I’m a list junkie for sure. I’ve had to rehabilitate myself out of a stage where I was spending more time formulating and formatting lists than on the actual tasks at hand. By the time I had established what duties, projects, and errands were bouncing around in my head, gotten them onto a piece of paper or into the latest to-do app, and picked out an album to listen to, it was time for a coffee break. Upon returning with my coffee in hand, I’d look at the clock and begin to reorder my list in order of most urgent—because after all, it was 10am and I hadn’t even gotten anything done yet.
Enter the Aces Method. It’s very simple: Make a to-do list with only two items. Do one of them and cross it off, then do the other one and cross it off.
That’s it. Do two things, then make another list of two things and repeat. I would’ve called it the Deuce Method, but unfortunately that probably made you giggle and think about poop just then. So it’s two Aces instead. An Ace is number one, the top, the honcho. Ace is what I call my gal.
Don’t give yourself the pause to start swimming in minutiae. Dive right in on one of two things that are important enough to jump to the forefront of your mind, and you can worry about two more things after you’re done. Not only does the Aces Method make the pile in front of you seem suddenly much less daunting, but the satisfaction alone of completing—not only several tasks, but several lists—is a swell achievement.
Try it. You’ll like it.
Mike