Episode 36 -  In the second of our series on managing your focus, we give you the structure to help you set your day up to be efficient, manage your focus and attention, and win at life.

Some of the USEFUL stuff in there is:

* Don't wish your life away just trying to get to the end of your day

* Demand a high quality of life DURING the day

* 5 Tools and Techniques to bullet-proof your day and make progress towards what's important

* Some of it comes from - David Allen's GTD

* And some from - Peter Bregman's 18 Minutes

* And the rest is from mw

* We look at the 5 tools in a simple 'manual' way first

* A Notebook

* An Action List

* Buckets

* A Calendar

* A Routine

1) A Notebook - Or something to dump your 'head stuff' into...

* Stop waking up at 2am because you've just remembered things

* The journey my Fisher Space Pen took

INTERACTIVE LISTENERS - DECIDE ON HOW YOU ARE GOING TO ENSURE YOU CAN WRITE DOWN ANYTHING THAT COMES TO MIND AND GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD

2) Action List - Stop being woolly...

* What's wrong with a to-do list? I let you in on the secret

* The actual to-do list I was referring to (actually it's a good article)

* 'Write Blog Post' is the wrong thing to have on your list

* A better version could be:

* Decide on Blog Post Subject

* Write first paragraph

* Write second paragraph

* Write third paragraph

* Review and edit post

* Choose an image

* Upload to Wordpress

* Post on Twitter

* Start with an "Action" and keep it simple

INTERACTIVE LISTENERS - IF YOU HAVE YOUR LIST FROM LAST WEEK, RE-WRITE THE ITEMS ON THERE INTO ACTIONS. A VERB OR ACTION WORD FIRST - AND KEEP IT SIMPLE.

IF YOU DIDN'T DO LAST WEEK INTERACTIVELY, PRACTICE WRITING OUT SOME TASKS AS AN 'ACTION'

3) Buckets - Where you put the stuff ready to do it...

* Choosing categories to batch your work. GTD calls them 'Contexts'.

* Deciding on your buckets. Consider:

* Where do you do your stuff?

* Who do you do it with?

* What items or devices do you need?

* What are your different frames of mind?

* What do you tend to do when you've got high/low energy?

* A good resource for inspiration is at - Simplicity Bliss

* My buckets:

* Errands/Shopping - Things to buy, dry cleaners, groceries (we use Wunderlist for this)

* Home - Clearing garage, painting, housework

* Agendas - Things I do with other people, work, family, everyone

* Quick Jobs - Firing off e-mails, reading memo's, updating calendar

* Calls - Self explanatory

* Downtime - Where I put articles, website links or pamphlets for later reading

* Brain Dead - Cleaning things, tidying, clearing out

* Full focus - Stuff I have to pay attention to, writing reports, reviewing complex data, meetings. Often these will be things I will use the Pomodoro technique for