How to double up your productivity?
Three simple Techniques to double up your productivity.
I’m going to share a couple of Productivity Techniques with you to get you laser focused and help you tackle you procrastination and double your productivity.
In a bygone era, which is actually not too long ago, you could only reach people by the phone, mail or in person. If you had to complete a task you could just shut your door and have your calls held. Today things are different with constant interruptions thanks to the many electronic means of communication. We cannot get away from our cell phones and computers. We are at the mercy of perpetual interruptions that take our attention away from our tasks at-hand and our productivity dwindles as a result. Emails, texts, IMM, ISS feeds, blogs, twitters, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube…. have taken over our lives.
Constant distractions that often leave us overwhelmed. It is time to take back control of your attention and focus to enable you to complete tasks and goals.
Here are three Techniques that I use to stay focused and productive and help me produce more in less time.
1. Group your tasks
Take similar tasks and complete them together. For example, if I have to review some articles, I wait until I have more than one and I look at them all at once. Grouping can save time in dealing with emails. I check mine twice a day and give myself some time to respond to those that need it. This allows me to power through them more quickly rather than allowing myself to be distracted throughout the entire day.
2. Chunks (Blocks) of time
Carve out chunks of time in your calendar to handle your groups of tasks. For instance, I block out chunks of time in my schedule to process emails, make phone calls or to prepare for calls. If I need to focus on media activities I set aside time for that too. I even set aside time in my schedule blocks to think about how to tackle a difficult task. I have learned to not let myself get distracted and to not focus on anything other than what I'm supposed to be doing in the scheduled "Chunk". If I'm in my email chunk, I only focus on emails.
3. Success compression
Whatever it is that you are doing, the hardest part about doing it is to get going and then getting into the flow of it.
I love Brian Tracy’s analogy of a plane that is taking off. It takes more fuel and energy just to get the plane going eighty miles an hour on the ground and climbing than it does to get that plane to cruise at 400 miles an hour in the air.
Whatever it is that you want to get off the ground and significantly advanced, it is far better to go hard at for a short but sustained period of time than it is to drag it out over a long period of time.
One Task
Darren Hardy has such a practical example for this Technique. He says” I structure my goals around 90 day cycles. Depending on the goal I want to accomplish I will take the tasks that will lead me there and break them into compressed chunks within those 90 days." Three thirty day cycles or two six week periods for example and focusing on one task exclusively during each period of time.
Remember, by compressing key tasks into extended windows of time, you can fly at 400 miles an hour and sustain it while everyone else is spending their time on constantly taking off and landing.
Over time the results will speak for themselves and you will be a shining star compared to everyone else.