How I Get Massive Amounts of Sh*t done

Very interesting system! I have one day off my day job to do my creative "full-time artist" stuff at home, and on that day I make like I'm going to my day job so that I get more things done. I get dressed- even put on my shoes- and keep a time sheet of the things that I accomplish so that I'm holding myself accountable for every minute of the day!

I find that when I just work from a todo list, I get to the urgent put out the fire stuff but don't get to the important stuff that doesn't have an external deadline.  So, I work first to lay out my week into time blocks by category of activity:

For Example - work categories would be: Creativity, Marketing/Sales, Admin, Fulfillment, Vision/Planning

- Which I teach in the Business Management for the Creative Mind class at http://artists-edge.com/products/invest-in-success/

And then I'll use the todo list by category.  Which allows me to focus in on only the activities for this time block and keeps me from getting completely overwhelmed - which I totally would if all I did was look at the WHOLE to do list.But I like the priority and time estimate - so I'm going to add that to the to todo list - which will make me better pick which actions go into which time block.

Thanks Sean!

Thanks Sean – that's a great way of getting through things – thanks for sharing.

I also use www.actionmethod.com – I really like the philosophy of all our projects being broken down into action steps, which can then be applied to the 'Sean Malarkey Method'.

I hope all is well with you Sean – I really appreciate your constant encouragement and innovation.

Great tips and great comments. Have to come back to this page today!

Write down 5 top items "Must Dos' for the day.

Make sure the fit with the weekly goal.

Stop trying to put too much stuff into a daily To-do List. 

Better to do 5 then trying and failing at 20 items.

I use either a dry erase board with my list written down, or a little post it that I can carry around daily. It works great because I can just cross it off when i'm done. 

Haven't watched your video but here are my tips (not that they always work or anything so take with a grain of salt ;)

- LIst 1-3 big items and a few small items on a post it note (must fit or you don't include)

- Use ActionMethod.com or Simpleology (I use them both but find Simpleology more useful these days)

- Don't fear success and don't strive for perfection...just do it (the latter often cripples me)

- Read Allen's Getting Things Done

Mike Corso

Teaching Kids to Blog

kidmoguls.com

P.S. Sean--you rock.

Just a quick note on a tip \i learned from an online organizer from the DOS days!!! Do the A B C  thing, but then forget B and C. Do the A's.... B's and C's are frequetly wishful thinking. Do the must do's.  When the others become A's, then they'll get done too.

Also, never put something on a list twice. Do the A's today. Take the B's and C's and schedule them individually on your calendar. Don;t look at them until then. Then do them that day that they are scheduled for.  Too much time is often taken up constantly kicking yourself for not getting such a big list done, and it appears overwhelming. Spread them out and they can be managed better.

What I find really helps when making a list like that is to use a spreadsheet like Excel. It totals up the number of hours for me, tallys up the tasks and I use a "completed" column to keep track of my conquests. Not useful for everyday, but it's great for crunch weeks.

Doesn't doing lists of you're work and thinking about work right before you go to bed keep you up late thinking about work? Don't you need to unwind a bit before going to bed?

Testing for Thank me later. I will read this post later because I have tons of SH*T that needs to get done!

One of my favorite blog posts of all time of all bloggers!! Love it!!! I do many of those same things, was great confirmation for me! I have a few other things I do I will send you later, maybe they'll help or maybe you can add them for your followers! You RAWK! - Rona Davis, Rona the Big Mouth Word Warrior

I've tried doing this before, but I did it first thing in the morning and it always screwed up my momentum. Doing it the night before is brilliant. Will try that. Thanks!

Hey Dan, Thanks for the kudos. Be sure to do this at night, you will see a huge difference in your a.m. productivity if you do. One thing i do now is numer the letters by priority... example: A1 A2 A3 A4 B1 B2 etc.... That extra step helps as well to determine order...

Thank you Sean for the awesome video!! Just earlier today I was thinking about how I struggle to get my "to-do" list done sometimes. When I do not get it all done, I go to bed feeling guilty and frustrated. I will try your suggestions, and prioritize with classes of letters instead of numbers. Thanks for the tips!!

Sean, GREAT video! I absolutely rely on to do lists to get things done, especially big projects. If I don't use them, then I tend to spiral out of control & allow myself to get bombarded with other, often meaningless things. I also use Notepad (almost religiously), especially when I have killer ideas that I don't want to forget! Your tip about assigning a certain amount of time to each list sounds like a great idea, so I think I'm going to try that out for the to do lists I already have running... Again, great video... loved the other one on using Google docs as well! Celisse

Sean, this is exactly what I need, thank you so much for sharing it. I have started using google docs to create my to do lists, but some of your little hints are absolutely essential to making this work well for me. I also totally agree with you about doing the list the night before. I have alternated between doing my to do list the morning of, and the night before, and it works out so much better to do it at night, wake up, and know exactly what I need to accomplish. Thank you again for sharing.

doubling the time would definitely help me because of the occasional smoke break. Awesome bro...love it!

You need a VA!

You are the second highly productive successful internet marketer I've heard in two days indicate that they use notepad.. probably about time I opened good ole notepad, though it's almost midnight, falling asleep on my feet and so need to pull an all nighter to get all the stuff done I'm behind on. No.. notepad list, then alarm clock for tomorrow morning with notepad list open on my laptop..

Hey Sean Re-reading this post at exactly the right time for me!! I just wrote a post saying I intend to start using a plan and you have kept yours so simple, I will be implementing it straight away. Great stuff as always Sean! Thanks Sue

Sean, Great video! Never thought of adding the time and doubling it. Great suggestion! Would you consider putting this in excel to do the math for you? Thanks! Patricia

Hey Sean Love this video, I like your method.. and your squeaky laugh near the beginning LOL. I have so much planned for the next few weeks, I think ima give your little method a go and see how I get on ;) Thanks Cher

Aren't you a nice hubby including 'buy my wife flowers' on the list and as an A! I am a lover of lists and I agree it makes you feel like a rockstar once you have knocked off your tasks for the day! Great video :)

a to do what? jk,... my fav " buy my wife flowers " and second favorite " take the afternoon off and spend time with my family." Thats it right there baby,...

Sean,budgeting your time allows you to go back after the task is done and compare budgeted to actual. During the comparison, you can then determine what you did right and do it again, or why your actual was longer than your budget and fix from there. Always analyze and improve.

Great! Just re-tweeted this post!

Getting stuff done is the biggest challenge I hear from my clients, it is their biggest excuse! I also recommend David Allen's GTD, what I do is when something pops into my head I go to my Outlook tasks and write it down there, put a date on it if it can't be done is less than 2 mintutes and then every day I have a list that is prioritized and doesn't end up being so big that it is overwhelming. I also categorize them a bit differently, I categorize accoring to my meaningful objectives, those things get done first! Thanks for keeping the conversation going,

Really good site, where did you come up with the knowledge in this blog? I'm glad I found it though, ill be checking back soon to see what other articles you have.

Great video. I use a very similar system, but I have fallen in love with QuickFoxNotes (I have no affiliation). It's a Firefox plug-in that puts a multi-tab notebook in your browser. If you then use Xmarks, all the the notepages will be backed up and synchronized across your machines. Since I live inside my browser, I find it an incredible productivity tool. Cheers!

That is my formula...lol If you don't know what you have to get done, nothing will get done. Write it out in notepad and complete it for the day, makes life MUCH easier :)

Seems to me you spend massive amounts of time screwing around with your text file. Why don't you just use rememberthemilk.com or another task management app, online or otherwise? RTM allows you to categorize, prioritize, schedule, set up tasks by location, etc. Many others do also, I used to LOVE the task manager in the palm treo but now im on a Droid and RTM seems to be the best, although you have to pay for Droid access. The free website is very useful. Thanks for the info. DG

I've also had great success making a NOT to do list and also time blocking for 50 minute increments totally uninterupted and using the spare ten minutes to check email and texts before getting into another session

I have been coaching people to do this exact thing (include time estimations on your task list) for years. It really works because it eliminates the vagueness of a general task list. It brings the abstract into the concrete. Also, it forces you to get into reality about how much is on your plate, OR conversely, it also reinforces the fact that some things don't actually take as long as you think they will, especially if it's something you don't want to do. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to productivity is just mentally blowing tasks out of proportion so they feel a lot bigger than they really are. Using the time estimations eliminates that aspect. Great stuff! :o)

Loved the to do list video...I do a similar list but as I use a mac I have them on stickies on my desktop so I see it all day!

Thanks Sean for sharing, I have a similar to-do list that is a bit more general, 1. Projects that need to be done this week 2. Upcoming Projects 3. Wait on client feedback 4. Completed projects that need to be invoiced. I also like "buying wife flowers" has "A" next to it, I bet you make her day everyday!

Push up workout should be an 'A'

Great post Sean- Mantener la mano chulo fuerte! cheers

Great idea! I am going to try it, but I think I'll use a spreadsheet so I can sort the list by priority and add the estimated minutes more easily. I really like the idea of having the game plan for the day ready when I wake up. Thanks for sharing Sean.

Strong stuff, again, Sean. Keep it up.