1: For the past two weeks, we’ve been doing a deep dive into author Sahil Bloom‘s concept of “time wealth,” as detailed in his book The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.
We’ve explored how to see time and strategies to maximize the effectiveness of our time.
So far, we’ve looked at Warren Buffett’s Two Lists strategy, the Energy Calendar, the Art of No, the Eisenhower Matrix, time blocking, and the Four Types of Professional Time.
I saved my favorite for last: The Index Card.
We “can test every fancy productivity system in the world,” Sahil writes, “or we can use the simple strategy that works for junior analysts and billionaires alike: An index card.”
What exactly makes this strategy so great? It’s so darn simple.
2: How does it work?
“Each night before you go to bed,” writes Marc Andreessen, the uber-successful technology founder and investor, “prepare a 3 x 5 index card with a short list of three to five things that you will do the next day.”
An aside: Sahil recommends choosing three items unless there is a clear reason to add more.
Why? Because “we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a day,” he observes, “so be intentionally conservative in the number of items we list.
Then, the next morning, do those three things. Our goal is to cross each item off the list by the end of the day.
“If that is all we accomplish, the day was a win because these were the three to five truly important tasks that furthered your values or long-term goals.
3: How do we determine the three most important items?
“Ideally, this is a list of important tasks that directly contribute to our long-term values or goals,” he suggests. If we are utilizing the Eisenhower Matrix, we will want to select items on the top half of the matrix, i.e., those projects or items categorized as “Important.”
The bottom line? “Always remember: Simple is beautiful,” Sahil writes. “The fanciest productivity systems often require a lot of thinking and maintenance. If we’re spending time thinking about our productivity system, we’re focusing on movement over progress. The simple index card system harnesses the core principles of focus and momentum to allow us to get more of what matters done.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Am I overcomplicating my productivity tools when a simple, focused system might serve me better?
Action: Tonight, write down my three most important tasks for tomorrow on an index card and commit to crossing each one off by day’s end.
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