I recently ran across this simple but effective web program: NowDoThis.com (found via Zen Habits). It's increased my productivity by helping me stay focused on my to do list tasks.
To use this program, follow these steps:
Click "edit list".
Enter your to do list with the most important activities on top.
Click "save".
Your top to do list item will show up.
Start working on it. Once you've finished it, click "done" and then the next item will show up.
Once you finish the to do list, you'll get the reward of seeing the "All done" screen :)
Why This Web App Works
The reason I like this web app is it only shows you one thing on your to do list. This helps you stay focused until you complete that task.
NowDoThis goes through your to do list in a certain order. This forces you to figure out which activities are the most important. You can also look at your activities in terms of return on investment, or ROI. (Read here and here for a discussion on ROI of different blogging activities.)
Part of my problem with to do lists is oftentimes I had a lot of things on my list. Glancing at the list would be intimidating. I would think "Wow, I have a lot of stuff to do. How will I finish it all?" But the important thing with productivity is just gettiing started. NowDoThis helps me get started without worrying about the other tasks on the list.
By the way, if you're like me and you open a lot of tabs while browsing the web, I would keep NowDoThis in a separate window by itself without other tabs. This technique helps me stay focused. When I didn't keep NowDoThis in a separate window, I would often forget about the task at hand. I would get distracted by all the tabs I had opened.
If you want to increase your productivity when you're on the computer, give this program a try. Also, please leave a comment and let me know how it works out for you.
This needs to be an igoogle
This needs to be an igoogle widget....I'd use the crap out of it if it was....
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