3 Outcomes for Today

Photo by Hamed Saber

What are 3 great results for today?  That’s the question I ask to bootstrap my day.  As simple as it sounds, I find it’s the most effective way to cut through the fog each day.  There’s a lot of things I can do and there’s lots of activities I’ll be doing, but what are 3 great outcomes for today.  That’s it.

Example
Here’s an example of my 3 outcomes for one of my days right before I left for vacation::

• Ship Beta 2 of my new book (Application Architecture Guide 2.0)
• Publish a post announcement of the book Beta 1
• Draft of Designing Your Architecture

Great is relative.   Value is in the eye of the beholder.  if it’s for you, you have a lot of leeway.  If it’s for other people, your boss, … etc. then you should sanity check what they care about.

Why 3 things?  It forces me to prioritize among a sea of potential results.  Also, I can remember 3 things without writing them down, so throughout my day, I know what I’m working towards.   I can say it in the hall.

If you manage endless to do lists and work on a bunch of stuff but don’t actually get anything done, try focusing on 3 great results each day.  It works.

My Related Posts

• How To Do Tasks More Efficiently
• Solution-Focused Questions
• PRIEST for Well-Formed Outcomes
• The Zen of Results Free E-Book