Your productivity system (aka "Second Brain") is resilient! This checklist walks you through the steps for refreshing your goals and project list, working through your backlog of overdue and missed tasks, and bringing your productivity system back to life. You can reboot your system in as little as 90 minutes. It may take longer, but I suggest you limit yourself to a maximum of four hours to complete the process. Your goal is to deal with the important overdue/missed tasks, not every overdue/missed task.

You'll be working in 25 minute sprints ****(or pomodoros for those of you who practice the Pomodoro Technique). Pause for five minutes after each interval to rest and celebrate your progress. Complete your jumpstart in one day if possible and no more than two days—focus and momentum are essential to getting your system up and running again.

Your first instinct is going to be to dive into your email, tasks, notes and files. Resist the temptation! We will focus on repairing the damage in the third sprint. First, you need to review and refresh your lists of goals and projects. You can't prioritize your work effectively if you're not clear on which projects and tasks are most important right now. Chances are, one reason your productivity system stopped working is that you're overwhelmed by urgent, but not important tasks. If so, you're responding to someone else's priorities and needs, not your own.

Step 1: Review and update your goals (15 to 25 minutes)

Your first step is to reconnect with your goals. Start by reviewing your list of personal and professional goals.

• Have your personal and professional goals changed since the last time you looked at them? If so, take a few minutes to update your list. Delete goals that are no longer relevant and add new goals if you have any.
• Make sure you have a positive emotional connection with each goal. If you have a goal that isn't energizing you, consider dropping it—and if you can't (often because it's a goal set by somebody else), try to reframe it so you're focused on an outcome that energizes you.
• Are your goals prioritized appropriately? Do they reflect your current thoughts on what's most important now? If not, re-prioritize the list.

Step 2: Reconnect with your project list (15 to 25 minutes)

Next, review your project list.

• Has your project list changed since the last time you looked at it? If so, take a few minutes to update the list.
• Make sure that each project has a clearly stated desired outcome, and an updated due date.
• If a project no longer aligns with your goals, delete it. If a project is no longer relevant, delete it.
• Add new projects that have surfaced since your last project list review/update.
• Are your projects prioritized appropriately? Do they align with your goals? If not, re-prioritize the list.

Step 3: Triage and mitigation (One to three 25 minute sessions)

You now have forward-looking goals and a current project list. Let's put them to work! This step focuses on helping you identify important overdue/missed email, meetings, notes and tasks. The key is focusing on the most important items—those associated with your current goals, projects, and areas of responsibility.

Use the System Components table below to conduct a review of your second brain system.

1. Start by customizing the list of Accounts/Sources in the second column of the table below so it includes the names of the accounts/sources that you use in your system.
2. Working in up to (but no more than) three 25 minute sprints, review each area in column one (Email, Calendar, etc.) for important overdue/missed items. Use your updated list of goals and updated project list to help identify and prioritize important overdue/missed items.
   1. If an important item can be completed in less than two minutes, do it now.
   2. If an important and urgent item is going to take over two minutes, add it to your calendar now.
   3. If an important, but not urgent item is going to take more than two minutes, add it to your task list now. Don't worry about prioritizing tasks—you'll get to that later.
   4. Once you've handled an item (an email for example), file it in your PARA system if you can do so instantly. If figuring out where to file the item is going to take some thought, don't worry about it. Move on. The key thing is to keep your momentum—don't let perfection get in the way of progress.
   5. Once you've identified and handled all the important items in an area (you knew this was coming…), archive everything. Remember: you’re not deleting things, you’re just archiving them. You can retrieve items if you need to because you know where they are—in your archive!
   6. As you work through each component in your system, jot down your insights on the problems you're noticing, your thoughts on how you can improve your workflows, and application features you'd like to learn. For example, if you've been having trouble keeping up on email, is it because you have too many emails to look at? Or are you using your email system as a task manager? Or perhaps not using rules effectively... Don’t worry about figuring out or implementing fixes: we will work on strengthening your system in the next step.