I am loving the Rule of 3. It’s a fundamental recognition of the fact that, averaged out for time, it is not possible to plan for and achieve more than 3 meaningful outcomes in a single day.
The idea is, you have 3 “outcomes” for the day, 3 for the week, 3 for the month, 3 for the year.
“By the time I go to bed, the laundry will be done” is a meaningful outcome. If you subdivide that into the gathering, washing, drying and folding steps, you’ll have more than 1 task. But the outcome is that you now have clean clothes to wear.
Consider the following: on a given Saturday, your 3 outcomes might be to get groceries, to straighten up the house, and to get the oil changed. That might seem like a pretty light list.
First: getting groceries should take about an hour. Right?
The outcome “get groceries” includes the following tasks:
- make a list – 15 minutes
- determine what groceries you already have – 10 minutes
- think about your menu for the week – 10 minutes
- go to the car – 2 minutes
- remember that you forgot the reusable bags and run back inside, then back to the car – 5 minutes
- drive to the store – 20 minutes
- actual shopping – 60 minutes
- waiting in line – 10 minutes
- drive home – 20 minutes
- bring bags inside (2 trips) – 10 minutes
- put groceries away – 10 minutes
Closer to 3 hours, all told. Time yourself the next time you go shopping. You’ll be surprised.
You can and will do more than 3 “things” during the day, because things will come up that need to be done right now and are not negotiable, and outcomes have multiple tasks associated with them. Also consider that during the day, you will need to eat, shower, get dressed, have conversations and interactions with others, and probably take a breather. You will be interrupted.
3 is a realistic number, and it’s a good way to discipline yourself to say “no” to those things that are non-essential tasks for the day. I have an additional list: my “Big Bucket.” That’s where other things that need to get done are relegated. When I choose my 3 Daily, or even 3 Weekly, I look in my Big Bucket to see the big picture.
Sometimes things get changed mid-day. An outcome that depends on somebody else gets moved back to the bucket once I learn that they are on vacation. I choose another task instead. If I’ve finished my 3, I might add another.
The other part of the Rule of 3 is to avoid getting overwhelmed. Just keep it to 3 things. If you start to feel yourself pulled in 10 directions, refocus on one of your core 3 things.
Remember that the idea is to finish 3 things in a day. Maybe the clothes are washed but still wet, and you’ve vacuumed half the carpet, and you put some of the groceries away, and you wrote half a blog entry, and you scheduled 2 of the 5 meetings you need to do, etc. etc.
You have not finished anything. You have 5 outcomes in a partial state of completion. Keep doing this, then wonder why the house is a mess and your inbox never gets empty.