Sometimes it’s just hard to get things done. Especially when there is no one there to poke or prod us into doing them. We know we should do them but we are either too busy, too tired, or too full of excuses to do them.

I know for myself difficulty in getting things done is usually a combination of  busyness, tiredness, and excuse. My day-job as a creative director can be stressful and tiresome mentally. I have employees to deal with, clients to deal with, multiple projects, and tight deadlines to deal with.  I also teach a couple of evening classes at the community college. I know that exercise is a big part of maintaining good health so I try to get out and run 5 or 6 miles each day and squeeze a few minutes in at the gym too.

I get home in the evenings knowing I need to take steps to grow my business. If I don’t do it, no one will. Yes, I have hired people from Elance and Odesk to take care of certain administrative taks but at this point I still need the stategic vision and leadership to drive their efforts.

In order to get things done when I do have free time, I like to use what I call burst-blasts. Burst-blasts are high intensity task blasting sessions aimed at moving me closer to a goal.  During task-blasting time I focus on one task only. I do not multi-task. I make every effort to avoid any distractions that will prevent me from completing the task at hand; that means no unrelated phone calls, emails, chats or anything else that is not mission critical.

If you aren’t doing this now, I highly recommend you do. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish in a short amount of time. Even if you can only find time for on hour a day. One hour burst-blasts work wonders for your business like 10 minute abs works wonders on your belly.

Of course you can’t task-blast your way to success without knowing what tasks to tackle.  This can be a task in itself. I used to keep everything in my head. But after reading several personal development books I made a break with my old habit and started writing things down.  If you aren’t doing this already go ahead and give it a try.

Sit down right now, tune everyone and everything out. Spend the next 15 minutes thinking about the tasks you will need to complete to move you closer to your goals.  If you do not have any goals then add goal setting to the list as one of the tasks you need to accomplish. Write down 5 tasks you will do in the next week.

A few hours from now either in the morning or in the afternoon spend 5 minutes writing out a list of not more than 4 important tasks that you can achieve with task-blasting. Don’t worry if you don’t get them all finished. But make sure you at least finish the first and most important task on your list. If you fail to accomplish all of the tasks on your list, and you can, carry them over to the next day’s list in the order is most important. If something more important than the previous day’s task needs to be done go ahead and do that and commute the remaining items to the next task list etc…

Writing things down is important. You don’t have to write everything down but you should write down the most important things. Doing so commits you more to accomplishing what is important. I have a set of short term and long term goals that I refer to occasionally but for the most part my task-blasting consists of tasks that can be blasted through in a few hours that get me closer to the goals. Writing out daily tasks and completing them keeps the larger more obscure goals fresh in my mind and moves me closer to them through action.

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