By Guest Editor: Jeff Isom, Chancellor of Nikken University

Most of us are continually striving to be active, healthy, and well. The idea of Active Wellness is perhaps more of a process than a result and encompasses a variety of aspects in our lives. One of those areas is the personal growth we work towards as we decide what to create and accomplish on a day-to-day basis.

A question someone might ask themselves is, how do I do more with the time I have? It may be that we can accomplish more by deciding to focus on less. Think about the idea of limiting your daily to-do list to the top 3 most important things you want to accomplish for that day. You could do this same process at the beginning of every week for the week ahead. It is a simple strategy, but one that might prove to be extremely powerful.

This habit turbocharges your productivity because it forces you to prioritize the most significant things you want to achieve, and then causes you to have laser-like focus in getting them done. Having just three items to focus on throughout the day and week can help you stay centered and to accomplish more, even on days when you feel overloaded.

In order to make this approach work, it is important that you write out these 3 main focus areas before busying yourself with “urgent” but not important tasks like checking email, texts, or social media. It is necessary to prioritize what you want to achieve during the course of the day. You can also reference your schedule for the day and your week to see how much time you’ll have to devote to your top tasks.  Then, you can shift around meetings and commitments to concentrate on what really matters.

As you think about putting this Rule of 3 into practice, create your list on a daily basis first in order to realize how effective it can be. You can then add the weekly exercise from there. Make sure that your top 3 items are challenging but also realistic and achievable. This will help you stay motivated and ride the momentum for getting things done.

After you list out the top 3 items to accomplish, it is okay to write down additional minor tasks to take care of during the day (such as remembering to buy stamps, writing a thank you card, or going to the dry cleaner). What’s important is that you prioritize and place your energy on your top 3 tasks, and work on smaller items as time allows. At the end of the day, you can measure your productivity by looking at how successful you were at accomplishing your main 3 tasks.

To accomplish more and to spend time on your highest-impact tasks, you have to act on them on a daily basis. The Rule of 3 is a great way to do exactly that. This habit will help you do more by doing less. It will increase your growth as a person and move you closer towards Active Wellness in a variety of areas in your life.

About the guest editor: Jeff is Chancellor of Nikken University and regularly runs Nikken’s Humans Being More Workshops around the globe!