One and only task for a day - The important one

One sure shot way to feel great at the end of every day!

Guys I thought I should share something that I tried and felt amazing. We are all busy people having many tasks to accomplish in a day. Most of us use may be our diaries to record the tasks. Some of us would be having online task managers like ANY.DO or Todoist or JIRA or any of the other task managers given to us by our organization. 

I use todoist may be as much as I use Evernote, if not a bit less. On a typical day, I have 10 tasks to be done. Most are work related, some are personal errands. Just like most of us, I am not able to finish all tasks and most get pushed to the next day, may be out of procrastination, may be for some genuine reason. It usually ends up adding to my frustration but I kinda got used to that frustration. 

Since the last 2 weeks, I have been trying something else and I felt amazing doing it.

What I did is, I identified ONE important, urgent task and prioritzed it as 'Priority 1'. All the other tasks were priority 2 or less irrespective of what the importance is. So my mind understands that as THE task of the day that deserved my full attention. I ensured that this task gets done whatever be the case.

I switched off the phone when I was performing this task. One of the days, I gave the phone to one of my associates and asked her to answer on my behalf and to assure the caller that I would call back after 2 hours. 

What I am trying to say is this - the last 2 weeks, I did one task with monomaniacal focus without being distracted at all. I have been benefitted in the following ways: 

1. That priority 1 task, I know, is being done to perfection. I ensure that It couldn’t be done better by me. No regrets because I am going all out on this task. 
2. I schedule the other important tasks to some other day. I commit also based on this schedule. 
3. Usually the Priority 1 task is something that if accomplished will make sense even 5 years down the line. Example - the Priority 1 task last Thursday was to train the people on some features of JIRA. I cannot even begin to fathom the positive impact that this will have for the years to come. 
4. Most importantly, at the end of the day, I have a sense of accomplishment just because I did Priority 1 task. My mind kind of got wired that way now. This sense of accomplishment, I believe, is very important for every individual. 

We are all sloggers, hard workers in some way or the other. Feeling bad at the end of the day, thinking the day was not fruitful enough, is hard on us, don’t you agree? Instead, if that feeling can be replaced with some excitement, or ecstasy if I may, wouldn’t life be beautiful? I think so; I did so and I vouch for it. Try it out and let me know as pm pls. You don’t need todoist or any fancy tool. Just a pen and paper...