Productivity with Purpose
Time Management
18 Minutes to Managing Your Day
Aug 20th
I think this idea is worth repeating. I still use this planning method almost daily that I got from Peter Bregman at HarvardBusiness.org. And I can always tell if I have not taken the time to follow it, as those are the days that always seem to get away from me with no apparent accomplishments.
STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.
Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.
STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.
STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?
The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple. This particular ritual may not help you swim the English Channel while towing a cruise ship with your hands tied together. But it may just help you leave the office feeling productive and successful.
And, at the end of the day, isn’t that a higher priority?
Excerpted from – Peter Bregman – How We work
Important Questions to Gain Perspective and Stop Wasting Time
Aug 17th
Productivity without a purpose is just busyness disguised as importance.
When was the last time you took a step back and tried to put everything about your life and work into perspective? Most likely the answer is never. I don’t just mean big picture plans, I mean what you actually do every day, how you act, how you spend your time and energy, why you do the things you do. Just humor me for a few minutes and entertain the concept that what you think you need to do or what you should do may not actually be true. Most of our patterns or behaviors are learned or acquired from others and then we never question them again until either something terrible happens or someone causes us to examine them. A recent vacation and a complete change in surroundings started me thinking about my own patterns and probing their effectiveness and even their necessity. This is why taking a break, stepping back and getting outside your “box” that has become your life is so important to both your personal and professional development.
I am challenging you now to scrutinize every pattern of behavior or routine and ask yourself these questions:
- Why am I doing this? What is the purpose?
- How much time do I really need to spend on it?
- Is there a faster, easier or more enjoyable way to accomplish it?
- What would happen if I stopped doing it?
It feels disloyal in a way to question your own perspective and thoughts, because hey, we all think that we are right. We don’t really like to entertain the idea that we could be completely off-base and have been wasting our time and energy when we could be doing something much more valuable like developing ideas, connecting with people or maybe even having fun!
My own investigation revealed the following insights:
- Perhaps I do not need to spend an hour every day on my social media communications. I gained Twitter followers and had engagement even during my vacation period, with considerably less structured tweeting, but Facebook almost completely fell off the grid. My assignment: try switching up the amount of time and the schedule that I currently use to see if I can reduce the time commitment and make it more fun.
- Writing my blog posts ahead during assigned writing periods seems more productive, but isn’t the most fun way to write for me. How can I make my writing may be more effective, enjoyable and relevant? My assignment: Try setting aside the first hour of my work day and write about what is on my mind and current.
- My exercise routine gets boring and that makes it a chore some days and hard for me to stick to my plan. What if I really don’t need to be so rigid in my schedule? How can I make exercise more fun and still get the results I want? My assignment: Experiment with including different activities, i.e. biking, walking the dogs, yoga, a weighted ball; instead of my standard running and weightlifting routine.
Stay tuned for my next post on my “Shake it Up” experiment….
Manage Your Energy
Aug 5th
Learning how to manage your energy goes along with the post I wrote a few days ago explaining the importance of knowing yourself and what works for you. Another part of that strategy is also knowing and managing your energy cycle, levels and preferences. Then the next step is figuring out how to use that knowledge to your advantage to help you work smarter, be more effective and have more free time.
Personal energy considerations:
- Are you a morning person or a night owl?
- Do you get a lunch time or mid-afternoon energy slump?
- What is your optimal length of focus or work period? For some people it’s 30 minutes spurts with short breaks in between, for others it’s 60 or 90 minutes and for a rare few it’s 3 or 4 hours.
- How often do you need to eat to maintain your concentration and energy? For health purposes you should eat every 3-4 hours, but perhaps a snack every 2 works better for you.
- Does the type of food you eat matter? Perhaps pasta isn’t a good lunch if it makes you want to take a nap!
You may not know the answers to these questions and you are not alone. The best method to use to get a better “map” if you will of your energy cycle is to track your workday activities with energy notes for a week. You should already have some type of calendar that you use for work and/or home. Simply make brief notes as you go through your week about the type of task you are doing and how you are feeling each hour. When you look back at the end of the week, you will see a pattern that you can use to help you schedule tasks, meetings, breaks and other activities during the times that are more appropriate for you.
For example, I have discovered that I am a morning person and that my brain gets fuzzy late at night. However, when I first wake up it takes me a while to calm my mind and focus; it’s usually like a whirling vortex of ideas and task. This is not a good time for me to write a blog post or do project work. It is a great time for me to scan social media, read RSS feeds, answer quick emails (things that only need a few minutes focus) or alternatively to exercise which helps to calm my mind. My energy and focus “curve” slowly climbs throughout the morning and peaks late morning. So 10AM-12PM is great project/writing time. This is why I frequently get caught up in a project and do not want to stop to eat lunch. I will keep working until 1 or 2 some days and then I am starving. So, the lesson for me here is not only when to schedule high focus activities, but also to make sure I take a mid-morning break and have a good snack in case lunch is later. I am almost useless many days late afternoon, so I best get everything done before 3PM or else it has to wait until mid-evening. I do get another spurt of energy between 6-8PM, which I like to use for those household chores, being active with the kids or occasionally writing or other business tasks that I may not have time for during the traditional work day (i.e. finances, marketing, technology issues.) The other things I discovered are that I work better in 90 minute blocks of time (30 minutes is too disruptive for me) and that I need to eat every 2 – 3 hours.
To read more on the other Golden Rules of Productivity, click here.
