What dropped my productivity by 75%?

We all have our own methods of keeping to-do lists. I’m currently using a planning framework from The 12 Week Year. We won’t get into the full framework right now. All you need to know is that I plan each week at the beginning of the week. I look at my goals and figure out what needs to be done that week. Then, at the end of the week, I assess how much of it I’ve completed. This allows me to diagnose any potential issues in execution (e.g., too much social time, too much Netflix).

Most weeks, I complete about 60% of my tasks on average. After all, you should push yourself. Here’s a rare, near-perfect week:

However, for two weeks, my productivity took a serious nosedive.

I didn’t notice how bad it was until I joined my weekly accountability call. It was bewildering to discover that I had only accomplished 15% of my tasks—a 75% reduction!

What did I spend my time doing? Looking back on the week, I still felt like I applied myself. Yet, the numbers don’t lie. I’ve empirically fucked up.

First of all, just because you feel productive doesn’t mean you are.

The whole point of planning is to highlight what MUST get done versus what could be done. It’s you revealing to yourself what’s most important. Everything else is usually a distraction.

So what happened? What could’ve broken down in my execution? As I said, each week I list out all the must-do’s. But I skipped the all-too-important step of putting them in my calendar.

If it’s not in my calendar, I’ll totally forget to do it. No shit things didn’t get done.

Scheduling takes 5-7 minutes max—a small effort that drives a critical outcome.

5-7 minutes is the difference between making progress and standing still.

A track for summertime flow - Cinnamon by SunSqaubi

That’s it for this week!

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