During a bit from “Late Night With Seth Meyers” his cue card guy fumbled the cue cards and dropped them during a segment (it was part of the joke).  Without the cards showing him what to say Seth riffed and a not-so-on-point segment and laughs happened.  I thought “That’s what I feel like some days with my to-do list”.  Only it’s not as funny.

A couple days later while I was making “to-do” lists I thought about that again and something hit me.  LONG checklists are overwhelming and that’s what I was feeling looking at mine.  Even when I prioritized the top few things I needed to do I still had the rest of the list staring back at me.

SHIFTING FROM THE TO-DO LIST

I put my to-do list away. I pulled a 3×5 card out of my desk and wrote the top 3 things I NEEDED to get done.  Three things with purpose, not random tasks.  Each thing could be accomplished in less than 30 minutes; often a lot less. Until those three things were done I could do nothing else.  As I finished them I crossed them off and when they were accomplished I took out another 3×5 card for the next group and so on.   I was creating cue cards for my day.

Something amazing happened.  Focus!  I was only looking at those three things and couldn’t do anything else until they were done.  I stopped my email from downloading, turned off social media alerts, text alerts and all other distractions.  In between cue cards I checked messages.  Then I wrote my next cue card.

KEY POINT: I didn’t start with a deck of 20 cue cards pre-written; that’s just a version of a list.  I gave myself flexibility and wrote one cue card at a time. If an important email came in between cards the first thing on my next card could relate to that email.  I gave myself no constraints outside of accomplishing tasks that needed to get done and would move my projects forward.  No distracting tasks could be listed.

I got more done that morning – and by that I mean more IMPORTANT things done – than I might have gotten to all day.

WHY CUE CARDS?

Think about a show that uses cue cards for the people on stage.  They NEED to read them in order, one at a time.  If the cue cards get mixed up or dropped things get jumbled and structure is lost.  They could forget what to say altogether and go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the dialogue they were supposed to have.  Cue cards let them focus on a few words and key points at a time; they don’t have a 10-foot scroll with their whole dialogue on it in front of them for a reason.  They can be completely in the moment and focus.

The same is true for tasks.  If you don’t have SOME method to your madness chaos rules and you go on tangents.  Even if you prioritize tasks on a long list you’re still looking at everything on the list (distracting, right?) and you probably find things to do in between the tasks (I know I do).  When you’re only looking at three things at once you have some focus.   You’re living in the moment.

ONE MORE THING

There’s another thing.  Cue cards are fun.  Just the thought of having cue cards for my day made me smile.  Give it a shot today.