Daily Short List

Daily Lists

When I am most productive, in my weekly review I block specific time periods where no meetings, telephone calls etc are booked and I have usually 3 specific files that are usually complicated and require a uninterrupted block of time to move forward.

I also may list another two or three items that are most important to do that week. All of the other work etc. flows around that.

Research, considering alternative solutions, drafting complicated documents require dedicated thought and reasoning time.
 
I have been doing early morning reviews for a while now -- creating a TODAY list. It has been even easier for me since I started using Things on both my Mac and my iPhone. Those are basically all items I mark with a "star" in the Next Actions list that I feel like I can accomplish TODAY. Not everything gets done, of course, but it is the first list I look at (before I look at Next) to decide what I should do next. The items roll over to the next 24 hours, so I can choose to decide the following morning whether to keep them in the TODAY list or whether to simply "un-star" them and leave them in the Next list as is. It is sort of my prioritization model except it is very simple. My items are either important (Next) or very important (TODAY).
 
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