What lies at the heart of productivity is intentionality. Productivity is not about doing more and more and more, faster, faster, faster. It’s about doing the right things, deliberately, and with intention.

Chris Bailey, Becoming Better podcast host

Chris builds intentionality using the Rule of 3. On a daily and weekly basis, he picks the three most important tasks he has to do and focuses on them.

“You fast forward to the end of the day in your head. Ask yourself, By the time the day is done, what three main things I want to accomplish?

The toughest part is deciding what not to do.

Productivity is intentional
Productivity has to be intentional

Everyone has a ton of things they need to do daily. All these little things distract us from the main tasks in our life goals. Let’s say your goal at the moment is to lose weight. And you intend to accomplish that by walking 30 minutes daily. This has to be one of the 3 things you have to do daily and not sort the sugar into the appropriate jars because you think that is the right thing to do.

What I am trying to say is stop yourself from procrastinating on your major goal-oriented tasks by doing all those little meaningless tasks.

This was one of the main reasons I have been delayed in many of my projects. I tended to keep myself busy by spending my time on the little things which didn’t add value rather than focusing on getting the important tasks out of the way, as Stephen Covey teaches in his widely acclaimed book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Focus on the end goal. Identify the outcomes you want to achieve and work backwards. Break down the goal into manageable steps. Break down those steps further into monthly and weekly goals. Every day focus on getting the main task out of the way before working on the rest of the things. Be persistent. Be consistent.

Do this for one year and watch how much you’ve outpaced your peers.