How to work less and get more done?
Productivity Motivation / / December 19, 2019
Today it is one of the most painful issues. How to work less and complete more? In pursuit of productivity, many spend at work from 10 up to 12-14 hours, but no amount of trying, the number of really important, completed cases is not greatly increased. You can live at work, but it does not help. As a result, instead of a job well done and an appropriate reward for it, we get a neurosis. And the problem of the balance between work and personal life just crazy and breaks into pieces.
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All this was discussed in our blog more than once and I suggest to listen to another expert opinion. Perhaps this approach will help you finally realize, maybe not a four-hour working weekBut at least a four-hour working day.
Three simple advice from Scott Young, author of the book «Think Outside the Cubicle».
In fact, everything is very simple. You just need to adjust some working habits.
1. Create your own list of two cases - one day a week.
2. After the completion of the week move the lists of the things that you did not manage to accomplish in your list for the day.
3. During operation, only focuses on the list for a day. And when all items are deleted - all the tasks for the day closed.
Why do we so often fail?
The number one problem - it's too long lists. We do not know how to prioritize and delegate responsibilities. Very often, the list for a day contains so many items that week and can not manage to run!
Problem number two - we do not track which takes our time. Frankly, who constantly uses the programs that track what it spent the time? Because if you keep them long enough, it turns out that our time is really lasts about four hours, and the rest is spent on errands, sitting in social networks and chatter with colleagues (even if it is on work).
Problem number three - we could chew. Yes, many people may feel that they are supermen in the field of productivity and may one day make something that actually can leave more than one week. Yes, sometimes connected to back a second wind, but it is usually not enough for a long time and then it is necessary to recover, otherwise nothing good like heroism is over.
Your main goal - to achieve raising the level of its basic, daily performance, and not to drive themselves into the grave.
So how do you still have time to start over, working less?
1. Temporal tracking. Scott proposes to start with the simplest - with logging of their working time. If you do not use special software, you can do it the old fashioned way, writing down everything on paper. An alternative to tracking time can be writing down assignments.
2. Increase in productivity. If by examining the time spent you able to find out exactly how much you spend on a job, start to increase it "useful time". If you spend at work for 4 hours, try to increase the productive time up to 5-6 hours per day, or increase the number of running jobs (instead of 8 - 10 or 12).
3. Soak the new schedule within one month. When you manage to increase their "useful time" for a few hours, try to hold out at a pace at least a month. Scott believes good month interval for analysis.
4. If you can not make the leap, move in small steps. If you find it difficult just to increase the time in half, move to the goal in small steps, gradually increasing at least 25%. And so gradually you will be able to achieve the desired level without too much stress.
I do not know if it will work for you. But I have slowly begins to operate. I do not keep track of time, for me it is too difficult and sometimes tedious. I just think for the task and it helps, because now I know my limit today. Let's see what will happen next.