Many of our contemporaries strive for hyper-productivity.
Surely, you know people who scurry from task to task, constantly checking e-mail, organizing something, calling somewhere, running errands, etc.
People who do this often share the notion that "keep busy" means you work hard and become more and more successful.
Such a belief can only be true to a certain extent, and it often leads to mindless "productivity", that is, a constant need to do something and a tendency to waste time on small tasks. But it's better to take a different approach.
Work smarter, not harder
The old adage says to work smarter, not harder. This statement should be taken as the basis for approaching work of any kind.
Instead of a robotic approach to problem solving, you need to ask yourself what can be done more rationally or completely excluded from the to-do list.
By effectively managing your time, you do not wonder how you can get more tasks done in a day, but try to simplify and speed up the process in order to avoid overstrain.
It's about making room in your life to relax and have fun.
There are indeed enough hours in the day to do whatever you want, but this time needs to be identified.
We hope this list of 21 tips will nudge you in the right direction.
Remember that there are countless tricks and tricks to plan your time effectively. We find these tips helpful, although you may have your own opinion on the matter.
Let this list serve as a catalyst for you to regularly think about ways to increase your own productivity.
1. The main attention to the main things.
Do the most important tasks first. This is the golden rule of time management. Each day, identify two or three tasks that are in priority and do them first.
Once you complete them, the day can already be considered successful. Move on to other things or postpone the rest for another day, because you have already done the most important things.
2. Learn to say no.
Solving a large number of tasks in a limited time can teach you how to juggle various projects and manage your time. And it's excellent.
3. Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep.
Some people think that sacrificing sleep is a good way to increase productivity and free up a couple of extra hours in the day. But this is not the case.
Most of us need 7-8 hours of sleep for both body and mind to function optimally. You will feel it, listen to your body. Don't underestimate the importance of sleep.
4. Concentrate fully on the task at hand.
Close all other browser windows. Put your phone in silent mode out of sight. Find a quiet, secluded place to work, or turn on music if it helps (I sometimes like to listen to classical music or nature sounds, for example).
Concentrate on one single task, immerse yourself in it. Nothing else should exist at this moment.
5. Start early.
Almost all of us suffer from procrastination syndrome. It seems that the task is so simple that you always have time to complete it and end up wasting time.
Get rid of chronic procrastination, as it is much more pleasant to avoid overexertion by completing planned tasks in advance. It's not that difficult, your strong determination is enough.
6. Don't get distracted by minor details.
We often drag out projects by dwelling on small details for too long. This is typical for perfectionists.
But it is much more effective to move forward, to complete a larger scope of the project, discarding the previous desire to constantly go deep into something. It is better to complete everything as soon as possible, and at the end to revise individual points.
7. Make regular tasks a habit.
If you have regular responsibilities (like writing articles for your own blog, etc.) you can plan them out and make them a habit. Do this daily and don't change your routine, then your brain will be disciplined and the activity will turn into a habit. It becomes quite natural and pleasant. Try it!
8. Control the amount of time spent on TV / Internet / games.
Time spent on social media, gaming or watching TV can and should be monitored. Try to determine for yourself the number of hours spent on the listed activities. As a rule, they distract you much more than you would like.
9. Set a time limit for each task.
Instead of just sitting on a project thinking: “I will sit here until everything is done” try to rephrase: "I will work on this assignment for three hours".
Being limited in time will push you to focus and be more efficient, even if you come back and refine a little later.
10. Leave a time gap between tasks.
As we rush from task to task, it's hard for us to evaluate our actions and stay focused and motivated.
Taking a break between tasks can be a breath of fresh air for our brains. You can take a short walk, meditate, or do something else for mental relief.
11. Don't think about the totality of your to-do list.
One of the surest ways to overwhelm yourself is to think about the enormity of your to-do list. No matter how much you think about it, it will not become shorter.
At a particular moment in time, you need to focus on one thing. This is one and only task. Do everything step by step. Keep calm.
12. Exercise and nutrition.
Numerous studies link work productivity to a healthy lifestyle. Getting enough sleep, exercising, and eating healthy will boost your energy levels, clear your mind, and allow you to focus more easily.
13. Do less.
« Do less" is another way of saying " do what matters most". This tactic again involves focusing on the things that matter most.
Stop, prioritize tasks, and pay attention to them. Do fewer things, but they should be prioritized and of more value than the rest.
14. Use the weekend, but don't overdo it.
If you think about it, you will be surprised to find how much you can reduce the load during the week by working a little on the weekend. Only 2-4 hours a day. Your leisure time will hardly suffer.
15. Systematize the process.
Being organized will save you a lot of time, and you don't have to be the most organized person in the world to do it. Organizing your work is not difficult at all.
Create a system in document registration. Make sure all items are stored properly. Unsubscribe from unwanted emails and unload your email. Optimize, streamline and streamline.
16. Fill free time.
As a rule, everyone has unfilled time. These are hours spent in waiting rooms, in grocery lines, on public transport, on elliptical trainers, and so on.
Find things you can do while doing it. Most often, reading will do, and don't forget about audiobooks to listen to while you wait.
17. Isolate yourself.
No distractions, no excuses. Sometimes the only way to do something is to lock yourself in your room. Isolation helps a lot.
18. Stick to a plan of action.
In part, we mentioned this, but it will not be superfluous to repeat. Don't deviate from your plan!
Resolutely stick to the planned cases, be a professional and go to the end. A strong will and steadfastness will lead you to your intended goal.
19. Do related tasks together.
Let's say that over the weekend you need to complete two programming assignments, write three essays, and shoot two videos. Instead of taking on work spontaneously, identify groups of similar tasks and do them sequentially.
Different tasks require different types of thinking, so it makes sense to let your brain continue to perform typical tasks, rather than switch to something else.
20. Find time for silence.
In today's world, too many people are constantly on the move and don't take the time to just stop. However, the practice of silence has an amazing effect. Both action and inaction must play a key role in our lives.
The state of peace and quiet reduces anxiety and shows that there is no need for constant haste. It also helps make work more enjoyable.
21. Eliminate the non-essential.
Indirectly, we have already touched on this aspect, but this is one of the most useful tips that you can learn for yourself.
Our lives are overflowing. When we define the superfluous and get rid of it, then it becomes clear to us what is most significant and most deserving of our time.
Let's take a look at one more piece of advice. If you remember anything from this list, then let it be the following:
The goal should always be pleasure. Work can be play.
We are so immersed in busyness that we forget to enjoy what we do. Even when we approach work smartly, often we are too focused on achieving the goal.
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The main resource in the world is time. Trite, but the point is that you know it. Unfortunately, in school (and beyond its walls) we are not taught how to manage our time. As a result, we get a couple of billion amoebas on the planet, which do not have time for a damn thing.
And how to keep up, we asked not from anyone, but from a real master of time, a person who managed (which is not surprising) to become a business consultant, entrepreneur and founder. We meet a professional tutor and trainer who teaches ordinary citizens and company employees how to improve personal efficiency.
You are considered an expert in time management, among other skills. How did you get such an interesting title? How do such professions appear that are still in their infancy?
An expert is more of a skill level than a profession. I can't call myself an "expert". I am professionally engaged in training people, including in the field of personal growth and productivity. In terms of time management, everything, of course, began with itself. I have always been interested in topics of personal improvement and personal effectiveness. So I began to "collect" various techniques and techniques that worked and were tested primarily by myself. Subsequently, I realized that I had a sufficient store of knowledge and experience that could be useful to my clients.
Time management is a skill that is more mental and perceptual or purely mechanical (do this and it will free you up so many hours a day).
Time management is not a mechanical, but, of course, rather a mental and, to some extent, even a biological skill. In this matter, a lot is tied to emotions and the ability of a person to manage these emotions. It is also related to the ability of a person to conduct a dialogue with himself and understand his needs. In short, real time management is about balance. It is impossible to just write down the whole week in a diary and, like a robot, follow your schedule no matter what. Time management is about balancing your personal goals with the uncertainty around you.
It seems to us (perhaps we are wrong) that the most difficult thing is, in principle, to start the practice of time management. Someone is lazy, others are skeptical, others simply cannot take the first step. How to deal with it? What is the simplest thing you can do to get out of the vicious cycle?
Time management is not a pill that strictly everyone needs. I can responsibly say that a person can be productive and live harmoniously without being interested in this subject at all. The fact is that a lot of people ask similar questions like “How to do everything?”, “How to find time for everything?”, “How to stop putting everything off for later?”. Often a person perceives this as an obstacle to his personal goals and objectives. This is where the science of time management comes in. The easiest thing to start with is to keep a calendar and change your attitude to time. Treat time like a resource and a calendar like a bank account.
Tell us about your Pomodoro timer and the Pomodoro technique itself. Is it a complex or simple technique?
Yes, as one of the tools to increase productivity and fight procrastination, we have developed.
A complete description of the methodology and its justification is in ours, and there is also a separate book. This method helps to concentrate on the implementation of complex, but necessary tasks, breaking them down into short periods of time - "Pomodoros".
Invented the technique by Francesco Cirillo. It happened in an attempt to stop being distracted by all sorts of nonsense and finally start doing homework. Using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (the technique is named after him), he set up an experiment to see if he could study for 10 minutes without being distracted. Everything worked out, and now the Pomodoro technique looks like this:
It is necessary to divide the workflow into time intervals (“pomodoros”) of 30 minutes. The segment itself includes 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. After 4 "pomodoros" you need to take a 30-minute break. The main thing is to get rid of everything that can distract. The timer on our site works according to this technique and can be configured depending on the complexity of the tasks and personal preferences - try it. After a few days, you will begin to notice some pretty significant progress and get used to this routine.
And can you give figures (we understand that everything is individual) that would reflect the increase in productivity in visual terms (in the form of the number of characters, lines of code, maybe in the episodes of the Game of Thrones watched)?
Productivity is always subjective. For some, a written essay of 1-2 pages can be a huge progress, but for someone, half a dissertation is a failure. Productivity is always about comparing the present self with the past self.
Advise our readers on other popular techniques (possibly with brief explanations) and places where you can read about the topic.
I highly recommend the recently translated into Russian book “15 secrets of time management. How successful people do it all.” Kevin Cruz. I read it in English and was very glad when it was published in Russia. The author has done a great job of studying the phenomenon of "productivity" and "success". The book contains many valuable tips, techniques and techniques.
My main recommendation is to look after another very valuable resource - health. Now there is a certain fashion for productivity, energy drinks are popular, and abroad there are even special drugs that increase productivity. There is no magic pill. What matters is not how long you can work, what matters is what you did and how happy you are with it.
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Don't waste precious time
According to one of the great people, the most serious crime is not the theft of property, but the theft of time. Sadly, we commit this crime every day.
How many useful people need could have been done while we were watching TV screens or doing petty little things.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to return wasted hours, days, years. But we can learn how to use the time that we have left.
Organization of time incredibly important for modern man. About how to properly organize your life without wasting time in vain, and will be discussed in this article.
Time management is a habit that can be acquired!
What takes a lot of time?
To learn how to use time effectively, consider what is busy modern man all 24 hours a day.
So, the working day takes from 8 to 12 hours. Of these, really useful activities are given 4-6 hours. The rest of the time we spend on smoke breaks, conversations, coffee, attempts to understand the boss's task and tune in to the working mood.
In order to get to work and return home, residents of large cities spend from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
The lunch break is one hour. Although the meal itself lasts no more than 20 minutes: the rest of the time is spent on the road, the line at the cafe, smoke breaks, etc.
Household chores take from the fair sex from 4 to 5 hours. Women with children spend even more time.
Sleep is 4-7 hours.
As you can see, the schedule is quite tight. However, even in this situation, many manage to lose a lot of time. “In what way?” you ask. Below is a kind of rating of the most empty cases that can be easily abandoned: 
>>Change what goes into your brain, and then you can change what goes into it.
Zig Ziglar<<
- - shopping and boutique shopping (moreover, many go there for the sake of sports interest, having no money with them at all);
- - reclining at television screens;
- - communication on the Internet (via Skype, ICQ, etc.);
- - visiting social networks (going for a "minute" in "Odnoklassniki" or "Vkontakte", you can lose several hours of time);
- - removal of spam from mailboxes (this is forced to do by office employees - both men and women).
However, this list can be continued indefinitely. Each of us can name dozens more types of activities, because of which we lose a huge number of priceless minutes of life.
After analyzing the current state of affairs, it is unlikely that anyone will want to devote part of their life to useless things, without which they can safely do without.
So what's the deal? Let's learn how to rationally use every precious moment of life, organize time in such a way as to use it as efficiently as possible!
How to learn to use time rationally?
Effective time management
Time management - the science of the correct distribution of time has long been adopted by businessmen who want to achieve tangible results in their activities. It will also come in handy for all those who want to more rationally organize their time, not to waste a single minute in vain.
This also applies to housewives, mothers on maternity leave, and especially those who like to be lazy for an hour or two and do not have time to do what they planned.
So, practical advice on the rational organization of your time.
- There is such a method of Neuro Linguistic Programming as "anchoring". It is based on that. That useful activity is tied to a certain "anchor" - words, music, movements, etc. For example, some are inspired by classical music, others by their favorite movie. That is, in order to set yourself up for work, sometimes it is enough to use the desired “anchor”.
- Get a diary. Write down the work plan for the day, periodically checking and marking the completed items.
- Our life consists of little things, pay attention to them. Instead of a cigarette with a cup of coffee, do something useful - for example, make or check entries in your diary.
- Do not refuse to rest if you are tired. A timely respite will not interfere with saving time, but will allow you to gather strength.
- Mark the most important things. Group similar tasks. For example, put all the calls that need to be made in a separate column, as well as meetings. Try and complete the points in the same way, the whole group at once - and you will see how convenient and effective it is.
- An interesting way to save time was proposed by the French. It is known that our brain is most active before noon. Do the most unpleasant and difficult things in the morning. First, you will be able to do it with the maximum return. Secondly, spend the remaining time with a clear conscience on the more pleasant and easy points of the plan.
