Productivity is generally thought of in terms of, “How do I get more done?”
There is an old story of a man riding very fast on a horse. As he rides past a friend who is standing on the side of the road, the friend yells, “Where are you going?” The rider turns toward his friend and yells, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like that person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our daily, incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time, and the pressure to produce a to-do list and tick off items by each day’s end — seems to decide the direction and quality of our existence for us.
Sometimes the day’s furious deadlines make us believe we are so busy that we don’t even have a minute — much less 10 or 20 — to stop, pause and reflect. Over time, busyness dulls us. Ironically, this state of chronic overwork means we have even less time to pull out the grinding and polishing stones we need to regain our sharp edge. We become accustomed to using an increasingly dull saw, and soon we are expending all kinds of unnecessary and ineffectual effort for less than ideal results.
If we’re lucky, we work in teams and environments where that perspective is at least softened by combining it with a measure of efficiency or impact, but even then we don’t fully escape the rat-race-like pursuit of more.
There’s a misconception that working in an office means combing through endless emails while clutching the phone in one hand and scribbling notes in the other. There are better, more productive ways for people to spend their work day. It took me multiple degrees and several careers to realize I needed to optimize my process by working smarter, not harder.
The first tip is I picked up from this fantastic book is that we should learn to focus on what is absolutely essential to our happiness and well-being. When we do things we “have to do,” rather than things we “choose to do,” we’re surrendering our power to choose. And essentially we give this power to others.McKeown calls this “learned helplessness.” Instead, embrace the idea of “less but better” and accept trade-offs as an inherent part of life. To do this, we need to adopt the principle of essentialism, which focuses on four main points.
1| Do less, but do it better.
Identify the things you need to cut out, and do what’s left at a higher standard.Be ruthless in cutting away things that aren’t essential.
2 | Reject the notion that we should accomplish everything. We just can’t do everything. So choose what matters most to you and choose to excel in those specific directions.
3 | Question yourself and update your plans accordingly. Life, people and circumstances change, so keep asking yourself: is this worth my time? Or should I invest my time and energy into a more productive area?
4 | Take action. Nothing changes if we don’t take action. But how exactly do we implement these principles?
But what if doing less feels impossible? What if the workload really is unachievable? Then its about two magic words.
Prioritise. Figure out what’s most important and get that done first.
Surrender. You can’t control everything and sometimes the things you let go of work out better for it. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”
1.Take The Repeat Test
Here is a way to potentially save hours of your time each week; you will need to invest about five minutes a day in extra effort. First thing in the morning, take a piece of paper and write a column of numbers representing each hour from the time you wake up until you go to sleep. Stick with this exercise all day; it takes very little time, just the discipline to stop every hour for a few seconds. But at the end of the day, youʼll have a list of activities you wish you avoided. If the list has more than one or two items, you might want to continue the practice for a few more days or weeks.
2. Start A Don't Do List
Now that you have some sense of what not to do, try tossing out your To Do list and replacing it with a Don't Do list. Simply making this change is a highly effective timesaving tactic.Make a list of the things you, your family, or your company should no longer do.
3. Practice "Instead Of..."
Ever notice that you have a fresh perspective at work right after you come back from a vacation? Sometimes, to solve challenging problems you need to change your perspective. It often doesn’t matter what you change, but rather is more important that you change something, anything. To remove objectionable and meaningless obstacles from your path, you often need to find a fresh perspective.
4. Less What?
Fill in the blank:
I want less __________.
Here are some possible answers...
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- clutter
- confusion
- demands on my time
- details
- disrespect
- fear
- financial pressures
- frustration
- heartache
- paper
- people to manage
- rejection
- repetition
- stress
- taxes
- things to read
- work
- worries
Once you have your answer, write it in BIG letters on your wall or screen. Refer to it every day. Banish this item from your life.
5. Take Responsibility For Changing Your Career
You have a much greater power to instigate change than you might think. The only real question is how much you are willing to pay to produce the change you desire. “Payment” is usually due in terms of time, effort and risk... not in monetary form.
If you don't like some aspect of your career or life, invest the necessary time and effort, and get rid of it.
6. When All Else Fails, Give Up
Something’s not quite right. Maybe you are slightly ill-at-ease, or you are frustrated without knowing exactly why. Try giving up something out of the many things that crowd your life. Here are some ideas:
Give up one or more obligations.
Clean out your office or study.
Figure out which reports/publications you can ignore, and cancel them.
Look at your schedule and figure out whether you really need to get together with all the people on it.
Go through your budget - if you have one - and decide whether there’s room to cut out some expenses. If you don’t have one, scribble down some numbers on the back of an envelope. (It’s a start.)
Take an hour to consider how you go about your business, and see if you can simplify some of the steps you go through to get things done.
Less won't solve all your problems, just many of them.
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