Productivity

Productivity Tool Overview: ABC-123

Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.


Photo by Skley

I have long believed that true productivity requires a variety of methods. Some days you need to may need to focus on a specific task and power through. Some days you may need to sprint through a bunch of tasks. Some days you may need to focus on your energy. All of these strategies will help you get things done, but work best under the right circumstances.

This June I will be looking at my go-to tools – the ones in my productivity toolbox. I will look at how to use them, what they are best at, and when I use them. Today we will look at the ABC 123 method.

Intro to ABC-123

ABC-123 has been around for a really long time. It was the foundation of the task prioritization for systems such as the Daytimer, Dayrunner and Franklin Planner (pre-Covey).

ABC-123 has you sort your tasks into three categories: A, B and C.

A tasks are things that you must do. These are really important and/or have high consequences if they are not done.

B tasks are things you should do but have only mild consequences for not being done.

C tasks don’t have any consequences for not being done.

Next, within each letter, order them by importance. A-1 would be the most important thing with the highest consequences.

What It Is Really Good At

This system has a lot of power in that you do what needs to be done most, first. By knocking out these tasks, you are not only taking care of something, but you are also lessening your mental load, because you don’t have it hanging over your head any more.

To use Brian Tracy’s metaphor, the A-1 task would be your biggest and ugliest frog. Eat it and be done. (see Book Review: Eat That Frog!)

When I Use It

I have a tendency to get overwhelmed. Sometimes it is not enough for me to pick something from a page, as in Autofocus, because I will consistently avoid doing some things I don’t want to do. If I see myself skipping the same tasks over and over – or picking other tasks on the page with a sense of relief that I don’t have to do something, then I switch over to ABC-123. It really does get the worst out of the way so I can concentrate on the other tasks…instead of avoiding what needs to be done.

Conclusion

I know many modern productivity experts claim that this system doesn’t work; as a daily system, it is unwieldy. But it works well when you have a lot of tasks and you really don’t even know where to start. The ABC-123 helps you get the tasks with the most consequences done and out of the way.

Over to the Readers

What do you think? Have you used ABC-123 or avoided it?


Photo by Skley. Licensed under Creative Commons.