Becoming Like the Elite part 2

In the prior post in this series way back on June 30th, I promised to share the game I set up to become like the 11% who get everything done each day. I left off describing the fact that I had a group willing to play together to achieve the result.

My first step was to, share the overall challenge for the group: to increase the match between what is on our calendars and what we actually do at any moment in time.

For Total Task Schedulers, this is a big challenge. If you undertake to manage your tasks via your calendar, you are putting into writing your daily plans and pledging to account for them in a visible way. By contrast, people who make mental plans for each day don’t have to confront their failures in this area, due to the lack of written dates.

I also shared that I wanted to play games which would improve this score. In the group I formed, I shared that we could all play the same game or different games, but the overall idea was to learn, grow and have some fun at the same time.

Reminder: “Being On-Calendar” in any moment means that what we are doing is in our calendar. The opposite is “Being Off-Calendar.”

Game #1 – RandomCheck

The first game I made up is one I had tested for about a month.

The game was simple: to record the times when I was On/Off-Calendar via random check-ins each day. If the times truly were random, then I should be able to generate some unbiased data.

To help me pick random times, I downloaded an app called Randomly RememberMe that provides a notification at random intervals throughout the day/week.

The Game I Played in May
I decided to set up different reminders for weekday mornings, weekday afternoons and weekends. For the weekdays, I set 3 reminders per day, one in the morning and two in the afternoon. On the weekends I cut out the morning reminder.

A few people opted into this game and played it with different levels of intensity at different points. However, as the convenor, I didn’t give myself the option of dropping out. Call it social pressure.

In the next post, I’ll describe the results I realized.

Are Bill Gates and Elon Musk Total Task Schedulers?

According to this article on the Business Insier website:

Bill Gates and Elon Musk are two of the biggest names in tech.

Gates cofounded Microsoft in 1975, helping to spark the PC revolution. Now he focuses most of his time on philanthropy.

Musk founded PayPal and currently splits his week traveling between Tesla and SpaceX.

Both men also share one habit that’s helped them navigate their jam-packed schedules: They plan out every moment of their days.

Click here to read.