Eliminate All But the Absolute Essential Tasks

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

Recently I posted my new twist on the excellent GTD system, Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System. This is the eighth in a series of posts exploring each of the 10 Habits.

If you’re like me, you have a long list of tasks to do, perhaps broken down by different contexts (work, home, errands, calls, etc.). Your list of tasks is so long that it’s overwhelming. You can never completely wipe out your list because it’s growing every day.

Simplify your list down to the barest of essentials, and you can eliminate the need for complex planning systems.

The long to-do lists are one of the problems of GTD, which as I’ve said before, is an excellent system. But it does no prioritizing, and everything is added to your lists. In the end, it’s overwhelming, and you are left extremely busy, trying to knock off all your tasks.

Today we’ll look at ZTD Habit 8: Simplify - reduce your goals & tasks to the essentials.

GTD Software List & GTD Calendar!

Two blogger friends of mine have put out a couple of great GTD resources I thought I’d share with you all:

HD Biz Blog: GTD planner pages

Life Learning Today: Cool GTD Applications - Ultimate Resource List

Check them out and give Stephen and Agent Sully some feedback!

Refresh Your Focus Every Week to Achieve More

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

Recently I posted my new twist on the excellent GTD system, Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System. This is the seventh in a series of posts exploring each of the 10 Habits.

Let’s face it: even the best of us loses track of things over time, and loses focus on our goals, and let’s the best-planned system fall apart a little. With a busy workweek, and a busy life outside of work, the best systems tend to gravitate toward chaos.

That’s where the Weekly Review comes in — it gives you a chance to get things together and refocus yourself on what’s important.

But today we’re going to look at how to tap into the power of the Weekly Review in as little time as possible — the Simplified Weekly Review.

The Showdown: Simple*ology vs. GTD

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

Reader Dave Mauder wrote to ask for my take on Mark Joyner’s Simple*ology vs. David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD). Today we’ll watch the two systems go head-to-head and see which one emerges the winner.

Spoiler: I cheat at the end of this.

Simple*ology: A Brief Overview
I’d read about Simple*ology before, but hadn’t actually seen the details until Dave sent me some of the info — the problem is that you have to register in order to find out anything about the system beyond platitudes. But having read about it, I have to say that there are some good concepts there — even if they are not new and are actually borrowed from age-old personal development concepts.

Massive GTD Resource List

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

My tribute to all the GTD junkies out there (a group that includes me) — a massive list of GTD stuff. It’s far from comprehensive, but who can be comprehensive on a topic this huge?

Got other stuff to add in the list? Let us know in the comments.

The Books

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
• Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, by David Allen
• Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, by Gina Trapani