A Better Way To Be Productive

3 min readOct 19, 2020

If you have ever gotten to the end of a week or even a day without accomplishing everything on your “to-do” list, then welcome to the club.

For many leaders, having tasks uncompleted can create a sense of failure in how productive we have been. Other tasks creep in each day throughout the week, claim a sense of immediacy or urgency and then take priority of our time. As a result, we feel like we’ve fallen short of our goals, and overwhelmed as well.

Years ago I started to change my productivity methods and came up with a more productive system. I would write what I wanted to accomplish, then make time on my calendar for the week for those items.

It was a great unlock for me and enabled me to feel more in control of my time and goals.

Over the weekend I discovered this article from The Next Web that supported the method I had adopted a while back, which prompted me to share this in more detail.

Each weekend I write down a few goals or tasks in each area of my life. I do this to spread myself around and touch each area of my life (spiritual, social, career, health, etc) and create more balance overall.

I only set a few tasks in each area as I know I can only accomplish so much. Doing this will give you the ability to see that you accomplished most if not all of your tasks and a greater feeling of satisfaction and control over your life and work.

Then I schedule those tasks to the days I want to spend time on them. Based on my workflow, I have set aside days to focus more on certain areas. For example, Thursdays typically tend to be time connecting with others, while Mondays are geared more towards extra work, Wednesdays financial planning, and so on.

For tasks like exercise and learning, I set consistent time daily to make those happen and guard against “time robbers” that will interrupt those and push them aside rather easily.

Once a schedule like this is complete, you will acquire a sense of planing and purpose far beyond the typical to-do list method.

And while legitimate urgencies will occur from time to time, this method will help keep you on track should a plan go awry. Which will happen occasionally.

One thing to keep in mind is being overly regimented and not allowing some flexibility in this process. Some items may take longer for various reasons. It’s also perfectly acceptable to block out portions of a day for catching up on emails, resting, or even to allow for creative thinking.

The main goal in this method is to help accomplish more and give yourself better control over the events that impact your days and weeks.

If you have struggled with feelings of being unproductive and having a lack of control on your days and weeks, try this method out. It is proving to be a better method over the to-do list.