1% Thursday: The 11am Rule

(Yes, I’m posting late again!  But here it is – better late than never!  And here I’m going to talk about time management…) 😉

This week, try following the "11am rule".

In a way, this goes under the category of time management.  But I’ve learnt that people with chronic illness need to follow a whole different set of rules when it comes to managing their time.  Some tools for the general population work well for us, others don’t work at all.

This is one of those tools that can work, as long as you build in some flexibility.

The "11am rule" was made famous in Tim Ferris’ book The 4-Hour Work Week.  He’s talking about the hazard of checking email constantly, and getting tied up in little details that your emails bring to your attention.  Here it is in his words:

Never check e-mail first thing in the morning.  Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.

That’s all.  It’s that simple.

Do your most important tasks of the day before 11am.

And don’t check email before 11am.

I won’t go into all the reasons why this is such a powerful 1% Thursday idea – give it a try and you’ll see.  But in essence, it allows you to be more focused and less stressed.  You need to prioritize – think about what your most important task is (preferably the night before).  Not the most urgent, by the way… the most important.  You focus on it, get it done or make progress on it, then you tend to feel better right at the start of your day instead of worrying how you’ll get it done throughout the whole morning and afternoon.

Make sure you apply this rule in a flexible way – don’t feel like you’re a failure if you’re too sick or in too much pain to do much on a given day!  That’s not the point.  The point is, when you can, you try to get at the most important things early in your day.  That’s all.

Try it, and see what a difference it makes!

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!