6 Things The Most Productive People Do Every Day Ever feel like you’re just not getting enough done? Know how many days per week you’re actually productive? About 3: People work an average of 45 hours a week; they consider about 17 of those hours to be unproductive (U.S.: 45 hours a week; 16 hours are considered unproductive). We could all be accomplishing a lot more — but then again, none of us wants to be a workaholic either. It’d be great to get tons done and have work/life balance. And who better to ask than Tim Ferriss, author of the international bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek? (Tim’s blog is here and his podcast is here.) Below are six tips Tim offered, the science behind why they work, and insight from the most productive people around. 1) Manage Your Mood Most productivity systems act like we’re robots — they forget the enormous power of feelings. If you start the day calm it’s easy to get the right things done and focus. Here’s Tim: I try to have the first 80 to 90 minutes of my day vary as little as possible. Research shows email:
Six Lazy Ways to Trick Your Brain Into Being Productive Why Calendars are More Effective Than To Do Lists – The Mission If there’s one pattern I’ve come across in dozens of articles, books I’ve read, and the 100’s of people that I’ve interviewed, it’s that the most prolific, productive and successful ones don’t depend on to-do lists, they depend on a calendar. It’s a lesson I’ve learned over and over again in my own work. The likelihood of me getting anything done goes up significantly when I put something on the calendar. Our lives are dictated almost entirely by units of time: Publishers give authors deadlinesProfessors give students a syllabus with important datesGoogle maps gives you an estimated time for how long it will take to get to your destinationWhen you get your car repaired, they tell you what time it will be ready.When you ship something you are told how long it will take to get to the recipient Given the role that time plays in our lives, it would make sense to focus on managing our time instead of our tasks. Imagine if you have a calendar. Enjoying this essay?
5 Ways to Make Your To-Do Lists More Effective To-do lists seem pretty straightforward: A list of all of the tasks you plan to accomplish during any given day or week. And, really, there are few things more satisfying than drawing lines through each entry. Progress! But, many times, they balloon to unrealistic levels, and we end up feeling overwhelmed and ineffective. That’s usually because we’re using them as a catch-all for every task that’s thrown at us. Instead, our lists should be derived from our larger goals and include tasks that move us toward those big-picture endeavors, says Robert C. 1. When you take a few minutes to write your to-do list the night before, you can hit the ground running the next morning, Pozen advises. 2. Everything that goes on your daily to-do list should fit two criteria: It should be something important that you need to do--versus that which doesn’t really need to be done or which can be delegated to someone else--and something that needs to be done on that day. 3. 4. 5.
This Is How To Be Productive: 5 New Secrets Proven By Research Want to know how to be productive? Create goals, make a plan and execute. We all know this is a good idea… and it never, ever seems to work. It’s like simplifying boxing down to “Just go into the ring and punch the other guy until he’s knocked out.” Sounds easy. (Hint: it’s not that easy.) So let’s ask a different question: what’s stopping you from being productive? Whenever you’re not getting stuff done (or not getting the right stuff done), ask which of these 5 is the problem and apply the solution… Problem 1: Priorities Sometimes you do get a lot done… but they’re not the right things. Whenever you hear or say, “I don’t have time” — it’s a lie. You need to be realistic. Ask yourself, “What’s important?” And this is where procrastination can help. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. So how do you implement this? Problem 2: Context
8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. On his computer sat even more stray objects than his surrounding environment. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert Phase 2: Find and Execute Phase 3: Disengagement
9 Habits You Need to Stop Now Rather than read all of these self-help books full of things you should start doing to be more productive, it’s often better to look at what you should stop doing that gets in the way of productivity. Looking at a problem backwards is called inversion and it’s often a better approach. With that in mind, Tim Ferriss, the author of The Four Hour Workweek, recently talked about this in a short podcast on productivity tricks. Here is Tim’s list of nine things you should stop doing right now. 1. The logic behind this one is that calls from people you don’t know are often disruptions. 2. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, says “One of the most important tricks for maximizing your productivity involves matching your mental state to the task.” In fact matching skills to the time of day is one of the most important changes you can make to improve your working habits. You want to get out of a reactive loop. The window for peak performance is two and a half to four hours after waking. 3. Tim says: 4.
Stanford Literature Review What is it? A critical literature review is one of the most important activities in the process of research and is usually included as part of the introduction to a research report or thesis. The aim of a literature review is to show that the writer insightfully evaluated the existing published literature on a particular topic. A good literature review should do the following: Define the scope of the problem Place the current study in a historical perspective Show the relationship between previous research and the current research thesis Avoid unnecessary duplication Evaluate different research methodologies and emphasize key studies Compare and contrast different research findings on a topic while grouping together authors with similar conclusions and noting areas in which authors are in disagreement Report gaps in the previous research and how the current study can add to the literature in general Conclude by summarizing what the literature says How does one begin? C.
The Weekly Planning Method For People Who Totally Hate Planning I coach CEOs, executives, HR managers, doctors, lawyers, and tech consultants–all busy people, many of whom can’t stand planning. But you won’t find me brushing up on Japanese business philosophy or fiddling with century-old planning templates in order to help my clients out. I’ve found that daily planning from a weekly action list is all it takes to keep them on track for the long haul. This “hebdomadal” model (feel free to Google that!) is the simplest form of long-term planning–meaning even people who hate long-term planning can usually manage to stick with it. If you spend enough time masterminding your weekly action plan, usually 10-30 minutes, you can condense bigger goals into doable directives that can be accomplished on a day-to-day basis, while still having a clear sense of the ground you’ll have covered by this time next week. So if you’ve had mixed results with other forms of planning, this weekly planning scheme is your ticket to consistent balance and achievement. . . .