Focus on the Low-Hanging Fruit

Is your todo list overwhelming? Well try focusing on the low-hanging fruit.

The term “low-hanging fruit” refers to a set of tasks that take minimal effort to accomplish.

Here are three ways to identify the best low-hanging fruit:

• Avoid procrastination. Sometime when we know a task is “easy” we put it off till later. If this becomes a pattern, your tasks will eventually pile up increasing the time it takes to reach your end goal.
• Smaller is better. Do you have all the information, tools, or skills to complete a task? If not, take the opportunity to break your task into sub-tasks to keep the momentum going.
• Limit your dependencies. Additional help is always welcomed, however, adding others can sometimes increase project scope and complexity. If possible, try and decouple your work so dependent tasks can happen in parallel.

In a world where terms like agile, iterative, and lean are associated with high performance, focusing on the low-hanging fruit not only gives you a sense of accomplishment, it also shows incremental progress towards your business objectives.

This is your week… identify your low-hanging fruit and take a huge chomp out of your todo list!