Every morning, I wake up with a long to-do list.

Inevitably, the ones that get done first are either the most time-critical and important or the ones that are easy and mundane.

What gets left behind is everything in the middle. Those tasks get forgotten until they eventually become time-critical themselves or fade into oblivion.

While this structure ensures that important things get done on time, it also puts me in a semi-permanent state of tackling emergencies.

A better strategy might be to have a list of near-urgencies to tackle when I find myself tempted to procrastinate.

I’ll let you know how it goes.