Ludwig. Conquer procrastination. How to stop putting things off until tomorrow (tools from the book)

One of the most practical books on time management. Helps in the fight against procrastination and in making more worthwhile use of your time. I recommend you read it and put it into practice!

Base

Procrastination is not laziness, but the inability to force oneself to take necessary or desired actions. It has always been there, but with today's increased choice, it has become even more common. It is difficult to cope with without special tools. Below I will tell you about the three most valuable, from my point of view, tools, but before implementing them, it is important to understand the motivation. Understanding the finitude of life helps a lot with this).

Tool 1. “Do it today”

The author recommends creating 4 documents or sheets/notebooks:

— A diary is simply a diary or calendar with meetings and events planned for a specific time (I personally keep it in Google calendar)

— Ideas — there we write down all the ideas that come to mind and are worth recording (I use a Google document, but I know many people like Notion for this)

— To do — a general list of tasks (I have a separate group for this in the TG, in which only I am a member)

– “To do today” – a sheet with a to-do plan for the day. I’ll tell you more about how to use it:

We look at the To Do list, selecting tasks for today from it
On a separate sheet of paper we write tasks for today, crossing them off from the To Do list. We divide large tasks into smaller ones, and we combine small ones (so that each item takes 30-90 minutes), adding the time for completing each task. It is convenient to write in the form of circles connected by arrows in the form of a path. Sample not picture
After completing a task, we cross it off the To Do Today list. If one of the tasks could not be dealt with during the day, we write it back to the To Do list. Optional – you don’t have to end your work day until you’ve completed all the tasks.

Tool 2. “Hamster Reboot”

The basis of discipline is self-regulation. It depends on the cognitive resource. The tool consists of training the ability to notice the depletion of a cognitive resource (the “Hamster” state) and, noticing, take specific actions to update your state. Here are some response tools:

— A break (preferably an active one) and the realization that you can influence your condition

— Orientation of thoughts towards a positive future

– Focusing thoughts on the positive past, such as writing down three positive things that happened during the day

— Focus on specific tasks that need to be done now (make a list)

Tool 3. “Drill list”

This is a tool for more focused work on developing your skills and habits.

Operating procedure:

— Selecting skills and/or habits to work on for a month

— Draw or print a table, where each line corresponds to days, and the columns correspond to positive skills or negative habits that you want to work on. There must be a limit for each item (example below)

— Every evening (although I do it in the morning) we fill it out, indicating what has been completed with a green circle, and what has not been completed with a red circle, and in the last column, rating from 1 to 10 the level of potential use during the day.

If you see a lot of red dots in a row. Draw a bold line, forgive yourself and move on

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Other books on the topic:

Clergy. Atomic Habits (here is the synopsis of this bookI recommend)
Curry. Genius mode. Daily routine of great people (summary here)
Allen. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Makovich. You. Step by step guide
Dorofeev. Jedi techniques. How to raise your monkey, empty your inbox and save your mental fuel
Covey. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People