How to be more productive?

The Free For All Lounge
#1

Hi everyone
So, everyone know that what the most productive people do is not necessarily put more hours of work, instead they have greater ability to focus!
Most people are scattered brained. They focus on a lot of things that solicit on their time and attention.
Successfull people, on the other hand, find out the most important things and have laser focus on them.
Saying Yes is easy. But knowing what’s your focus and saying NO to other things that come your way is the key to success. This is also known as delaying gratification, from another point of view.
So ask yourself: What crappy stuff do you need to stop doing so that you can focus on the good stuff?
Superachievers don’t do MANY THINGS. They focus on the VITAL FEW.
Now here is a method I’m trying to use for being more and more focused. (it’s very simple indeed):

  1. WRITE all your priorities.

  2. Narrow down your TOP 3.

  3. THROW rest of list away.

FOCUS is like a muscle you have to develop. So, you have to put it under intense pressure and stress and then rest and recover. That’s how you build the muscle of concentration.

8 Likes
#2

Create a Trello board, split it to four lists - Backlog (list of things to do), Doing (things currently being done), Done, and Future Plans/Notes. Have it open in your browser at all time, turn Spotify on and have a good time. :ok_hand:

7 Likes
#3

is this is a nice simple and clean strategy!
I am testing so many softwares: from todoist to workflowy, dynalist, evernote, still did not decided what will be my choice

#4

I’ve been writing down my “to do list” for a while now…
I also start from the most important, but I eventually do them all!

#5

Make a to do list, and delete your social media. I only use social media for making money. Not worth my time beyond that. Foster real, meaningful relationships outside of social media and take time to call friends you haven’t talked to in a while. Lots of times you’ll be surprised at how many of your friends are leading lives that can serve some sort of value in aiding your money making/productivity.

4 Likes
#6

Great post! @mdtanos

I struggle with focus immensely. I also write lists etc… but I want to do everything today because I struggle with being able to prioritise. I feel everything is a priority. Then when I don’t get everything, I beat myself up about it. Procrastination and the lack of imperfect action are also areas I need to improve on. I use Asana to keep track of tasks and paired it with Google Assistant so I can just tell Google to add tasks to my list. I then have also created a routine yesterday which I need to follow and stick to so I’m taking time out to eat and gym not just stay sitting infront of the screen all day and evening!

I’ve started reading a book called The 5 Choices by Kory Kogon which explains the notion that your tasks can be split up into 4 quadrants. Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Q1 are the tasks which you MUST do, they are urgent and important and are probably late being started and if you don’t do them you’ll be in trouble.

Q2 is planning ahead - so tasks which are important but not urgent and doing work ahead of time or putting things into place so you don’t get any tasks that turn into Q1

Q3 tasks are distraction tasks that you could do but even if you don’t it won’t have serious consequences. i.e. irrelevant reports, other people’s minor issues.

Q4 takes are avoidance activities, trivial work, excessive relaxation. The latter as a result of spending too much time in Q1 and burning ourselves out, so then we feel like yes we deserve too waste lots of time in Q4 because we’ve earned it. However, if we spent more time in Q2, and none in Q1, we wouldn’t need to burnout and resort to spending ages watching box sets in Q4.

It’s difficult to change old habits but not impossible. Also, @PLWill is right, I’m really bad at spending tooo long on social media. Half an hours, hours go by and is something I’m fighting to stop. Also, not looking at our phones the first thing in the morning is a good tip. Get on with our morning routine and not let the world, clients, issues etc… interfere with our morning routine. For example a run, meditation whatever it is. It’s not like we would have been able to do anything about any of the issues if we hadn’t woke up at that time, we would have been asleep and the world would still have been fine.

Phew, I kind of just ranted on there. Hope that helps someone! :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#7

awesome didn’t know about this!

I will put this in my to read list, very interesting!
thanks for sharing

1 Like
#8

When I’m working I can’t make any future plan, I can’t even think about any good plan. I don’t get any self motivation, I just do whatever it’s have to be done. I get good plan and self motivation only when I’m in happiness mode. But again when I try to do my work and want to work for a future smart plan, then some email/skype message divert my attention, and again same thing repeat to me.

I think I(we) need some worker who do my(our) work, so that I(we) can think about future plan. Being productive and successful is not same thing in my opinion.

#9

worth trying, thanks for the share!

#10

Make detailed todo lists and stick to them.

#11

To-do lists are the greatest, in any form they come, like most of the other members suggested. But the real deal is splitting a task into multiple mini tasks, otherwise you get stuck on not moving forward because you don’t know what actually needs doing in more detail.

#12

Precisely. It’s very important to divide them in mini task, because this helps eliminating anxiety/stress/ overwhelmed feeling.
I’m using dynalist app for doing this

#13

My trello board is fully automated, I wake up and I have a list of things to do that have been pre determined whilst I was sleeping. Saves a lot of mental energy

1 Like
#14

Great stuff. Here is a link to it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2pKN3RE

#15

A link to the book for anyone else to is as follows: https://amzn.to/2pKN3RE

The book is called The 5 Choices and I definitely recommend it! It’s helped me immensely!

#16

Sounds really interesting. Could you explain in detail how that happens and what type of plugins or add-ons you are using to achieve this automation? Thanks.

#17

I would add regular working out, regular sleep and healthy lean diet, it helped me change for the better so much and affected my ability to focus. Less carbs before the work.

#18

What worked for me is:

  • Workout
  • Diet
  • Hyper detailed to do lists created by me & tasks added by my VAs
  • Get hyper focused for a couple hours before PM

The best thing you can do for your productivity is hiring a VA as soon as you can afford it so that you don’t have to do bullshit tasks that are low ROI.