Ambition Vs Realism: How To Find Your Productive Sweet Spot

I was getting upset with myself over the past couple of months. Let me explain why, and what I did to fix it. I think it may be useful for you as well.

But first, a small aside about ‘systems’.

Systems really matter. As James Clear writes in his brilliant book Atomic Habits,

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

I agree whole-heartedly with that philosophy. My memory is terrible. I am full of ideas and often have the attention span of a goldfish, so systems are key for me to get anything done. A task management system is one of the most critical systems to have in place. If you can’t ship high-quality work on time, you’re in trouble, and a decent task management system is what can keep you on track.

In a world where distractions are constant and demands are ever-increasing, having a reliable system isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. Systems keep you grounded, ensuring you consistently move towards your goals, even when life gets chaotic.

But for a few months, I struggled with my system. There’s a constant tension between wanting to be productive and advance on goals and being realistic and honest with yourself about how much you can get done. I was struggling to find the right balance. I swung wildly between two extremes: overloading my to-do list to the point of overwhelm, or setting the bar so low that I felt disappointed with my lack of progress. Neither approach was sustainable, and both left me feeling frustrated.

Endlessly, back and forth between the two extremes. Maybe you can relate to this?

I feel that over the past while, I’ve finally found the “sweet spot” of the to-do list, at least for me. I thought I’d share how I was approaching it, as I’m sure I can’t be alone with this struggle. Maybe it is helpful for you too!

My Recent Approach to Productivity

The first step was to identify the problem. In my case, it was uncertainty about how “ambitious” to make my short-term to-do lists. When I put too much on my plate at once, I’d get overwhelmed and distracted, and I was quite ineffective. When I overloaded my list with too many things at once, I’d barely deliver on anything. Not good. And when I went too easy on myself, only adding things to my list that I knew I could easily achieve, I barely moved the needle forward. Not good either.

So I took a hybrid approach. My long-term to-do list is enormous. I am constantly coming up with things I’d love to learn about or explore, projects I’d love to undertake, and things I think I should do. So I’m constantly adding to my list of tasks and projects. I accepted that fact, but realized that I need to limit how much I look at that list. I now look at it only once per month.

At the beginning of the month, I reflect on my goals for the year, and consider which of them I’d like to put some attention on over the coming month. I then identify what tasks I could reasonably expect to accomplish in the month, looking at what else is already on my plate for the month and adjusting accordingly. For example, this month I will have some family visiting us, so that will reduce the time and energy I have. I keep that in mind as I make a first pass of the tasks I will plan to tackle for the month.

I then review my giant task backlog to determine if there are any tasks that are coming due during the month. If I have some, they get added to the list for consideration for the month. As I’m going through the backlog, I also consider if there are some tasks that I want to include for the month, as I’m “vibing” with that task.

Once I’ve got a list of all the potential tasks for the month, I reflect on the list. Is that realistic? If it seems like too much for me to handle, knowing what else is on my plate, I pare it down by removing the least important. If it feels light, I might add more – although that is rarely the case. My tendency is to overload the list at first, as I’m an eternal optimist.

I aim to feel a bit overwhelmed by the list of things for the month, but only slightly. I also aim to know that I’d feel proud of myself if I’m able to achieve everything I’ve set out to do. So it tends to be slightly ambitious, a bit of a stretch, but possible.

When I have the sense that I’ve nailed down the task list for the month, I lock it in. I don’t allow myself to go back to my larger backlog of tasks until the next month, unless I’m able to finish everything I’d decided to do for the month. (Honestly, I’ve not had to do that in a while.)

Now I know what I have to do for the month. Great!

It’s now time to figure out what to do for the week. This is where the “rubber hits the road”. Time to get real. I plan my week out first thing Monday morning. I’ve tried doing it Friday evenings before wrapping up for the week, but I found I wasn’t in the right headspace for it then. Weekends didn’t feel right to me either; I’d tried that out on a couple of occasions.

So, fresh-eyed every Monday morning, I review my schedule for the week and my list of tasks, and I figure out what I plan to do over the week. As I’m doing this, I think about when I’d actually do the task, and I pencil it in my calendar. I only allow myself to pick work that is on the task list for the month, unless something really weird came up in life. I trust that I’d already done a great job of deciding what was important for the month, so now it is just time to figure out which of those I am going to knock out during the coming week.

I consider what I have on my schedule that isn’t flexible. In my case, this includes things like time in the morning to meditate, to reflect, and to read. I won’t give that time up. That means I need to ensure I protect that time, even if it means accomplishing less during the week.

It’s at this point that it gets real. I may realize that I don’t have enough time to work on all the tasks I thought I’d want to work on, so I prioritize. What is most important? What must be done? Is there something here I can get someone else to do?

I take the same approach to planning my week as I did for planning the month; I set the list of tasks to be a challenging, but realistic. I know I could get them all done, but I’d need to be good. I don’t mind having high expectations of myself; I think that’s important. And again, I set it up so that I will feel proud of what I accomplished at the end of the week, but there’s not so many things on the list that it feels impossible. It needs to feel practical, even more so than it felt when planning the month. But once my task list is locked in for the week, I don’t allow myself to look at the list for the month again, as it’ll just overwhelm me. I trust myself once again.

Then each morning, I review what’s left on my task list for the week, and I prioritize the 3-4 things I will accomplish for the day. This forces me to be ruthless with prioritization. I must pick the most important work, as I won’t allow myself to go back to the backlog for the week unless I’ve successfully completed everything that was on my list for the day.

That’s the process I’ve been following for the past month, and it’s been working well for me. I’m getting stuff done and feeling good about progress, without feeling like I’m overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still … a lot of stuff to do. So much stuff.

But I feel like it’s manageable and that I’m getting the most important stuff done, without sacrificing my health and well-being, and still having some time for leisure and time with people that are important to me.

Summary

I don’t think it’s possible to be highly successful in today’s information-rich, fast-paced world without having solid systems to support you. There’s just too much to manage if you fly by the seat of your pants. In my mind, having a robust task management system is one of the best ways to ensure that you’re working on the most important things at the right time.

It’s hard to find the right balance between being too ambitious and not pushing yourself enough. I’ve been building my productivity system up for several years, and it’s still very much a work in progress. But I’m thrilled with where it’s currently at; I feel like I’m finding the right approach, one that works for me.

Hopefully, you’ll find something in this that resonates with you, so that you can tweak your system to better equip yourself for success.

Let me know what you’re trying out!

Quotation that I’ve been pondering

This quote from Oliver Burkeman from his book Four Thousand Weeks was just too perfect not to include here.

“We embark on the futile attempt to “get everything done,” which is really another way of trying to evade the responsibility of deciding what to do with your finite time—because if you actually could get everything done, you’d never have to choose among mutually exclusive possibilities.”

Journal prompt

“Would you rather have other people like you or would you prefer to like yourself?”

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