, and is the most urgent next thing on our list, and actually do it, then we create momentum and a sense of accomplishment.

And once you check that item off, then you're ready to do the next one thing, and then the next.

And at the end of the day, you have the knowledge that while you couldn't get everything done (and who could?), you got the one most important thing accomplished. Bravo!

More on getting the most out of your time:

• The Power of No: The Most Important Word in Your Career
• 10 Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time
• 7 Things to Stop Doing at Work