My Journey with the Prescott Elliott Thing
So, I kept hearing this name floating around – Prescott Elliott. Not the person, apparently, but some kind of method or approach everyone was suddenly talking about. Sounded like the next big thing for getting stuff done, you know? I’m usually skeptical about these trends, but work was piling up, and I thought, what the heck, let’s give this Prescott Elliott thing a try.
First off, finding clear instructions was a bit of a pain. Lots of talk, not much solid “do this, then do that”. Eventually, I pieced together what seemed to be the core idea. It involved a lot of upfront planning, like, really detailed planning for every tiny task. Seemed like overkill, honestly.
- Step one: I spent almost a whole morning just listing out everything. Big tasks, small tasks, even stuff like “reply to that email”.
- Step two: Then came the weird part – assigning some kind of ‘energy level’ to each task. Low, medium, high. Okay, interesting.
- Step three: The idea was to match high-energy tasks with when you supposedly have the most energy. Sounds simple, right?
Getting into the Groove (or Not)
Tried this for about a week. The first couple of days were messy. I spent more time planning and rating tasks than actually doing them. Felt like I was spinning my wheels. My usual flow was completely disrupted. I’d look at my perfectly planned schedule and just feel overwhelmed or, sometimes, completely ignore it because something urgent popped up.
But here’s the thing: After day three or four, something clicked. Not the whole system, mind you. That energy level thing? Still feels a bit wishy-washy to me. But the hyper-detailed planning? It actually forced me to see exactly how much I was trying to cram into a day. Seeing it all laid out was a real eye-opener.
I started noticing patterns. I’d always underestimate how long the small, annoying tasks took. The Prescott Elliott planning, even though I didn’t follow it strictly, made that super obvious. So, I tweaked it. I kept the detailed listing part because, yeah, that was genuinely useful. Dumped the energy level stuff mostly, maybe just kept a rough idea for really draining tasks.
So, What’s the Verdict?
Did the Prescott Elliott method revolutionize my life? Nah, not really. It wasn’t some magic bullet. Parts of it felt way too rigid and time-consuming for the real world, where things change constantly.
But did I get something out of it? Yeah, surprisingly. That brutal honesty about task duration and quantity? That stuck with me. I don’t follow the ‘Prescott Elliott’ system religiously anymore, not by a long shot. But I definitely plan more realistically now. I break things down more, and I’m better at spotting when I’m setting myself up for failure by trying to do too much.
So, it wasn’t a total waste of time. Like most of these things, you take what works for you and leave the rest. It forced me to look hard at my own process, and that’s always valuable, even if the system itself wasn’t a perfect fit. Just another tool, or part of a tool, added to the toolbox, I guess.
