Summary of Book 'Do It Tomorrow'

This blog post is based on the time management technique described in the book
'Do It Tomorrow' by Mark Forster
The book explains reasons for time management issues and techniques to overcome. I have tried adopting it with success and have summarized it here.
Read on and provide your comments

The Problem:
Reasons for 'No Time' or 'Urgent work' or 'Emergency work’ occurs due to
1. Procrastination (Nothing new in this)
2. Procrastination occurs due to randomization
3. Randomization occurs due to
i. No limits to work we take on
ii. Distractions
iii. Working on multiple things

The Solution:

Before jumping into the solution, let’s understand how the human brain works. The left brain is rational and right brain is reactive in nature.

Rational Brain (Left brain):
Plan
Decide
Thought-Decision-Action

Reactive Brain (Right brain):
Procrastinate
Feel Threatened
Stimulus-React

1. More you use the reactive brain, higher the time management problems.
2. More you use 'Thought-Decision-Action' or rational brain, better is your time management.

Concepts:
Following concepts will help in better time management

Know your limits (Both time and commitments)
1. We are creative when we work in limits
2. No limits means no boundaries and no focus
3. You are the best person to judge your limits

Little and often
1. Work in small bursts
2. Mind needs time to assimilate, make connections and get insights
3. Example - writing a book

Create a buffer zone
Categorize incoming work into one of the following category
1. Repetitive
i. Tasks you do every day, every week or every month
ii. Initiatives

2. Tomorrow
i. Default setting unless there is a downside of not doing it today
ii. This prevents randomization

3. Same day (Randomizing in nature)
i. Not emergency but needs same day action

4. Immediate (Randomizing in nature)
i. Only real emergencies. Ex: Build Breaks

Closed Lists
1. Work on a fixed list of items each day
2. Complete all the items in the list

Completing a day's work
1. If you work best under pressure you have low processing power
2. Reasons for not completing the work
3. Not efficient.
a. Not able to do all incoming work
b. Too much on plate
c. Not leaving enough time

Keeping Going
1. Working to Completion
2. Working in time bursts
3. Fooling the reactive mind
4. Techniques to 'lie' to reactive mind
5. Positive Fooling

The key is to understand your work capacity and take on only what we can do. The ‘To do’ list for each day must not be an open list. Agreed that things do change fast but it is up to us to create the buffer zone, identify what needs to be worked on immediately and what needs to be worked on at a later date.At the same time plan your day such that you have time to work on real emergencies apart from planned tasks.