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Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.
Keep both tools, and settle in advance where each thing goes. The deciding is what wears you out, so make that decision once instead of forty times a week.
The rule can be a single line inside the front cover: if it has a time, calendar; if it has a deadline but no time, list. Then writing things down…
Some things can only be done between nine and five, and those are the ones that quietly fail. Ring the bank, chase the appointment, sort the form: give those a time before anything else.
The failure is silent. You mean to do it all day, the office closes, and it rolls to tomorrow where the same thing happens again. Go through your…
Some jobs never move because they were never yours. Somebody else wanted them and you wrote them down to be kind.
You can usually spot one: the item that has been copied onto three different lists and never once started. The trouble is not that the work is hard.…
For the item that never gets done, make an actual decision: cross it off, or find a way to genuinely want it. Leaving it sitting there is the only option that costs you every single day.
Taking it on often works through a person rather than through the task. You may not care about the paperwork, but you care about whoever is waiting…
Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.
Saying no accurately depends on a calendar you actually keep. You cannot check whether Thursday is free if Thursday looks blank when it is not.
This is what makes the fiddly work of maintaining a diary worth doing. Nobody keeps a calendar for the pleasure of keeping one. You keep it so that…