How to Get More Done

Braden Kelley is an innovation and change specialist, the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, an InnovationExcellence.com co-Founder, and is the creator of the Change Planning Toolkit™ and a book on the best practices and next practices of organizational change (January 2016 release).

  Innovation   Schedule Management   Scheduling  

Most times, you'll see "What matters most?" posed as a question as people grapple with finding the meaning of life. That is not the case here. Instead, I would like to share with you my simple management philosophy that will help you be more successful in today's sometimes overwhelming, chaotic world of too many competing demands on your time. I will help you succeed on a whim! (Well, okay…a WMMM.)

Your success in this case comes from following the whim (or WMMM) of What Matters Most Management. It can be tailored for use in managing your time, a project, etc. For simplicity, we'll look at time management today by popular request (people ask me all the time how I manage to get so much done).

It involves quite simply making a quick inventory of all of the things that you could focus on today, or that you're being asked to focus on, and identifying three key things:

1. How big of an impact will completing this task have (high/medium/low)?
2. How big of an effort will it take to complete this task (high/medium/low)?
3. When will my energy be the best for completing this task (morning/afternoon/evening)?

This daily inventory of tasks can be done in your head or on paper, depending on how detail oriented you are. After you have your mental or written list, then plan your day--prioritizing any tasks with a low-effort/high-impact …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.