Productivity is a critical skill for achieving your goals in life and career, but it is also important because it can give you a sense of accomplishment and improve your sense of well-being. When you don't get all your tasks done, it's easy to feel depressed and disappointed in yourself, which doesn't help you get things done, let alone feel like you're thriving.
You should be happy. You need to be productive. Achieving a state of Zen can help you achieve both—or so goes the theory behind the Zen to Completion method, which aims to help you get more benefits and feel better about yourself. Unlike some other approaches to improve performanceit has less to do with strict deadlines and small details, and more to do with the desire to get things done and the feeling of satisfaction from a job well done. This makes it well suited for those who don't thrive under pressure.
What is Zen?
Zen to Done is a productivity system developed by Leo Babauta from Zen Habits. It's built around creating simple habits that will allow you to get your work done. And feel good about it. Other methods e.g. the once ubiquitous system of “Getting things in order”will get a bad rap for expecting you to develop all your new habits right away and adopt a whole new lifestyle immediately. This all-or-nothing change may work for some people, but it may not work for you. But ZTD is aimed at their gradual and peaceful construction. There is room to adapt and grow, which can be reassuring, especially if you have a lot of habits to change or are stuck in your ways.
Habit changes happen consistently, but one at a time, allowing you to focus on the real things. Job you need to finish. There are 10 habits in the original version of ZTD, but you should only try to implement two or three of them at a time before moving on to others.
What are your thoughts so far?
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Gather always making notes about what you need to do, your ideas, or changes to a task or project.
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Process making quick decisions on tasks that are in front of you right now, such as emails that may soon pile up.
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Plan by setting goals for the week every Monday and tackling larger goals at the beginning of the week.
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Do by choosing a task and focusing on it, without thinking about or doing anything else.
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Create simple trusted system what works for you, such as doing certain tasks at the same time every day or using email system such as 4Ds with consistency.
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Organize giving everything its place and putting it there every time. This includes email, the tools on your desk, and anything else that clutters your mind or space.
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Review your weekly goals at the end of the week, but also keep track of your long-term quarterly or yearly goals to keep them in mind and see how your daily work affects them.
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Simplify using review time to divide your goals and objectives into only what is most important at any given time.
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Do routine this will suit you, whether it's a more relaxed morning routine or a more structured evening – and be sure to stick to it.
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Find your passion and make sure it guides your work. This is where ZTD differs from other productivity methods: you should always strive to keep what you care about at the center of what you do, as a reminder of why you're working so hard, or as a check on whether a project is really worth it all.
Over the past year I have adopted several of these changes: gather (and, as a consequence, plan), plus process And organize. I was looking for financial growth and getting more organized, but I knew that neither of these things would happen overnight, so I started writing down “to-dos” as they came to mind. I put them in a note on my phone, reorganize the note every Monday and check it every morning to see what I can do, and then immediately move on to the things that are achievable in the moment. The other day I noticed that my fan was dirty, but I didn't have time to clean it, so I wrote a “clean the fan” note on my phone and was able to follow up on it the next day without stress. Making changes and completing tasks incrementally this way has resulted in major financial wins and a much cleaner, more organized home. This is a far cry from how things were in the past, when I put too much pressure on myself to change immediately.
Get started with Minimalist ZTD
This all sounds like a lot—and it is, even though you're supposed to start building just one habit at a time. So, back up a bit: Babauta considers the first four (collect, process, plan and execute) to be the core of the Minimalist ZTD program and advises choosing one and focusing on it for 30 days. After a month, you will get used to using this approach in your work and can move on to one of the other three. And once the top four items are firmly ingrained in your habits, you can move on to the full list.
