Action Management
Take control of your tasks and boost your productivity with effective action management strategies.
12 Ways to Organize Your Workload and Feel Better
Staying on top of your workload requires using a tested system for managing tasks and responsibilities. By developing the most effective habits and behaviors for using task lists, calendars and other productivity tools, a knowledge worker can more effectively handle an otherwise overwhelming workload.
Recent Articles
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The Planning Fallacy: Why Your To-Do List Never Ends
You’ve planned your day and scheduled all of the tasks you want to complete. This is common “time management” advice. Then your first meeting runs long. A colleague needs you for “just five minutes” that turns into twenty-five. Now everything behind it is pushed. You spend the next hour rearranging your calendar instead of actuallyRead More
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How to Stay on Top of Your Workload Without Burning Out
This post was updated March 29, 2026. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Many capable, committed professionals struggle to stay on top of their workload — not because they lack discipline or motivation, but because the demands placed on them are constant and often unclear. Competing priorities, interruptions, and a steady stream of inputsRead More
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The Eisenhower Matrix Isn’t Good Enough
This post was updated on June 27, 2025. You’ve probably seen it before: the Eisenhower Matrix. It’s that neat little grid that helps us categorize our tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. It’s been a common time-management tool for decades, helping knowledge workers sort things into which tasks to do now, later,Read More
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How to Be Less Busy and More Productive
Are you caught in the trap of being constantly busy, yet feeling unproductive? Many of us rush through our days, reacting to urgent requests and flitting between tasks, only to end up exhausted, without having made meaningful progress on what truly matters. We often mistake busyness for productivity; but productivity, by definition, is about achievingRead More
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Got Clutter? Here’s How to Organize Your Home Office
This post was updated on March 28, 2025 Throughout my career, I have explored how effectively decluttering can boost productivity and mental clarity. After all, clutter isn’t just about clearing physical disorder—it’s about relieving a significant mental burden that distracts you and affects your well-being. Multiple studies have found that clutter in your home officeRead More
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How to Make Remote Work Successful
I recently spoke with Chase Warrington, Head of Remote at Doist, a company that creates tools that promote more fulfilling ways to work and live. I love these tools and recommend them to my clients. They include Twist, a team communication platform, and Todoist, a task management app. These products are designed for asynchronous, remote-firstRead More
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How to Sync Outlook Task List with iPhone
UPDATE: 9/12/20: I have removed old content on this post that no longer worked and replaced it with options that work as of today. I will do my best to keep this post updated as technology changes. Thanks for visiting! Note that this post refers to syncing Outlook for WINDOWS (all versions, as far asRead More
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The 2 Minute Rule to Stop Procrastinating. Do It Right
Updated September 10, 2021 This is a popular refrain I hear over and over from productivity experts: “Stop procrastinating by using the ‘2 minute rule’ of time management.” The problem is that typically this “2 minute rule” isn’t used correctly. Millions of people are using this popular tip to stop procrastinating without realizing how it’sRead More
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Should You Schedule Tasks on Your Calendar?
Some productivity experts recommend that you schedule tasks you want to accomplish on your calendar each day. I don’t, and I wanted to tell you a little more about why I think this practice won’t help your productivity. This topic is on my mind because of a recent Fast Company article called “8 Productivity HabitsRead More
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Make Your To-Do List Actionable
Take a look at what a fairly average to-do list looks like. expense report Joe – budget? bday card check to school If this were your list, and if you had produced it recently, you would probably know what each of these things meant. But even then, if you have only ten minutes available toRead More
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Effective Communication: Use a Talk To List
The thoughts ping you at random: “I need to talk to Brenda about pushing back this deliverable…” An hour later: “I have to ask Joe about the pricing for the client proposal….” Twenty minutes after that: “I wonder if Luis has finished researching new project management tools….” If you stop and act, every time itRead More
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Your Brain is a Lousy File Cabinet
Have you ever found yourself standing in the aisle of the grocery store, certain in the knowledge that there was one more thing on your list (which is sitting on the kitchen counter instead of in your hand) but completely unable to remember? I can see you nodding, so this will come as no surprise:Read More
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Tips for Effective Use of Your Calendar
Below are a couple of ideas for making more effective use of your calendar. I prefer electronic calendar tools, because they offer reminders, but these ideas work for paper calendars as well. Color-Coding If you are already overwhelmed and unorganized, why would color-coding your calendar and the effort it takes, be worth it? One reasonRead More
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Prioritizing as A B C Doesn’t Work
Ok, so it works for spelling. The whole alphabet thing actually works just fine for…you know…words and things. But where “A, B, C” doesn’t work is for prioritization. One common thing to prioritize is your workload. Specifically your to-do list. Most people learn that A B C (or 1 2 3, or High Low Medium)Read More
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