Single-Task Like a Champion with NowDoThis

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

One of the new trends in a lot of productivity blogs, websites, and applications is a focus on "single-tasking." Rather than multi-tasking, doing thirteen things at once, do one. Do it well, do it with your entire focus, and then move on to the next thing.

Thing is, that’s tough to do. Even if we shut everything else out, we’ve got this long list of things we need to do, and it’s hard to focus on just one at a time. My task list for today, for instance, is 12 items long. They’re not all long, difficult tasks, but it’s hard to put all my effort into just one, when there’s 11 more to do!

One solution that I’m enjoying using is called NowDoThis. It’s an application built especially for people like me, who can’t keep their eyes from jumping around the page as I try to do only one thing.

NowDoThis literally couldn’t be any simpler. It starts with this box:

Enter into that box your list of things to do, one line at a time. Put them in the exact order you want to do them, and press Enter between items. As best I can tell, there’s no upward limit on the number of tasks you can enter, but don’t go too crazy. If you try and make NowDoThis into your same old long to-do list, it won’t work. Enter the finite number of things you want to do, one at a time.

Click "Save", and poof! You’ve got a task list. The first item on your list will show up, saying exactly what you wanted it to. Go do it, and when you’re done, click "done." (yeah, the app’s so simple it doesn’t even have time for capital letters.) As soon as you click, the next item on your list comes up. Do that.

Rinse, and repeat. One at a time, your tasks will appear and disappear, and when you’ve reached the end, NowDoThis celebrates with you on being done with your tasks!

You can, at any point, click "edit list," and then edit the items still remaining on your list. You can’t go back, you can’t create due dates, or anything else. You can’t even save lists for editing and completing later. You just enter the tasks, and go do them. You can only see one task at a time, so you can’t multi-task even if you wanted to.

NowDoThis is perfect if you’ve got a bunch of rapid-fire things to do, and want to get in the habit of doing things one at a time, with increased focus on each one. It’s not a fully-featured to-do list, and doesn’t try to be. It just wants to keep you working, and let you know what you should be doing right now.

How do you stay on task?

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