Get Twice As Much Done In Half The Time
10 Productivity Strategies for Your Office
Isi Dixon
Copyright 2011 Isi Dixon
Smashwords Edition
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Contents
5. Create a Standard Timetable
6. Overcome the Urge to Multitask
Introduction
You are working hard, you are working long hours and the pile of work never seems to get any smaller. Your inbox is overflowing; the emails are stacking up; there is no surface on or near your desk that hasn't got papers stacked high, all important of course, all current and in need of attention. It takes you some time to find what you're looking for because of the sheer mass of stuff (I'm using ‘stuff’ as a technical term here) and you wonder how your colleague always manages to get everything done, while going home on time and taking the whole of his lunch break. Something's not right here.
The thing is, you could be exactly like your colleague. Your desk could look organised, you could go home on time with everything that needs to be achieved for the day, all sorted. But how? You might not believe it but sometimes there are only a few tweaks that need to be made and things improve overnight. But you need to be consistent. Once you start on the road to becoming organised, there's no stopping. Getting organised is only the beginning of the process; you have to change your habits, not much, but bit by bit, to stay on top of things.
So, what habits are we talking about? Don't worry, you don't have to have a personality transplant; you will still be yourself by the end of the process, but a lot less stressed, more relaxed and most importantly, more productive.
So first up, what is productivity? What does it actually mean? According to the Oxford English dictionary, being productive means "achieving a significant amount or result". According to Webster's Dictionary one of the meanings of the word productive is "bringing into being; causing to exist". In both cases being productive refers to the creation of something, the achievement of getting something done. Whether that something is tangible, such as creating a product, or intangible, such as increasing your knowledge, doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that something was done that made a significant change. Productivity must not be confused with simply being busy. You can be busy all day, shuffling papers from left to right and back again, but at the end of the day nothing was achieved. This is how many of us lead our lives. We stress about details and minutiae on tasks where it really doesn't matter, instead of concentrating on what's important.
So first of all you have to decide what is important in your life and in your work. This can be achieved by a creative goal-setting session. I am not going into goal setting in this eBook – that is another topic altogether and many good books have been written about how to successfully set and most importantly achieve goals. But once you have done the exercise of goal setting, and come up with a list of projects and tasks that need to be achieved to reach your goals, then you need the tools to do just that.
The tips and strategies I'm going to give you can improve your life if you implement them and stick with them. Just doing them for a week will not improve your situation long term but you will already see improvements after probably a day or two. Each strategy on its own has the potential to double your productivity if you're not using it already. Just imagine how productive you could be, if you implemented some or even all of them.
To give you an overview of what's in store for you, here are the ten strategies that we will be discussing in detail.
Overcoming Procrastination
Making a Decision
Prioritising
Planning
Creating a Standard Timetable
Overcoming the Urge to Multitask
How to Deal with Emails
Organising Your Workspace
Tightening Up Your Meetings
Improving Your Skills
So let's dive right in and see what we can do together to improve your productivity and with it the quality of your life.
1. Overcoming Procrastination
Now there's a biggy for you. Probably the biggest cause of low productivity and one of the hardest habits to break – procrastination. The thing about procrastination is that it creeps up on you. You don't really notice all the time that you're doing it; it depends on how you procrastinate. You will find ways to procrastinate that will give you the impression that you are super-busy but you still don't get anything done, anything of importance that is. All the unimportant things, all the trivial matters, they are all getting major attention. Tasks that you could delegate or even eliminate all get done, almost religiously. But the most important tasks, the ones that you would assign a priority A1, the must-get-this-done-or-the-business-will-fail tasks, those are the ones that we most often procrastinate upon. Why? The reasons are manifold. I have researched this particular topic extensively and have discovered lots of reasons why people procrastinate. It's not only for obvious reasons.
The number one excuse for procrastination is time. "I simply haven't got the time to do this right now" is the most common reason people give for putting things off. This can be true, of course. Chances are that you really don't have a whole weekend at your disposal to clear out your garage or the 5 hours it would take to write the whole report. But – and this is really a But with a capital B – nobody is asking you to do that. The major secret to getting large projects done is to break them down into smaller, manageable chunks and work on them one at a time. Make the chunks really bite size so that you don't have the excuse that they take too long, then schedule them into your planner. Each task shouldn't be longer than 30 to 60 minutes, which is a period of time that anyone can find in their diary.
If after doing that you still find yourself procrastinating and coming up with excuses such as (still) lack of time or that you have more important things to do, such as filing or alphabetising the contents of your fridge, then there are other, deeper-seated factors at play. These can be grouped into two categories: reasons that have to do with the project itself and reasons that are down to your personality. Have a look at the table below to see whether you can identify with any of these reasons and also to find some solutions to get over them.
Project Related Reasons for Procrastination
Project is out of your expertise and/or you don't know where to start.
Consult an expert: find someone who has done this sort of thing before and ask for help. Nobody can be expected to know everything. Option 2 - find a how-to book on the subject.
Project is boring.
Consider delegating to someone who enjoys this kind of work. If that's not an option, challenge yourself. How fast can you finish each part of the project? Set yourself a deadline and see if you can beat it by x amount. The adrenaline rush will help to get you moving.
Project is threatening.
If you are worried that you'll get in trouble if you get this wrong then you are likely to delay the whole thing. Consider: what is the worst thing that could happen if you get this wrong and how likely is it that it will happen?
Also, what exactly do you need to get it right? Have you got all available tools and information? If yes, you're already halfway there, so make a start. If no, consider getting help or even delegating to someone with all the tools available to them.
Personality Traits That Increase Procrastination
Perfectionism
Conditions are never perfect and if you wait for perfection you will never get started. Refocus to what is the minimum you need to get started, then go. You can always adjust along the way.
Lack of Self-Confidence
Break the project down into bite-size tasks and put them in the order they need to be completed in. Concentrate on one task at a time. Reward yourself once each step is achieved.