E:

Evaluate your current habits, practices, tools and apps. Look for indications of unwanted symptoms. If there are too many, consider that it might be time for an upgrade of some kind.

Ta:

Set new targets for specific behaviors and/or tools based on your evaluation.

P:

Carve out realistic plans to hit your targets by taking baby steps to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be at different points in the future.

S:

Set up a support system that is sufficient to help you accomplish your behavior changes.

This approach, first shared in Perfect Time-Based Productivity, is quite different from the one-size-fits-all advice doled out in so many book, blogs and podcasts. While they offer simplistic answers, the ETaPS approach ensures that you don’t waste time and effort chasing improvements, apps, and methods that don’t apply to you.

In this approach, the goal is to deepen your expertise; your ability to take charge of your own behavior in a systematic way. It understands that you have already made such changes in the past starting in your adolescence, and can continue to do so again in the future.