Rule of Three – your main tasks for the day

Choose three tasks whose completion would make today worthwhile. These are the results to return to when incoming requests start taking over your attention.

What to do

  1. Look at your day. Account for meetings, other responsibilities and available energy.
  2. Choose what matters. Ask what really needs to move forward today. The most urgent task is not always the most important.
  3. Check the size. “Finish the project” may be too large. “Send the proposal draft” is a clear result for one day.
  4. Start with one. Use Eat the Frog to focus on important work you have been avoiding.
  5. Review in the evening. If something remains, work out what blocked it and choose again tomorrow.

You do not have to fill every slot. On a busy day, one or two main tasks may be enough.

Example

On a day with two meetings, you choose to approve a budget, send a client draft and book a health appointment. Emails and small requests stay on your list, but you know where to put your attention first.

In Plynno

Click Rule of Three and drag tasks from Today or the matrix into empty slots. A task scheduled for another day moves to today; its quadrant stays unchanged.

Completed tasks stay crossed out in their slots until the end of the day. Clicking the mode button again hides the slots without clearing your choices. The cross beside a slot removes only the priority mark. Rescheduling a task to another day or archiving it frees its slot.

On the next day, according to your account’s time zone, the marks reset when data refreshes. Unfinished tasks remain in your list and carry over as usual; completed work stays in your history.

Try this now

Choose one task whose completion would make the biggest difference today and put it in the first slot.

Sources