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One of my favorite time management and prioritization techniques for becoming more productive is “The Rule of 3.” We all have a lot of stuff to tackle every day: reports to write, meetings to attend, and emails to catch up on. With so much on the go, it can be challenging to figure out what to focus on in the first place.
The Rule of 3 has helped me immensely in prioritizing what's on my plate. It's not only my favorite prioritization ritual—it is also one of the simplest productivity rituals in existence. The rule is simple:
- First, write down three things you want to accomplish today.
- Second, write three things you want to accomplish this week.
- Third, write three things you want to achieve this year.
That's it.
As time goes on, update your priorities. Define new ones each day—while reviewing your weekly and yearly ones, ensuring they flow into one another.
The benefits of the ritual are manifold:
- It helps you understand your daily capacity for productivity. At first, you'll dramatically over and underestimate how much capacity you have to get stuff done. But, over time, you'll build more awareness of this. This skill develops automatically as you invest in the rule.
- You choose what not to do. If you had to list your current work priorities, you'd probably have a lot more than three. The power of the rule is you will have to be ruthless with what you focus on—you can only choose three main priorities each day, week, and year. This makes the rule a forcing function for prioritization.
- It works at work and home. Most days, I set three intentions at work and three at home. This way, I can decide how much I want to accomplish across my life's different contexts.
- You'll remember what's important. You likely won't remember a laundry list of things to get done. But chances are you'll remember three important things.
- You'll work more deliberately. Intentionality lives at the heart of becoming more productive. The rule lets you connect with it.
Above any other benefit, though, the most powerful feature of the rule is that it only takes a few minutes every day. Planning out your day is essential. But as I've written, planning more doesn't always make us more productive—and we can sometimes even use productivity advice to procrastinate. Fortunately for us, though, the Rule of 3 is in a league all of its own for working more deliberately. You'll make back the time you spend on the ritual many times over.
Give The Rule of 3 a shot. I think you'll be surprised by how well it works.
