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| The Beginner’s Guide To Productivity And Time Management Strategies That Work |
The Beginner’s Guide To Productivity And Time Management Strategies That Work
Table Of Content(toc)
1. Intro
Productivity is not about getting more done each day. It’s about getting important things done consistently, day after day, week after week, month after month. Productivity is measured in hours per day.
It’s not just the time you spend actually doing something, it’s also the time you spend thinking about doing something (i.e. planning) and the time you spend actually doing something (i.e. completing a task). Time management involves balancing out these three types of time spent so that you get everything done efficiently and effectively (see Figure 1 ).
2. The Nature of Productivity: Getting Important Things Done
Productivity is a tricky topic. We all want to be productive, but it’s not that simple…
The first thing we have to do is rethink the way we think about productivity. The traditional view of productivity is quite limited. It focuses on the amount of work you can do each day: “I can get x number of things done in x hours”.
However, if you look at it from another perspective, productivity can be thought of as the ratio between time spent doing something and time available for other things (which is not necessarily the same thing).
In other words, if you need to complete a task in an hour, then how much time did you actually spend doing that task? What might have taken an hour could end up taking anywhere from two minutes to 15 minutes (which might seem like a lot when it’s over, but it is still significant).
In other words: Human beings don’t work as efficiently as machines do! In fact, humans are generally much worse at multitasking than machines are. This means that most people spend more time than they really need to on tasks that are inherently hard and inflexible… perhaps because they assumed it was enough just to get up and go to work.
If this doesn’t make sense then maybe you should read this post which explains why setting goals for yourself isn’t enough: You need breaks once in a while too!
The second thing we have to think about is the “what” part of productivity: what are we actually trying to achieve? If your goal is simply getting through each day with less stress, then obviously that’s pretty easy. But what if your goal isn’t getting through each day with less stress? What if your goal is adopting a new habit? For example: “I want my brain fully rested” or “I want more social contacts”. These goals may sound easier but they are actually very difficult because they require different types of discipline and mental focus than getting through one hour of work each day (in which case working 8 hours would definitely be productive).
And finally there’s the “when” part of productivity: How many hours per week can I dedicate towards this? How many days per week can I dedicate towards this? And how many projects/tasks/subtasks/projects per week am I doing for myself? The answers depend on where you’re starting from. In our example above (a student),
3. Why is Population Important to Me?
Population is important to me because I am an international student. International students tend to have a very different life style and with that, a different way of thinking about time. They spend more time on social media than most people and less time on actual schoolwork.
They also tend to be much less disciplined than students here at home. So, when it comes to study, they are often not as disciplined as people here at home (which is why they tend to get into trouble). Better yet, they are often much more disciplined in their studies than the average person!
This is not just true for students who study abroad: it’s also true for everyone. It’s probably true for you too. And this relates to the topic of today’s post: Productivity and Time Management . To understand why this is so, think about how you are spending your day:
You mainly wake up in the morning (the 7th hour), go through your daily routine (the 5th hour), eat breakfast (the 4th hour), go out and do work (the 3rd hour), go home and start studying without fail (the 2nd hour), read on your computer all day long (the 1st hour). You then finish whatever work you did the day before without fail at around 5pm. You go to bed at around 10pm or 1030pm depending where you live in the world with no doubt about what time that actually is for you!
Now take a moment and think about how this would change if there were not a huge amount of social media available 24 hours per day, every single day of the week everywhere in the world! And if there was no internet connection at all! And if there was no technology available that allowed people to check their phones whenever they wanted? How would other parts of your life change? How many meetings would be missed? How many email conversations would have been missed? What type of work would you do? What type of results would you get? What type of self-control could you exert while working? Would anyone notice if you got five hours sleep instead of six hours?
If these things did not exist… well… who knows what could happen!? Would anyone notice that instead of getting up early everyday like most people do, we start working late in the evening instead?! Would it be considered impolite or rude or unprofessional if we all got up earlier than that?! Would any other part of our lives
4. What are Important Things?
In his book “The Productivity Project”, author and productivity expert Tony Buzan identifies the most important things we need to do every day. The following are the top 10 list:
1. Do something. It’s that simple.
2. Get a good night’s sleep before your alarm goes off in the morning
3. Leave the house for a run or a workout before lunch
4. Wake up on time, get ready for work, and leave work at a decent hour each day
5. Eat breakfast at least 4x per week (and don’t skip breakfast)
5. Why is Consistency Important?
In the late 90’s, entrepreneur John Maeda started a blog called Productivity Pro that was mostly about productivity and time management. He is also the author of books like The Art of the Start and Time Management Made Simple. Now, he wrote a new book about his experience called Productivity Pro: A Guide to Efficient Productivity – How to Make More With Less .
This is a great read for anyone who is new to productivity or even if you are more experienced in it. It is an easy read and covers a lot of ground in detail.
What I found very interesting was that even though he wrote it for newcomers to productivity, some of the points he made were clearly different from what I had come up with over 20 years ago when I started my first blog (called A Blog For Everything ). It’s good enough that people can pick up this book to see if they agree with what he has to say.
It’s also clear that while writing his book, he has been listening to great thinkers like Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team ) and Brené Brown (Daring Greatly) as well as others on the subject.
6. Conclusion
There are many ways we can increase our productivity. The most obvious is to turn on the air conditioning at home. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but it will make a huge difference in your home and how you feel when you come home from work. On top of that, this is one of the few things that you can do without spending a lot of money.
While the air conditioner may seem like a luxury item, it will not only cool you down and save you money on energy bills, but also save time when your family members come over for dinner or to watch TV with you, or even just sit in the living room while you do your work in the den or kitchen.
Another way to increase your productivity is by having separate areas for different tasks (e.g., “TV/Gaming” and “Work”), or scheduling work differently so that it happens only when you are ready to do it (e.g., wake up before 6AM instead of when everyone else is already up). If we think about how we use our time, there are very few activities that seem important enough to devote ourselves to doing every day. For example, I spend most of my free time reading books on mobile devices or playing video games on my PC, but then I also have other chores I need to attend such as grocery shopping during certain times of day; cleaning up after my kids; taking out the trash; and doing laundry after I sleep early because I have trouble getting back to sleep without it.