In the last year, I’ve found that planning and task management is critical to my success as an entrepreneur. Of course it is! I knew that before, but the last year has really helped me come up with a great set of tips for motivation and efficient productivity.

I use a blend of three sources for my motivation, productivity and planning methods. First, I use David Allen’s “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” with modifications proposed by Zen Habits, to manage my enormous-but-well-organized task lists. Second, I blend in the experienced and curmudgeonly advice of Dan Kennedy from his book “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs (No B.S. Series)” .

The combination works wonderfully for me.

I start every week with a planning period of 30-45 minutes, where I review all my projects and adjust due dates. I resisted due dates for a long time, since they are not officially GTD approved, but taking DK’s advice, I started emphasizing them again, with the result that I feel much more in control.

During the weekly planning, I set 4 or 5 “Must Dos” for the week.

Every morning, first thing, I do the daily planning. This involves setting 3 Must Dos for the day, one of which has to be related to a long-term goal. Referring to my schedule, I write out a detailed schedule for the day, with no unscheduled time for the productive portion.

Then, throughout the day, I track how my time is actually spent. It rarely fully matches up, but that isn’t the point. The point is to get extremely good at estimating my time and how long tasks actually take.

Several of DK’s ideas from the “No B.S.” book have strongly impacted how I approach my daily productivity.

Firstly, I almost never answer the phone. I prefer to respond to voicemail via email, since it is more concise. If I am going to have a phone conversation, I try to limit the time allotted before the call is underway. “I have a meeting starting in xx minutes, so I’ll need to be off before then.”

I do not read my email at least until after lunch. To do so is to invite distraction during my peak productive hours.

When I do read my email, I read and process all of it, leaving a clean inbox. There is almost never a problem that arrives via email that can’t wait these few hours. If there is, it is probably because I’ve allowed a client to expect this level of service, and I have to learn to train the client better.

I do not attend meetings unless I am billing for them or unless I am convinced the project will make me at least $10,000. Meetings are a life and productivity killer.

If I do attend big meetings, I try to leave when my part is over.

On a monthly basis, I block out my time for the next month. This means filling my calendar with big blocks of time already allocated to projects or to daily disciplines such as writing or marketing. I do not lightly change these blocks of time. I’ve found this tip alone has increased my productivity by at least an hour a day, probably more.

The result of this focus on productivity, client management and task completion?

I no longer struggle to fit in productive time in the small sections of time afforded me between interruptions. It makes me enormously more effective, and possibly more important, happier. I don’t have to bite back a reflexive snap at someone who calls me just as I’m entering “flow” when writing or programming, because I just won’t answer the phone. Instead I enter the flow and really get some things done.

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