5 Things I want to do today!

Two weeks ago I was in Edinburgh. I attended the Scottish Ruby Conference and it was awesome! I met a lot of great people and I enjoyed a lot of great talks. But I want to talk today about one of the lightning talks that I had the pleasure to attend. It was not about code, technology or robots, it was about how to manage your time and how to set your priorities.

The idea
The idea is very simple. Before going to sleep, you have to write down the 5 most important things you want to do tomorrow. Once you've written them down, you have to prioritize them. Then, the next day you have to do the first task in your list. Once you finish the first task, you have to start with the second task. It goes on and on until you finish the 5 tasks or the day ends :P

The reality (My reality)
I've been doing this for two weeks, so I'm not an "expert" :P but I have some conclusions to share.

First of all, I feel much more productive :D "Planning" what to do the next day helps me to focus on the important things and shows me how difficult it is to achieve everything I want to do (pretty obvious. You can't do everything you want in a day :D )

Second, it is not easy to follow your plan :D I always start with my first task, and most of the times I continue with the second one, but, eventually, I get distracted. The thing is, there are a lot of things I want to do, and limiting myself to only five is not easy. Also, some of the tasks on the list are really bored (but still important), so sometimes I just ignore them...
Some other times, I just "forget" the priorities :)

And last, but not least, is not easy to write down the five most important things you have to do the next day.

Anyway, I think that this simple method is helping me a lot, and I recommend all of you to give it a try. Even if you are not able to follow "the rules", it is a great exercise.