How to Double Your Productivity In One Week
Six years ago, I was working 12-hour days. Wanting to get more done in less time, I started studying productivity principles. Now I never work more than 6 hours a day but I manage to get more done than before! Here are the tips that more than doubled my productivity and cut my work day in half.
Do the Important Before the Urgent
Let’s say you’re working on a very important proposal that is due in a week and you also need to return a DVD today. Finish the proposal and pay the late fee for the DVD. Remember: do what’s important first.
Do ONLY What’s Really Important
Ask yourself, “what is my main goal?” At any given moment there are two or three things that will get you closer to that goal. Those are your priorities. That’s what you should work on. Go back through your to-do list and eliminate all the items that aren’t very important (i.e. Organizing your music files). You can put all the irrelevant items on a separate list; I call this list “Maybe One Day”.
Also learn to say NO. Most people; myself included- want to please everyone. Don’t do it. Say no more often.
Avoid Multitasking
Now that you know what your top priority is, work on that and don’t let anything else interrupt you. I let calls go to voicemail, I asked my co-workers not to send me text messages or instant messages and I disabled email notifications. I start doing something and I don’t do anything else until I’m done.
Don’t multi-task; “single-task” instead.
Good Enough Is Good Enough
Most things don’t need to be perfect. If the letter you just printed doesn’t have symmetric margins, don’t print it again. Use the one you have and move on. If your website color isn’t the right one, who cares? Leave it as it is and focus on bringing in more clients. Good enough is good enough. Get things done fast and move on. You can always correct or improve something if necessary.
Use Parkinson’s Law to Your Benefit
Parkinson’s law says that things take as much time as you have available. If your boss asks you for a report by next Friday, you’ll have it done by then. If she asks you for the same report by tomorrow, you’ll finish it by tomorrow. Having limited time to do something is a good thing. It means that we stick to the very crucial and don’t worry about irrelevant details. Give yourself deadlines and meet them. For example, I have a limit of one hour per day answering email. That forces me to answer the very important email and I can use the rest of my day to create value for my clients. If I were to answer every email I get, I’d spend 6-8 hours per day just doing that.
Break It Down
Almost every time you find yourself in front of a project you don’t know what to do about, it’s because you haven’t broken down the project into smaller pieces. Let’s say you need to find vendors for your new business. That’s overwhelming! Let’s break it down:
1. Do a Google search for “wholesale chocolate supplier”.
2. Find 50 companies and gather their email addresses.
3. Make a list of things I want to ask them.
4. Write a template email.
5. Send the email to the 50 companies.
The 5 tasks above are really easy to do. Remember the old saying, “the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”
Process Tasks in Batches
When you group similar tasks together, you save a lot of time. Make all your phone calls all at once, process your emails together and run all your errands at once.
Learn From Your Mistakes
When you find yourself wasting time, stop for a second and think about why you’re doing it and how you can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Set Realistic Goals
There’s no bigger morale killer than never achieving your goals. Set realistic goals and celebrate when you finish each day’s to-do lists.
Rest
In order to chop down a lot of trees, you need a sharp axe. Spend some time sharpening your axe. Rest every time you need it, re-charge your energy levels and go back to work.
Do It!
When you are blocked and can’t get anything done, just do something. Do a small thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s something important. Just do it. That will get your juices flowing. Don’t worry if you do something wrong; you can always correct it later. “Every journey begins with the first step”. The best way to stop procrastinating is to do something.
January 4th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
This article is fantastic. I think the “avoid multitasking” is the best piece of advice in the whole thing. Too many times have I found myself spend an hour to do something that could have taken 15 minutes, because I refused to shut everything out and focus on one thing.
January 5th, 2011 at 1:15 am
I love this! Perfectly written advice! Do ONLY what’s REALLY important? That’s right! Everything is important but there’s gotta be something more important than the rest, and that should come first.
January 5th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Contrary to popular belief that multitasking can get your work done faster, it can in fact decrease your concentration skills and produce not so good results than what you could have done had you allotted a specific time for it.
And how true — Good enough is good enough. It’s almost perfect anyway, just not quite yet. But 99% is almost a hundred in value.
January 5th, 2011 at 6:13 am
well written! I like the way you suggest grouping tasks - emails all together, calls at one time…probably helps you speed through that particular task because you are in a mode for that job.
I can definitely use a good helping of “good enough is good enough”.
Great principles to start the new year off with — Rachel
January 5th, 2011 at 10:29 am
One more way that breaking down your tasks into smaller pieces is a fantastic tip is that it fights procrastination. You’re much more likely to avoid a large overwhelming project than you would a small task that serves as the project’s starting point. Small achievalbe tasks break the friction and get you rolling.
Valuable post!
January 5th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
a little addendum - I tried making blocks of time today, and I found myself to be hugely productive! Dedicated an hour to business plan writing - uninterrupted and it was fabulous.
–Rachel
January 5th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Well written! How to put focus in your day and take out the “busy being busy”. I use to argue women naturally had the talent to multitask and have learned it is far from being a time saver when priorities are at hand - which is always. I also love being perfectly imperfect. So much time is wasted in perfection. Another common word for perfection is procrastination. This blog is definitely good enough for me. I’ll look forward to your next post.
January 11th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Great recap from the principles described in the book, The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.
January 11th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
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January 11th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Wonderful article. We employ some of the same techniques. Due to the nature of our business (Virtual Administrative Support) we always have something on our plate that includes a competing priority.
January 11th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Speak to my boss at ppm, private placement about tasks. Sam Goldberg is a good at this sort of thing. You two should get together!
January 11th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
re sending emails to 50 companies: Do that & I bet the 50 companies will all delete the emails w/o reading them. Advance work is necessary, IMHO. Phone calls must be made to find out who exactly to send the email to. In marketing my gardening tool, I’ve found that it’s better to talk with the
intended person first & then, with their permission, send an
email with my website link. After that, following up is key!
February 3rd, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Nice! Great advice! Do ONLY what’s important? That’s right! Everything is important but there’s gotta be something more important than the rest, and that should come first.
November 9th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I agree with Zeke!
Avoiding multitasking is critical. Most people think multitasking is good and things get done faster.
Well, it is an illusion. In fact, multitasking damages parts of the brain that are causing distractions and loss of focus. That’s why if you are a victim of multitasking, you have hard time to focus on things.