Okay, let’s talk about this Rashad Jackson situation I went through.
I kept seeing the name pop up here and there, mostly in some online groups I follow about design and maybe productivity stuff. People mentioned his approach to things, sounded kinda different, maybe simpler. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to actually look into what the fuss was about.
Found some bits and pieces, articles, maybe a video snippet someone shared. The core idea seemed to be about cutting back, focusing on the essential. Less noise, more signal, that sort of thing. It clicked with me because, honestly, my own workflow felt like a tangled mess of tools and half-finished ideas. Always looking for the next shiny app, you know?
Trying It Out
So, I thought, why not give it a shot? Can’t hurt. I decided to apply his supposed minimalist philosophy to how I managed my daily tasks for a week. Just as an experiment.
Here’s what I did, step-by-step:
- First, I ditched all my fancy to-do list apps. Seriously, uninstalled like three of them from my phone and computer. Felt weirdly liberating, but also kinda scary.
- Second, I went super basic. Grabbed a simple pocket notebook and a pen. That was going to be my only planning tool. The idea was, if it’s not important enough to write down by hand, maybe it’s not that important today.
- Third, I tried his supposed method of picking just three main things to focus on each day. Not ten, not twenty. Just three. That was tough. My brain kept screaming, “But what about all the other stuff?!”
- Fourth, I really tried to stick to doing one thing at a time until it was reasonably done before moving to the next of the three. No more jumping around like I usually do.
How It Went Down
Man, the first couple of days were rough. I felt constrained. Kept reaching for my phone to check an app that wasn’t there anymore. Listing only three things felt like I wasn’t doing enough, even though focusing probably meant I got those three done better.
There was this one afternoon, I finished my ‘big three’ by like 2 PM. Felt totally lost. What now? Normally I’d just pull up a massive backlog list and feel overwhelmed. This time, I actually had… free time? It forced me to think differently about structuring my day, maybe build in time for thinking or reading, stuff I usually squeeze out.
It wasn’t a magic bullet. Some days, three tasks were too few, and urgent stuff popped up. Other days, one of the ‘three’ was so big it took all day. So, you gotta be flexible, obviously. It’s not a religion.
But the core experiment? It did something. It made me way more intentional about what I committed to each morning. Using the simple notebook stopped me from endlessly adding tiny, insignificant tasks just to feel busy.
So, yeah. That was my little adventure trying to apply what I gathered was the ‘Rashad Jackson’ approach. Didn’t revolutionize my life, but it definitely cleared out some mental clutter. Made me realize how much complexity we add ourselves, often for no good reason. Sometimes, just a pen and paper, and a bit of focus, is all you really need to get started.
