D1 – Close your daily tasks

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The review stage ends on 2025-11-01.

What

This activity is where you spend most of your time in P1.express, closing the tasks you have listed for the day.

“Closing” a task means that you don’t need or don’t want to do anything else with it, which means it’s either finished or canceled.

Why

You need to be focused on closing your activities rather than “doing” your activities for two reasons. First, it potentially helps you focus on the results rather than on being busy. Secondly, it’s a common problem to leave tasks almost done, but unfinished, which is a great source of energy loss. As the ancient project management saying goes, the first 90% of the work accounts for the first 90% of the time and the remaining 10% of the work accounts for the other 90% of the time!

How

Check out your list of tasks for the day. Which one would you like to, or do you have to, do first? Pick that one and focus on doing it. Preferably, don’t work on anything else before closing the task to avoid task-switching costs.

You may benefit from having a fixed rhythm for working; for example, 45 minutes of uninterrupted work followed by 15 minutes of relaxation and socializing.

For recurring tasks, you can usually benefit from having a checklist, a list of steps, or a list of tips and tricks in the task. If it’s the first time doing the task, create the content; otherwise, follow the existing one and improve it if needed.

For non-recurring tasks, keep the task open while working on it and write down any relevant information you run into: writing is magical and gives you superpowers! Sometimes, it’s not that you have something written down to get back to later, but that the act of writing can change your relationship with the task or problem for the better by making it clearer or more structured.

When a recurring task is finished, copy it to the finished directory with the current date added to it; then postpone the original task to its next planned occurrence.

Sometimes, a stage of work is done, but you are waiting for input from someone else. In that case, the task is not yet closed. Ask yourself what a reasonable amount of time is to wait for that person to get back to you about the task, and then postpone the task to that date. If you don’t receive feedback by that date, the comeback of the task will be a reminder that you should get back in touch with that person about the task.

Common pitfalls

The commonest pitfall is task-switching. It’s sometimes unavoidable, but usually avoidable if you have the right work routine.

P1.express uses a postponing system rather than a prioritizing system. So, your list of tasks for the day doesn’t have any order, and you can go through them in any way you want. You can either order everything at the beginning of the day or, preferably, just decide about the next task as soon as you’re done with the previous one. Regardless of how you do it, try to optimize your way of doing it; for example,

• some people are overwhelmed by the difficulty of tasks, and for them, they may prefer to do the hardest first, so that they can calm down as soon as possible.
• In contrast to them, some people are more overwhelmed by the number and variety of tasks, and for them, it works best when they focus on the smallest tasks first to reduce their number sooner, and calm down that way.

You need to protect your mental energy and attention: Depending on your type of work and life expectations, turn off as many phone and computer notifications as you can when working on a task, and instead of responding to messages immediately, respond when you’re done with your current in-progress task.

Everyone has different levels of mental energy at different times of day and in response to different events. It’s helpful to be aware of your own typical deviations in energy level and organize your daily work accordingly.

When adding information to your tasks, don’t sacrifice the readability of the text to save a few seconds, but write clearly so that you’ll be able to understand it ten years later.