Two Number One Priorities

As I was walking into a production facility, a co-worker pointed to the message board near the entrance which read “customer satisfaction and employee safety are our #1 priority”. He asked me “Rod, how can we have two number one priorities”. I chuckled and went to my workstation. After thinking about it for a while, I laughed. I realized you can't have two number one priorities. This would later be part of a productivity hack which I use very effectively every day.

Fast forward a few years to a period when I began working from a daily To Do list. Every morning I look at all the tasks required for a given day and organize them in the priority that best matches my energy level. I then work on my daily To Do list from top to bottom.

When thoughts enter my head about working on other tasks I'm tempted to task switch. Very quickly I say to myself ”Rod you're working on the right task at the right time. This is your number one priority, and you can’t have two number one priorities.” With confidence I can resist the urge to task switch and stay focused on the task at hand. Over the years repeating this simple mantra has proven to have a huge impact on my productivity.

I highly recommend researching task switching and the benefits of working from a daily To Do List. Two of my favorite task management applications are Microsoft To Do and Google Tasks.