When to re-enter planning mode

Once you have set your priorities, the absolute only thing that matters is the very next thing. The only time anything else matters is when new information or an external event changes the priorities.

As you go through each day, you’ll come across new thoughts or new information that entail details outside of the scope of your day’s to do list. These could range from items pertaining to later in the week all the way to information that might cause you to reconsider your purpose.

With each piece of information, you’ll have to quickly decide to what degree to temporarily break out of the daily to do list mindset. It’s unlikely you’ll need to curate your master list outside of an official planning session. In almost every case, the emergent information should simply be added to the unsorted to do list. Even when changes occur, you only have to re-enter planning as far as necessary to yield the next task. For example, in the event that you complete your day’s tasks earlier than anticipated, just attack the highest priority item on your master to do list that fits your remaining resources.

When breaking your flow to note down ideas, you’ll want to return to the task at hand as quickly as possible. To understand why, realize that your mind’s ability to focus on a task is like you taking a hot shower. It’s better not to interrupt at all, but if you are going to, it’s very important to get back to it as soon as you can. The negative effects of cognitive frame breaks will increase geometrically with their length.¹