With so much to do, in so little time, with so little funds I’m on a productivity mission. It all “fell” into place after reading Tim Ferriss’ 4hr work week book. He has an insightful blog. Another website that follows even better effective and efficient streams is Zen Habits. It’s superb.
A few tips that have made a significant difference to how much I can get done:
1. Processing my inbox to empty. A sigh of relief!
2. Turning email off. I only open my Outlook x3 per day now. I’m trying to reduce that to 2 very soon. Email is a massive distraction.
3. Asking myself every other hour: “Am I doing something important, or am I just busy?” As in, my current task – is it adding to my goal, or am I doing something really unimportant, really well. Productive versus active.
4. Templating “frequently asked questions.”
5. 80/20 rule: frequently asking myself: “what 20% of tasks are taking up 80% of my time?” And in so trying to eliminate them or automate them.
6. Not multi-tasking.
7. Making deadlines more important – by making them more immediate.
8. Oldest thing first, everyday. Then I can’t procrastinate around it.
These 8 tips have instantly given me an extra 1-2 hours a day – to go home early or do whatever! They’ve also shown me how ineffective I was. I had an illusion that I was effective, but clearly not.
Remembering of course, that the unrealistic is easier than the realistic – I refuse to strive for mediocrity, otherwise I know I will be forever resentful with myself that I did not try.
Ferriss gives a great example in his book. With some martial arts background (but not kickboxing), he entered the Chinese nationals 4wks out & he won. How? By reading the rule book. Train smarter – not harder eh. That’s what I’m going for in work, and personal situations. Even with the recession it’s time to look outside the square.
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