First beats Last

This one is related to the “doubt” from the last chapter. Doubt accumulates. The more time you give it, the more it builds and builds. How do we combat this easily?

Always do your most difficult task first. The rest is optional and comes later.

This is a huge lesson. Once I learned this, my productivity skyrocketed. It’s so simple, yet so easily forgotten.

Before, this was my morning routine:

• Wake up
• Slowly find clothes, eat breakfast
• Maybe make a bit of music or check my phone
• Start the computer, check my mail and social media
• Once I felt awake, start working on something.

Now, I write down my biggest task on that notebook next to my laptop. The routine became:

• Wake up
• Quickly put on clothes and do some exercises
• Start the computer and immediately do that one task

I give myself no time for doubt or excuses. I start my day with the two most important actions: exercising for my health, and the biggest task I need to accomplish.

This example shows “first” as “first thing you do after waking up”. But it’s true for anything. Let’s say you have a full-time job and only work toward some other goal every evening. There will be an absolute earliest point when you sit down and can start work. (Let’s say, after coming home and having dinner.)

Immediately do your biggest task then. “Swallow the biggest frog.” Don’t waste this moment by first checking your phone, watching some videos, or doing other tasks that seem important but are not most important.

As time goes on, as the hour grows late, you will only have less energy and less motivation. So do the right thing first, the rest is optional. But because you’ve built momentum, you’ll probably continue working on the smaller tasks.

How do I find my biggest task?

It’s usually the most difficult and most creative task. One that can be broken into many smaller tasks.

Let’s say I’m making a game. I’m well into the project: I have a player that can jump and move around, I have levels and environment, etcetera.

You know what this game needs? Enemies.

This isn’t a small, single task. It’s a whole system: the Enemy system. There are many parts and new code systems.

This is my biggest task for the next day.

It doesn’t mean that the game needs no other work. There might be lots of bugs with how the player moves, or the trees look odd and I want to draw them again, or anything else. But those are minor tasks. If I complete them in ten days from now, it’s still fine, development can continue just fine. I can do those tasks in ten minutes in the evening, if I have some spare energy.

But the Enemy system? That’s big. It requires a clear mind and a solid effort to get the basics working. So it’s my biggest task and I will do it first, when my mind and body are fresh.

And once that system is somewhat working? Anything else is a bonus. I might take the rest of the day off. Especially if it took much longer to implement and it’s already 4 o’clock.

This means that “certain tasks” are rarely your biggest task.

And as I said before, I usually distinguish two “biggest” tasks:

• One for my health. A physical task.
• One for my work. A digital or abstract task.

The take-away

Prioritize your tasks on how important and big they are. When doing so, take all your actions into account. Also things like “scrolling through social media” or “eating breakfast”

Judge what tasks are most important. Do those first, the rest comes later.

There might be pressure from the outside to change this. Stand your ground. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “the first few hours of my day are for work. I’m not going to do X or help you with Y now, but I might in the afternoon.” Nor the number of times I caught slack for skipping breakfast and not checking my phone all day, but that’s a whole different story.