This is a guest post by Mike St. Pierre, Nozbe Ambassador and online coach. Nozbe users get a 20% discount on Mike’s new productivity system, “Never Miss a Thing”!
My name is Mike St. Pierre, a non-profit leader in America and a Nozbe aficionado. My team uses Nozbe and it’s increased our productivity by 30-40% since utilizing the shared list features and the ability to delegate tasks.
In this post, I’ll be sharing how my new productivity system, Never Miss a Thing, features a “first premise” and it relates nicely to Nozbe.
Every System Begins with a Problem
Readers of my blog are typically busy professionals who want to be more productive, save time and stress less. This is their problem to solve and the premise of their approach to work. Many professionals try to solve this problem through one of the following ways:
- Work more hours.
- Try to remember everything.
The first approach isn’t sufficient for deeply solving the problem of having too much to do. Sure, more hours at work will help address the many tasks. Think of this approach like email- spend more time on email so that you can get to “inbox zero”. This works for a short time but a better solution is to receive fewer emails in the first place or “screen” out emails (i.e. Sanebox or a similar service) before they crowd your inbox.
The second approach is even worse. As David Allen of Getting Things Done says, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." Between email, meetings and project management details, there are just too many things to remember for the average person’s brain. That leads us to the very first step in my productivity system, Never Miss a Thing.
Using a Digital Task Manager
My system has six simple steps and they are as follows:
- Use a digital task manager.
- Use one inbox.
- Create a morning practice.
- Practice a weekly review.
- Use only one calendar.
- Develop the Getaway Habit.
While all of the steps are important, each rests on the concept of getting things out of your head and into a trusted system. For me, this is Nozbe. By dumping all of my ideas, tasks and projects into a digital task manager, I can then make significant progress on steps 2-6. There’s just no getting around it - to do your best work, you need to have a clear head. To have a clear head, you need to trust in the “bucket” that holds your todo’s.
To do your best work, you need to have a clear head.
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5 Benefits of Having a Clear Head
When you use a digital task manager like Nozbe, there are five benefits:
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You will be a better listener. Since you’re not worrying about someone or somewhere else, you can be fully present to the person you’re with, in the moment.'
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You’ll be able to read better. Since you’re building the muscle of more frequent concentration, you can read deeper and more contemplatively, enabling you to recall the most important concepts.
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You’ll begin to do one thing at a time. By utilizing your task manager, you can do one thing at a time, not worrying about the many other things contained in Nozbe.
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You’ll schedule “Deep Work” (i.e. Cal Newport) more often. I like to use the Templates feature of Nozbe to schedule each day’s theme. On Monday, I have a template for Content Creation while Friday has a template for Administrative Tasks. I can really practice Deep Work when I know that Nozbe contains each day’s themes and tasks.
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You will feel more peaceful. Isn’t this what we all want? Nozbe enables this to happen.
As you can see, your use of a digital task manager has many more benefits than just making you more organized. This is why Nozbe is such an important tool for me- it makes me a better person. If I’m more present to my wife and kids and can trace that back to my use of Nozbe, that’s an impact that’s worth the monthly investment. It’s also why I recommend Nozbe to as many people as I can.
Bonus for Nozbe Readers
As a thank you to Nozbe and the community, I’m offering a 20% discount on my new eBook and productivity system, Never Miss a Thing. Just head over to mikestpierre.com/products and enter the promo code, nozbe20. This promo code is limited to the first 20 people so you’ll want to take advantage of it.
