Get More Things Done and Improve Your Productivity with the Rule of Three

The rule of three is very effective for procrastinators. It means you don’t need to make an extensive to-do list that you can never complete. Instead, you should focus on the most important tasks you need to do by the day.

So, make a list of the three most essential tasks for the day. Focus on these tasks and get them done as quickly as possible. Once the list gets smaller, you feel more energized to complete those tasks.

Here, a good practice is to make the list of results you want to see at the end. Making a list of results rather than tasks will inspire you to get the job done.

What Is the Rule of Three?

The rule of three was first introduced by J.D. Meier in his book, Getting Results the Agile Way. Note the word agile in the name of this book. This means you need to get more tasks done in less time.

This productivity technique will be very effective for people dealing with huge tasks. You do something of everything but can never accomplish a particular task. In that case, the rule of three will be a blessing for you.

How Does the Rule of Three Work?

The rule of three isn’t only applicable for handling your daily to-do lists. Instead, you can use this technique to achieve bigger goals. The trick here is to pick not more than three tasks for a certain period.

For example, you can write three things you want to accomplish today, this week, or this year. Writing the outcomes instead of tasks will give a better result as you will visualize the results more than the tedious process of those tasks.

This way, the rule of three makes achieving those goals easier and keeps you consistent on track. Another benefit of this technique is that you don’t get crowded with many tasks. When you have only three major tasks to complete in a day, it will boost your morale to finish those tasks as quickly as possible. And as those are the most important tasks for the day, you will feel relieved after completing them.

How to Use the Rule of Three

There’s no hard and fast rule or tool that you must use to implement this technique. But you can follow some popular conventions to make the best use of this technique.

1. Start your day by assigning yourself the three most important tasks of the day. Similarly, start every month or year by assigning yourself three larger goals you want to achieve that month or year.
2. Daily tasks might be easy to complete. But don’t forget monthly or yearly goals amid daily business.
3. It’s a good practice to list all your tasks somewhere and sort the most important ones. People often get too aggressive and add just any tasks on the list. You might fall behind if you add wrong or hard-to-achieve goals. Keep it logical and achievable.

Try the Rule of Three with TimeCaptis

Several time management tools and techniques are available in the market, and they all aim to achieve the same goal - increasing productivity. Although some people prefer to write their to-do lists in a paper, a to-do management app like TimeCaptis is ideal for organizing all your to-do lists. For example, you might have one for the month or the week or create one each day. It makes it easier for you by allowing you to assign tasks from your to-do lists to a specific day, and then that task will appear when that comes along, and you focus on those tasks and complete them.