Quickly and simply:

At the beginning of each day, take five minutes to decide on three things that you intend to accomplish that day.

I came across this tip today while listening to the latest episode of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast. The pertinent part of the conversation lasts less than seven minutes. It goes from 24:32 through 31:30 and is well worth a listen.

Three Daily Intentions

I like this tip – it totally makes sense, and it's easy to try. If it doesn't work, I won't have wasted too much time.

The idea when picking these “intentions” is that instead of focusing on tasks, you focus on goals and accomplishments. Having a list of things to do is great, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're getting any closer to your goals. Listing your intents helps you get there.

This is a daily exercise in productivity versus efficiency, accomplishments versus tasks. It helps to achieve mindfulness of the work you are doing and avoid being busy without getting anything done.

Weekly Intentions

This idea can then be built into a weekly thing. Generally, though not always, the daily intentions help build up the weekly intentions. Naturally, your goals for the week will tend to be bigger and require more time than your daily goals.

Quick and Easy

Spending just five minutes a day making this quick list sounds like it can really help. I'm going to try it for at least the rest of the month.

The Podcast and the Guest

I got this tip from one of the podcasts on my regular playlist. Startups for the Rest of Us is usually hosted by two people and they usually discuss things that come up during the day-to-day management of their online businesses. (I wouldn't classify their businesses as “traditional” startups.)

In this episode, only Rob Walling is present to interview the guest, Chris Bailey. Chris is the author of The Productivity Project a book wherein he describes a year spent trying out many different productivity tips to see just how well they actually work.

His blog looks pretty cool, I'm going to start following it. I'll decide if I want to buy and read the book sometime later on.