✌️ How To Get More Done in Less Time? Try This Productivity Hack!

In this week's issue, I’m going to teach you a quick productivity hack to help you get more done.

It’s super stressful trying to remember AND juggle everything you have to do on a daily basis.

-Send this email

-Call this prospect

-Pick up the kids at 4

-Fertilize the yard

-Finish the PPT

…and the list goes on.

And the issue is that most people don’t have a systematized approach to managing the day-to-day chaos.

They:

✍️ Physically write them down

📲 Add them to their phone

📅 Put them on calendars

📧 Send emails to remind themselves

🧠 Or worst of all - try and remember them all

If this 👆 is you and you want to learn a better way. Keep reading.

*Important note - I’ll be showing this strategy using Google tasks, but you can use this strategy with any digital task/productivity tool.

Using the "CORE" Strategy

The CORE strategy is a simplified/modified version based on David Allen's Book Getting Things Done.

C - Capture

"Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them” - David Allen

How many times have you had a great idea, but you couldn’t remember OR forgot where you wrote it down?

This used to happen to me all the time and would drive me nuts.

This is why you need a centralized place to capture your thoughts, ideas and to-do's.

When an idea, thought, or to-do comes up immediately capture it in a digital workspace. 

Don’t worry about times, dates, priorities, etc. just yet.

Just capture it and get it out of that pretty lil' brain of yours.

O - Organize

The next step is to add context or organize where the task belongs.

Ask yourself: Is this a task for work, home, a hobby, or something you need to delegate? Is it a priority to do now?

This is where you can also add dates, times, descriptions, star it for priority, etc.

This allows you to further organize your thoughts.

You can do this by creating “Lists” and then assigning the tasks to their respective list. This will empty and declutter your main "capture" inbox.

R - Review

Now that your tasks are categorized, the next step is to make a habit of reviewing your lists to see what needs to be added, removed, re-categorized, or completed.

I do this daily, however, you may have some tasks that would fall into a "someday maybe" list. (ex. trip to Switzerland) which are better reviewed monthly or quarterly.

Pro-tip: You can automate review reminders AS WELL as any other recurring tasks. (ex. change air filters, change car oil, schedule date, call parents, change contacts, etc.)

Life is busy...Automate as much as possible to declutter your brain & make more space for creativity.

Here's how 👇

E - Execute

Nothing feels better than checking something off your list.

You've freed up brain space by capturing everything the second it pops into your head.

You've organized your ideas to understand where to focus.

You’ve reviewed them for priority and now it’s time to execute.

TL;DR

• Capture all your thoughts (digitally)

• Organize them into categories to bring focus

• Review them frequently - automate where you can

• Execute what’s on your list and enjoy the sweet, sweet productivity.

Google tasks are a great place to start with this strategy and are super easy to implement. I've since built out a full productivity system in Notion to track goals, projects, tasks, habits, resources, notes, etc. Here's a quick glimpse of the capture inbox and habit tracker. I'll probably go more in-depth in future articles.

If you liked this article, please share and subscribe below. I drop one weekly. And let’s connect. ✌️