I'm sure the irony of reading these sorts of blog posts isn't lost on you all. However, I do believe that some of these strategies and techniques can actually work. I even wrote about it on the post 'how to make time for your side-project'.
The key is not just to break things down and to create tiny, regular actions. It's also to start. Most of us like to talk and talk and not actually do anything at all.
This procrastination and hyperbolic discounting means that we often go for the quick fix rather than the ongoing journey to success. Starting and overcoming our own psychology is often the hardest part.
Personally, I've found that the process of breaking down a task and writing it down is incredibly useful. As I multitask throughout the day I forget where I am in a particular task item, and having a list of things I'm supposed to do all I need to do is go to the next list item and do that.
I also try to have high-level items for the day so that I know what I'm focusing on. Anything that I need to do but can't do today I put on a list for the next day.
It seems to be working out alright for me.
I currently just throw it all into OneNote, although it's not the greatest for dealing with lists the way I use it, but the freeform writing surface and search it provides makes up for it.
Forgetting is my number one problem right now. I also noticed there's some kind of unconscious filtering going on in your mind. Even if you write down the tasks your mind prioritizes them on its own.
What I wish list software had was a way to push those less important tasks in the background.
Be religious about writing down what you're doing, make a habit of referring to this list when you find that you're bouncing around from task to task.
Sometimes I'll hit HN if I'm waiting for something to finish, and if I was in the middle of something complex I've needed to write down what I was doing, even if it was only for literally a minute.
Also, when incrementally learning something it can help. Writing down in your own words how something works can help you if you only have small chunks of time to learn something.
I still think yandex is underrated outside of Russia. It's webmaster tools[1] seem to get better and better whereas Google's seem to remove more and more information.
Whilst I like Disqus for a commenting system, it makes reading large threads rather difficult. This is exacerbated on mobile devices. Furthermore, many ad blockers (AdBlockPlus, Ghostery...) hide all disqus comments. I think reddit would have been better here or even twitter. James Altucher does a q&a on twitter that works quite well until he hits his limit of tweets/day.
Anyway, I've done some 'transcribing', editing and formatting to make it a little easier to read[1]. If anyone from betalist or Patrick takes issue, feel free to get in touch and I'll remove it right away. However, hopefully this will allow more people to see it. I've linked the source so you can see the original.
Thanks for doing this. I agree Disqus isn't ideal for reading this many Q&A's. I think there's almost 50 questions and over 100 comments. Didn't see that coming.
We'll be releasing a PDF soon with a summary of all questions and answers. You kinda beat me to it hehe, but the format will be different anyway, more close to the original (giving question askers credit as well, etc).
The key is not just to break things down and to create tiny, regular actions. It's also to start. Most of us like to talk and talk and not actually do anything at all.
This procrastination and hyperbolic discounting means that we often go for the quick fix rather than the ongoing journey to success. Starting and overcoming our own psychology is often the hardest part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting
http://www.startupclarity.com/blog/make-time-side-project/