A really helpful tool for optimizing your What is finding your zone of genius.

Your zone of genius encompasses all the things you do that you’re both good at and are energizing for you.

Your wheelhouse, your area of expertise, things that are up your alley.

For example, when I give webinars, I leave them more energized than when I started. I'm both good at them and they energize me. So webinars are in my zone of genius.

Here are a few tools you can use to get a better sense of your zone of genius:

• - The Kolbe A Index - this is a paid assessment that's a really great way to understand how you work and the things you should focus your energy on. Check out this training on how to use it.
• - The Genius Zone by Gay Hendricks
• - Unique Ability by Catherine Nomura, Julia Waller, and Shannon Waller

I use these three buckets to break down my to-do list and further optimize my What. Make a list of everything that ends up on your plate and categorize each task into one of the following...

Bucket 1: Things that are in your zone of genius

Bucket 2: You can do it, but it doesn’t energize you

Bucket 3: Not your forte, you're either not good at these tasks or they’re draining to you

After you’ve put all of your tasks in one of these three buckets, we're going to work backwards.

We're going to take buckets 2 and 3 (the things that you can do, but don't energize you and the things that are not your forte) and we're going to start getting them off your plate.

This is the big hack. You actually have to do less to get out of Quadrant 1. Doing everything slows you down and keeps you focused solely on the urgent.

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more things you put on your plate in an effort to get out of Quadrant 1 actually keeps you in Quadrant 1.

So let’s talk about where we can put those tasks in buckets 2 and 3.

First of all, those things in bucket 3, those things that are not your forte? These must go at almost any cost.

If you're bad at something, it's probably better that it doesn't get done at all than for you to do it and be bad at it. Especially if you're already over capacity in your organization.

I would like to give you a gift. This is a fireproof trash can. You can put something in there and when everybody says, "oh hey, there's a fire over there" you can say, "yep, it's under control, I'm just letting it burn itself out.”

Let it go.

The next thing you can do, if you CAN’T just not do it, is to delegate it.

Delegating means getting somebody else to do it for you. Take those leftover things in buckets 2 and 3 and pass them off.

One of the things in bucket 2 for me was following up with people. I just don't love following up with people, but someone has to do it. So I hired an assistant who loves following up with people and she helps me get that done.

I took something that's in my bucket 3 and delegated it to somebody who would categorize that task in their zone of genius bucket.

That’s a pretty good trade.

This is such a hard habit for people to break, but you have got to stop multitasking.

You are losing hours every single day by multitasking.

Above is a great infographic that HubSpot put together, which is a summary of this research.

40% of your thinking ability goes into switching from one task to another. This means if you reduce the number of times you switch tasks, you could get up to 40% of your day back.

Over the course of a year, 40% turns out to be 31 weeks. Imagine what you could do with all of that time!

In the US economy that equates to 650 billion dollars. That's the cost of all those interruptions.

Multitasking makes everything take longer and it makes you less good at what you’re working on. You're more likely to make mistakes and you’re going to get less done.

Email is one of the biggest ways multitasking sneaks in. Try checking your email once in the morning and again at one o'clock and that's it.

If people are trying to emergency their way into your inbox, set a boundary and determine the pace. If it's a true life or death emergency, you can create a specific way to reach you in that scenario.

All that being said, just put less on your plate. Finish your task completely, and then move on to the next thing.