Unpredictable schedule blocking your productivity?

Getting stuff done is all about planning (namely, time blocking i.e. putting a task to a specific time and single-tasking until it’s done). But what if you don’t have control over when you do what? What if your boss wants you to do it now even though your plan was to do that later (or not at all since you didn’t know it existed moments ago)?

In Cal Newport’s Deep Work, he recommends his readers 4 strategies for working deeply (singularly focused for a set time period). One such method is the “journalistic” method (“in which you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule”).

I tried this but found it still a little too arrhythmic, unstructured and cumbersome for my liking. At my current anti-structure or ‘journalistic’ job, I must get not only important things done, but seemingly endless smaller, more urgent things done as well. Seems impossible, right?

To overcome this, I recommend coming up with a most important task (MIT) list for the day (preferably no more than 3 items), but instead of setting them at a time (which invariably will go unobserved due to urgent, unforeseen demands), number them by priority.

Here’s how it works: Work immediately and ‘deeply’ on your MITs. When something comes up either 1) find a way to delegate it or otherwise not do it or 2) do it quickly (or just enough so you can pass it to someone else to finish). Once that’s done, go right back to your MITs. Repeat until done with your MITs (with the necessary breaks of course). Then you can do the less-important tasks worry-free.

Try it. It’s quite effective.