Touch It Once

WHY

Have you ever felt that you have many things to do, yet you are not getting them done? Or perhaps you are managing to complete them, but in a way that's far from efficient, leaving little to no spare time for your hobbies, sports, or that book you have been meaning to read.

Adding to the frustration is the realization that most of these tasks are straightforward. If you could tackle them head-on, like a machine, you'd finish them with no fuss 100% of the time.

Let's consider a typical example. After lunch, you open your email inbox and skim through the top five emails, the same ones you glanced at first thing in the morning. You tell yourself you will handle them after 5 PM. But you don't, and the cycle repeats the next day, and the day after that, until your boss or client calls in a panic, urging you to resolve the issue immediately. Fair enough, you finally sit down and get that one task done. Possibly you even feel proud of resolving your client's predicament, and this way of working becomes your style. Who's really losing here? You. How much? Enormous.

Revisiting tasks repeatedly is a self-deceptive habit. It drains your energy without yielding tangible results. Your brain and body, fooled by the exhaustion, feel a misplaced sense of accomplishment, while in reality, you have achieved next to nothing compared to your actual capabilities.

The irony is that you are tricking yourself. Sure, it's not a deliberate plan, but your habits and behaviors have brought you to this point.

Each time you revisit a task, you need to reorient and refocus, which adds to cognitive fatigue and increases the likelihood of mistakes. As a result, the quality of tasks you eventually complete is often below par, failing to tap into your full potential.

Delaying tasks in such manner leads to an accumulation of tasks. Add to that the extra time wasted on recalling the context and re-planning your steps. Each time you leave a task unfinished, it disrupts your workflow and makes it psychologically harder to re-engage with it later.

Before long, the situation becomes overwhelming. Stress levels rise, and you start avoiding tasks altogether. Deadlines are missed, and the quality of your work plummets. You may even start questioning whether you are in the right job, or the right career, or worse, if you are good at anything at all. It's a downward spiral no matter how you look at it.

The opportunity cost of revisiting tasks is immense. You feel it every day, the things you could have done if only you weren't weighed down by this self-imposed burden.

Imagine how fulfilling your day could be if you could end it without the guilt of an unfinished to-do list. And it's true, there are tremendous opportunities for growth, learning, and meaningful accomplishments if you could only free up the time for them.

Still not convinced? Try this: estimate the total time (A) required to complete the tasks currently on your plate. Now compare that to the actual time (B) it takes you to finish them all. If B is anywhere less than two times A, you don't need this book, you should be writing one for the rest of us.

WHAT

One thing is certain, if you are working, you are working for and with other people. The specific nature of your tasks depends on your field, but the digital fabric of the world brings shared elements.

Interfaces like email, text messages, phone calls, online meetings, and apps (both web and mobile) facilitate communication and collaboration. Traditional means, such as letters, in-person meetings, and physical notebooks, also persist. Additionally, there may be other unique interfaces specific to your work.

Each of these interfaces contains both information and tasks. For example, your Gmail webpage or Outlook application serves as an interface, and the emails within it may represent important information or actionable tasks.

What you must do is access these interfaces periodically, ideally by setting a schedule, and handle each item (e.g., a specific email) only once. Address it completely, so you don't have to revisit it later.

Devote your full attention to the task at hand and resist the urge to switch to another task, no matter how tempting it may be.

Task-hopping might feel good temporarily as it eases your cognitive load, but it is highly detrimental to productivity. Switching wastes much of the energy and time you initially invested in the first task.

For long-term activities, such as writing a book or trekking a mountain, dedicate substantial, focused time before moving on to something else.

Some children build an amusing habit early on of surrounding themselves with open books and notebooks when studying, more so in presence of parents and teachers, who may judge them deeply engrossed in their "studies".

Quite likewise, if you are a typical person, whether your supervisor is watching or away, you also probably find yourself surrounded by your work interfaces and people. You sit either in desperation to complete overdue tasks or casually hopping between tasks to pass the time, or a mix of both.

You must understand that the work you do is not for your parents, boss, organization, or even humanity at large. Ultimately, you do your tasks for yourself.

If you believe you are working solely for someone else's benefit, the effort will feel burdensome, and procrastination will follow naturally. Neither is your work for money, as money is merely a secondary outcome, or a means to an end but not the true purpose.

The key is to work for the sake of the work itself. Such an approach effortlessly aligns your limitless human potential with your vision. And when you "touch a task," commit to it fully and see it through to completion, come what may.

HOW

Implementing the "Touch it Once" behavior can be excruciatingly difficult, as it demands significant cognitive effort that could easily be avoided or deferred.

Some suggest inventing panic monsters or fake urgencies to trick ourselves into tackling regular tasks with a firefighting mindset. But that's all fancy talk, impractical and unsustainable.

If you make firefighting a habit, you are essentially wishing for a life where your world is perpetually on fire. And that's hardly a life worth living.

Usain Bolt didn't set his world record of 9.58 seconds for the 100 meters because a fire-breathing dragon was chasing him. To truly adopt the "Touch it Once" approach, you need vision, discipline, and perseverance.

You must hold a vision, of what you wish to achieve today, this week, this month, this year, this decade, and ultimately, in your lifetime. It could be anything: having enough money to sustain yourself for the next 10 years, enabling human colonization of Mars, or something else entirely.

Take the time to think about it, if you haven't already.

Examine your abilities, possibilities, and responsibilities, and carve out a meaningful trajectory for your life, one you would be proud to reflect upon in hindsight.

Once you are on this trajectory, every action you take feels purposeful, as though you are working for yourself. Even if you find yourself on the wrong path, it's still your path, and it can help you leap onto the one you truly desire.

Your every task should resonate with your vision. If it doesn't, it becomes a chore, a burden that weighs down your soul, akin to driving a car with the handbrake engaged and the steering out of control.

Build discipline. Sit down with confidence, focus solely on your task, and work diligently until it's done. Distractions will beckon, a walk, a peek at WhatsApp, anything but the task at hand.

Even when your tasks align with your vision, your mind and body will resist discipline. But you must not yield. Gradually train your mind and body to synchronize with your intentions, until they naturally do what you need them to do.

Measure your discipline. Take a task, like writing a report or creating a presentation, requiring around 60 minutes, and observe how long it takes for your mind or body to stray. It might be as short as 15 seconds initially. But with practice, you can achieve focus spans of 25 to 45 minutes, the sweet spot for productivity.

If you can manage 8–12 sprints of 25 minutes or 4–6 sprints of 45 minutes daily, with 5–15-minute breaks in between, you will operate at your peak capacity.

Discipline helps you listen to yourself and to those wiser and more experienced than you. It's about refusing to let trivial distractions squander your time. For each time you falter in discipline, you lose something valuable.

You may have a thousand worthy ideas, but only a few are actionable within the limits of your time, energy, and abilities. A bird in hand, or twenty in the bush?

Practice discipline with every task you undertake. Understand that discipline is incredibly hard to build and astonishingly easy to lose. No matter how disciplined you become, moments will come when you feel an overwhelming urge to break free. Endure these storms. They will pass, leaving you with a serene mind and body, ready to accomplish your most remarkable work.

The concept of "Deep Work" may seem like a modern trend, but it's the only way to work. Writing a report or creating a presentation while watching football or Netflix isn't work, it's self-sabotage, a downright joke.

You must get serious and persevere, staying focused on your task. Completing it promptly is the only way to realize your vision.

Dream big, craft a breathtaking vision. Aim for the sky, for even if you fail, you will still be among the stars. Stay disciplined to keep your thrusters aligned, pushing you upward. If they waver, pointing toward distractions, you're steering yourself toward a crash. Persevere through the inevitable friction and heat. Don't give up. Once you achieve escape velocity, nothing can hold you back.

Destination. Direction. Speed. These three will keep you on track and remarkably productive.