A Joosr Guide to… The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey

takeaways

Writing down a list of three tasks to complete each day will help you stay on top of your responsibilities.
It is best to complete your most difficult tasks during the time of day when you are at your most productive—your “Biological Prime Time.”
Free up mental space and increase your focus with a digital to-do list that you can add to throughout the day and organize in the evenings.
Stop allowing yourself to be distracted: turn off your notifications, keep your phone far away from you, and write any worries down as they occur—you can deal with these once you’ve finished your work.

implementing the “20-Second Rule.” This means keeping anything that might distract you at least 20 seconds away from yourself. Studies suggest that this is enough temporal distance to maintain focus and keep diversions at bay.

Finally, to ensure you’re working at optimum organizational levels, you can make separate notes for specific projects— whether this is a trip that needs to be planned, or a presentation that you’re prepping for. Again, this externalizes the information and also helps you to logically plan the next steps you need to take, so when it comes to actually sitting down and completing a project, you will work a lot more efficiently.

addition to a to-do list, it can also be helpful to have a “Waiting For” list. This can be anything from waiting for a package to be delivered, to an email response you’re expecting from a colleague.