Pick your Big 3: the three tasks that make a day a win
A long list is honest, but it is a bad plan. If every item has the same weight, the easy ones get done first and the important one is still open at 6 pm.
The Big 3 method fixes that with one rule: before the day starts, choose at most three tasks that would make it a good day if nothing else got done. Everything else is a bonus.
Why three
- It is small enough to finish. A day with three finished things feels finished.
- It is large enough to matter. One task is fragile (one meeting over-run ends the day); three leaves room for bad luck.
- It forces a choice. You cannot pick three without deciding what is not important today.
How to choose
Ask of each candidate, in this order:
- Is something waiting on this? A person, a deadline, a payment.
- Will it still matter next week? Prefer the task that moves a goal over the one that merely clears a notification.
- Is it the one I keep avoiding? If yes, it probably belongs on the list.
Mix sizes. One big task, one medium, one small gives you a win early and a finish line late.
Choose the night before
Choosing in the morning means choosing while the inbox is already shouting. Pick tomorrow's three in the evening, when you can see what you did and did not finish today. In the morning there is nothing to decide: you start.
Give each pick a first step
"Prepare the investor deck" is a project. "Start from the pricing slide" is something you can begin. A single concrete first step removes the friction of starting, which is the actual obstacle for most avoided tasks.
Protect them with time
Three tasks do not get done because they are on a list; they get done because they have a place in the day. Put the Big 3 into the free hours between your meetings first, then fit everything else around them.
In Dayward
Mark up to three tasks as today's Big 3. They sit at the top of Today, and in the evening Dayward asks for tomorrow's three so the morning starts with them. Each pick can have steps, and you choose which step is today's focus. The Today screen shows how many of the three are done.
Read next: How to plan your day around your meetings
All articles · Dayward · Privacy · Terms
The Cortex Solution blog