If you are familiar with David Allen’s best-selling book, Getting Things Done; The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, you will know one of the key principles is getting things out of your head and into a trusted system.

For me that was easy. I already had a trusted system using Microsoft Outlook, and Windows Phone 8.
Once you have filled your trusted system, you may have hundreds of competing tasks and appointments to choose from. So, how do you choose?

Sometimes, life is like trying to drink water from a fire hose. Too much happens too fast, and you find yourself at the end of your day wondering if you completed anything of importance on your task list? For me this is the opposite of Stress Free Productivity.

So, here is a brain hack I use at the beginning of each day. I ask myself these two questions while reviewing my task list:

What will give me or my customers the biggest pay-off?
Who do I need help from to get this accomplished?

I pick three of these high benefit tasks, and these become my hot list for the day. I use these to focus me and my team at the beginning each day. I have found that, with my hot list, I can get a nice drink of clear, clean water without having my eyeballs blown out by everything that is coming at me throughout the day.

So, at the beginning of each day, ask yourself what will give you and your customers the biggest pay-off? Pick the top three tasks, and get to work!

Let me know how you implement Getting Things Done; The Art of Stress-Free Productivity .