Productivity: Create a Focus for the Week

Our to do lists will always grow and they’ll never be done.

Procrastination destroys productivity. The most effective way to get started on outcomes you see as important is to create a weekly focus or theme. For example, my focus for this week is to create chunks of time where I don’t have work to do (I feel a bit too busy these days and slightly overworked, so my focus reflects that). Our to do lists will always grow and they’ll never be done. The inbox will continue to fill. Our dishes are dirtied every day. Pushing the boulder uphill feels more sustainable if we center the week around one central theme or focus. Intentionally planning allows us to prioritize tasks that align with our focus and get the important things done first. If there’s time and energy, dig into the rest of the list. But keep things focused.

This is my method for staying together as a public school teacher, yoga trainer and instructor, small business owner, podcaster, writer, father and husband (writing that seemed crazy. To be sure, I’m not a productivity guru. I just have ADHD).

Rules for creating a weekly focus

Set your focus on Fridays. I learned this little tip from some random podcast a year or so ago. Many people feel anxious on Sunday evenings, aka Sunday Scaries (What an ugly phrase. Our culture churns out peculiarly alliterated phrases, most of which make me twinge when people use them). The tip is to take your Friday afternoon to set up your next week’s meetings, tasks, calls, etc. My addition to this protocol is to set a weekly focus/theme. Inevitably, junk will fall on your desk, things will get cancelled, projects will suffer entropy. A focus for the week will enable quicker decision making on whether something gets added to your week or gets punted until later.

Calendar focus-aligned tasks first, fill in the rest. To do things that matter, we must prioritize them. Don’t let your calendar fill with things that don’t align with your focus. I keep a list of projects I want to work on and the tasks associated with those projects; put those types of things into your calendar first. Let everything else fill in the gaps. Rocks, marbles, then sand. If you fill a jar with sand, you won’t be able to get anything in there. But if you put the rocks in first, the sand will fill into the gaps. It’s a metaphor. No big deal.

Let go of perfection. Note to people like me: avoid over-optimizing your life. The goal of increasing your productivity is not to get more done; it’s to find a way to pursue tasks you find productive or enriching. Work hacks should enable you to bring attention to the pursuits you find meaningful and productive, not get you better at sorting nonsense emails and condensing meetings into constant punchlines and action items.

Procrastination destroys productivity