These time-savers have limited my digital multitasking:

One hour of good, focused work will be more productive than three hours of open-ended multitasking.

For this reason, my time spent on a task is never open-ended. Lately, I’ve been timing all my work-related tasks. I use a widget timer that runs on Dashboard. Once that timer starts, nothing else exists except the task at hand. Ideally, I won’t answer the phone, check email or even get up to get a snack. When it runs out, I quickly finish, clear my head and move on.

Personally, I try to blog for (no more than) one hour a day, transcribe for one hour a day, read for one hour a day and practice for four hours a day. These timed tasks and their daily limits are indicative of my priorities and my thresholds. It’s really important to know your threshold; once you exceed it, you’re likely being counterproductive and your time would be better spent on something else.

My Dashboard timer helps me organize my priorities, commit focus to all of my tasks and prevents me from overextending myself.