The Meta Tasker - Productivity hacks

So many of us want to be more productive or efficient in what we do but we still continue to focus on doing the task (or imagine doing it: as procrastinators) and give little to no time to do a meta analysis of what tasks are in front of us. The point I want to convey is that the improvement of this small, overlooked step: Planning and organising tasks, can help us reach our productivity and efficiency goals . In this post, I would like to share with you, this process and the various steps involved in it.

First things first, what does a task mean in the context of this blog. A task is any activity one wants to do. Be it maintenance of your mind, body, soul, a chore, actual work, or improving a hobby. Now that that's out of the way, lets dive right into the meta-process.

The main stages would be:

• Listing the tasks
• Adding deadlines
• Sorting by priority
• Pruning the list
• Execution

List out all the tasks at hand

It so often happens that an event pops out of nowhere and you go attend to it. Once you are done with it, you might forget what else was planned for the day. This is where listing out tasks (big or small) on a paper, or an app helps. It not only helps you materialize your thoughts but also gives you a “TO-DO” list to fall back on, which decreases the amount of time spent in decision-making thus providing more time to do/act.

Add deadlines to each task

However you take it, some work needs more attention than others. They need to be done by time ‘X. Note this maximum permissible time (X) next to the tasks, aka add “deadlines” next to each task. This will add positive pressure on you, to get things done and put a leash on your procrastination. (If you want to go the extra mile, you can add the maximum amount of time you can allocate per task (2 hrs Task A, 30 min Task K), so that you can review it once all the tasks are done and learn something from it)

Prioritize and rearrange each tasks

Most of the time, even if we are capable of doing all the tasks, at the end of the day a few of them might be left. This could be because you have an unsorted task list.

Some tasks need more time and effort from your side than others, which roughly translates “ prioritize tasks” into “Make sure you give more time and effort to the task which demand more from you first than those which don't”

Prioritizing them could be as simple as sorting them by deadlines, however that is not the only method. You can ask yourself how a task would help you in achieving your goals (assuming everyone has a list of things in order of importance with respect to achieving their goals in life) you can then sort them again and make sure you don’t give things that matter a lower priority. This is mainly to ensure that if something unexpected occurs in the meantime, say you get tired, the higher priority ones have get the better share of your energy.

For example: if you have an assignment due by today afternoon, it makes complete sense to give it more priority than an assignment due in 3days.

Pruning the list

If one analyzes their day to day life, they come across many activities that feel like a waste of time or energy. ie: There are lot of activities in one's day to day tasks that can be either cut down or reduced

What exactly are these, well it's a highly personalised question but something that might help you is asking: "How will this task/activity affect me in a month's time". This helps you to cut down time from lower priority stuff and give it to the higher ones.

Execution

Now that you have a list in your hand, that you personally planned. What's stopping you from ticking them off! If you want to go a level further you can always make sure that the list is stuck in a place you see often. (Be it on your desk, the wall you keep staring at, or the home screen of your phone). It takes effort, sometimes things don't go the way you want, sometimes you might not feel like doing it, but showing up and doing it will make all the difference!

Hope this helps y’all improve your planning and help be a more productive one! If you have any such methods that help you I’d love to listen to it! Reach out via my social media handles or leave a note in the contact form. As always, Happy learning!