photo credit: tracyhunter

After my post last week, I carefully considered both of the productivity courses I was thinking of taking… and decided to go with “neither.” Why? Because realistically, I already know most of what I need to do and am not doing it, so I think it would be a mistake to spend money on something else at this point.

One of the great things both of those programs offer, though, is daily encouragement. I’m sure the creators of both programs would counter my reasoning for not enrolling with something like, “Everyone struggles with not doing what they know they should do—my program helps you take action with daily motivation!”

So I’m looking to replicate that—on the cheap. Fortunately, I have a few good ideas. They’re a combination of tools, carrot, and stick (though maybe I should say “chocolate” instead of “carrot,” since I don’t actually like carrots… ooh, or “carrot cake”! ).

• The tool: I have a bunch of motivational podcasts that I’m already subscribed to. I enjoy them when I listen to them, and it would be a great start to each day to just hit play on one.
• The carrot cake: Leo (the Zen To Done guy) recommends rewards, and lots of them early on. I will give myself a small reward each day I hit my targets.
• The stick: I’m posting my plan here, and you’ll all know if I don’t do it. I’m also committing to posting a daily update for the next three weeks (sorry, might be boring reading for you, but I know from experience that public commitment motivates me).

A successful day

So the question is, what am I shooting for each day? I’ve made a specific list (because specific = finite = I know when I’m done!).

• I will start by listening to a motivational podcast. I’m resisting this one a little because it seems kind of frivolous (“why don’t you just get down to work?!?”), but I know that I am more likely to actually get down to work after I feel motivated.
• My first task will be to decide on two or three “most important tasks” (Leo calls these MITs). These are the tasks that matter most for one reason or another; they might be urgent, or they might relieve some particular stress, or they might further a developing business idea. But absolutely no more than three per day—otherwise it’s just not realistic.
• Accountability kicks in when I post the daily plan on this blog. This will probably be a very short post—just a list of my MITs, my reward for success, and any random thoughts that crop up as part of the process. I’ll put them all in the “Daily Check-In” category so that you can skip them easily if you aren’t interested.
• In addition to doing a few things right, I also need to break some unproductive habits. Consequently, I won’t check email or Twitter until at least one MIT is done. And I won’t check it again until all MITs are done.
• For the next three weeks, my specific “good habit” I’m developing is the “Process” habit. That means that my daily target will be to process all new email that comes in each day, plus five older emails (because I’ve got to get through that backlog somehow!). That doesn’t mean that I’ll complete the tasks contained in every email, just that I’ll process them, get them on the appropriate list, and stop using my inbox as a to-do list.
• Once I complete the previous items on this list, I will update the morning’s blog post with a comment.
• Finally, I will turn off my Mac before going to bed. Besides the benefit to the electric bill + environment, this means I will have to put everything away—save files, bookmark sites, etc. The morning will be much nicer with a clean slate.

Today’s plan

I thought of doing a second post for this but it seemed silly.

Most Important Tasks

• Finish the back-end design for my upcoming blogging course
• Record a video walk-through for a client
• Record my first video for the blogging course

The reward

If I get my day wrapped up by 4pm, I’ll take off early (to the living room!) and give myself some time alone with my new John Grisham novel.

photo credit: timtom.ch

I was up early this morning with heartburn (completely new to me courtesy of pregnancy; I’d never encountered it before last week, so I can only be so whiny ) and decided it was finally time to buy the Zen To Done ebook.

I’ve been wanting it for months and am starting to feel the crunch with the impending arrival of our son, so it seemed like a good way to spend my “bonus” waking hours.

I’ve just finished reading it, and the piece of advice that really caught my attention was the repeated caution to only try to adopt one or maybe two of the 10 recommended habits at one time. Ideally I should focus on just one for at least 30 days.

It’s probably good that Leo repeated it so many times. Maybe it will help me actually do it! Focus is probably my number one challenge in every area of my life. I have diverse interests and love starting things, and then forget about all the things I’m already doing. I think I’m his exact target reader.

So that leaves me with two immediate decisions.

First, which of his habits to start with… I feel like I’m in desperate need of most of them right away, but that’s not realistic. So I’m going to spend the next 30 days focusing on the “Process” habit. Leo sums it up like this:

Habit: make quick decisions on things in your inbox, do not put them off. Letting stuff pile up is procrastinating on making decisions. Process your inboxes (email, physical, voicemail, notebook) at least once a day, and more frequently if needed. When you process, do it from the top down, making a decision on each item: do it (if it takes 2 minutes or less), trash it, delegate it, file it, or put it on your to-do list or calendar to do later.

This seems like a great place to start because one of my worst habits (productivity-wise) is letting everything pile up, particularly in my email.

If I start to deal with everything promptly, I expect that at least a few of the other habits will start to take care of themselves. For instance, if I deal with email immediately and am forced to say “yes” or “no” to new projects, that probably will help with the “Simplify” habit.

The second decision is about two productivity courses launching this week that I really would like to sign up for. One is called the 100 Day Challenge—it starts today and goes until December 31, 100 days away, and costs $97. The other is Wake Up Productive—it starts next Monday and runs for 90 days, so essentially the same time-frame, and costs $297.

Both courses include daily content and assignments. I’ve watched sample content from both and they both look like very high quality programs, which makes it both hard to choose and imperitive that I do—I want to get the most out of them, and I don’t think I can do that if I split my attention between them.

They’re both time-based, so I likely will only do one unless they’re repeated. Wake Up Productive seems more likely to be repeated, since the “draw” of the 100 Day Challenge is accomplishing specific goals before the end of 2008.

I’ve never purchased anything from either “guru” so no bias there… My business cash flow is tight, and I definitely need to get things in order before the baby is born, so should I decide strictly based on price? What do you think?