10. Be slow to react to other people’s “urgent” requests. When someone else asks you for help, to do a project or to meet some other urgent need, practice saying “what’s your deadline on this? or when do you need this done?” Then schedule that day. Most people when asked one of those questions realize it’s not as urgent and will set a future date. That way, you can go back to working on one of your top 3 activities.
9. List your top 5-7 objectives for the day and break the list down to 3 - It’s good to get in the habit of making lists, it’s bad to make long lists. If you’ve got more than 5 items on your list, break it down to the top 3 things (you can always go back and edit in another task or two). But with a list of 20 things, how can you not be overwhelmed? 3 is a managable, magical number. Break your list down to 3. Anybody can do just three things right?
Check back on Monday for two more top 10 tips...
