Produce More - using Higher Efficiency
Batching
15 minutes a day
Checklists
Have you fallen victim to any of these?
Just like diet or exercise – the execution = success rate.
If you diet for 3 weeks and then quit, you won’t produce any results.
If you exercise for 1 month at 5 days a week, you stop because you ‘can’t keep up’.
Success happens with thoughtful application and steps you will actually follow.
If you simply take the stairs and swap vegetables for french fries when given the choice, you haven’t ADDED more to your daily habits, it’s simply swapping choice A for choice B.
Checklists Don’t Work For Me
If you’ve tried the ‘To-Do List’ and felt like you just wasted more time writing things down, maybe it lied that it would fix your disarray.
To produce an effective to-do list, it should only have 3 items on it, with an understanding you will actually only get 1 or 2 of them done.
You will have 27 distractions and ping and pong all over before the day is over.
But if you only produce the #1 priority. The day was a success.
Batching
I bet you have something about the daily job you can’t stand.
Whether paperwork, filing, quotes, accounting, sales, phone calls, emails, social media… the list goes on.
If you can identify it and write it down. See if you can ‘EAT THE FROG’ I’m open to ‘eating the frog’ any time of day that works for you.
Regardless, I would prefer to avoid it on a daily basis. So that’s what I recommend batching.
Take that task, and rather than doing it 20 minutes every day and eating 5 frogs a week. Think about pulling all of it together and just knocking out a couple of hours in one sitting. You might dread it all week, so think about a good way to pick a day when you have less stress and more time. And best of all, have a fun reward (favorite taco place or a special ice cream treat. We all deserve a reward 🙂 ) That way it isn’t a negative situation, and you may even start to look forward to the reward at the end of the project.
15 minutes “Meet me at the footbridge in 15 Minutes” ~ Professor Harold Hill – The Music Man
My mom used to always set a timer for 15 minutes and clean as much as she could. It’s amazing the progress you can make with an intentional focus for efficiency in a short burst.
15 minutes x 5 days = 1 hour 15 minutes
1h 15 min x 4 wks/month = 5 hours
5 hours x 12 months = 60+ hours a year
So 15 small minutes daily produce a large impact at the end of the year.
Whether it’s writing or phone calls, social media posting, or simply organizing your desk.
If you commit to a scheduled slot on your calendar, you will be amazed at how much, and how fast the time will go.
P.S.
I listened to a great podcast that reiterated everything above on only having 1 priority you should worry about each day. He touches on the To-Do lists and memory lists.
Don’t let “TODOs” get you wrapped up in feeling like you produced something today.
Sometimes it’s just a memory bank, and we need to keep tangible notecards in front of you.
There is so much cool data out there about physically writing something down the pen to page vs. typing in a text note, or even an email memo or calendar reminder.
Maybe the 1 to-do should be: get some paper and a nice pen (it makes you feel special when writing things down) and start jotting down details and things so you can spend time dwelling on them.
Produce something that matters. And produce something thoughtfully.