I love this:

QUALITY vs quantity, UX process.
Check email ONLY:

• 10AM
• 1PM
• 4PM

Send any time
Set email to check every 3 hours.
NO email on evenings.
NO email on weekends.
EMERGENCY? = Use phone.

FOCUS 1-3 Activities max/day
LOG 1-3 Succinct status bullets every day on team wiki

MINIMIZE chat
MAXIMIZE single-tasking

OUT by 5:30PM
~No excuses~

I’ve been trying to live by many of these principles at work for the last few months. The highlights:

• Turn off email notifications and minimize the number of times I check email each day.
• I purchased the large size, hard cover Moleskine daily diary. Each day I list 3 work to-dos (max of 5, no excuses!), in order of priority at the top of each page. At the bottom of each page, I list personal to-dos. I used the address book in the back of the diary to log work projects.
• Maximize single tasking as much as possible.

I have to say, I feel much more productive using this system. Way more, in fact. Checking off all your to-dos each day (well, most days) is a very satisfying exercise and positive reinforcement. This process has really changed the way I work and think about tasks/projects.

I highly recommend single tasking over multi-tasking to produce quality, high focused work. (Multi-tasking is a myth, except for real low-level activities, btw.) I also highly recommend the Moleskine diaries.

And you may be thinking, you only get a small handful of things done each day? And I say, you are confusing ‘doing’ and ‘done’. You may DO more things each day, but how much do you actually get DONE? You’d be surprised. Actually finishing three things each day is quite an accomplishment. And those three things pile up very quickly as each day passes.

[hat tip: Smarterware, Gina Trapani's new blog]