The Productivity Hack: How to Get The Most Out of Your Day
I just got done listening to a podcast about productivity by Chris Bailey, called The Productivity Project. I’ve also downloaded his book on Audible and would highly recommend it. Everyone gets 24 hours in a day. Everybody sleeps five to eight hours of that 24. Why do some people get more done than others? A lot of people relate productivity to how much you produce or how busy are you throughout the day. Productivity is measured by some by how many emails you check or how many phone calls you make. What it comes down to is what do you actually accomplish and how you measure that. How Do You Measure Productivity? When the day is done, are you able to look back and see that what really mattered got done or are you just exhausted with no frame of reference at the end of the day? Chris has a great idea. He says, “Pick 3 things every morning and write down in a journal what you really want to accomplish for this day that helps move you toward your big goal.” I would actually put a different spin on this. I like to do that at night. At the end of the day, I write down 3 things I want to get done tomorrow to push me closer to my goal. Doing this will help you work on what is important on a daily basis. Also, are you working with intention? Why only pick 3 things instead of 1? Everything is in 3’s. Think about it. We read books about the three little bears or the three blind mice. People get Olympic medals in threes: bronze, gold, silver. You go to school: elementary, middle, high school. Everything is in 3’s. The trilogies, the movies, everything is in 3’s. Thus, our brain thinks in 3’s. Chris Bailey then goes on to say that once you have your main 3 goals that you need to get done or accomplishments to get finished, work with intention. Do not get distracted by social media, as I do. Beware of Distractions! I turn off my text messages, my emails. Everything’s on silent. Even throughout the day, my phone is on silent because it sits right next to me. Bailey also only suggests working on one thing at a time. This is extremely hard for me, as I have crazy ADD, and I’ve always been a multi-tasker. I have to bring that back, be conscious of when I get pushed or pulled in certain directions and bring that back into focus. My productivity depends on it. Currently, at the end of every week, I go through my to-do list and I rewrite it all in no priority order, just everything together. This is a brain dump of everything that did not get done this week that was on my to-do list. I do that by the end of Friday so that when I walk in on Monday morning, I have a list of 20 items that I need to get done. Are You Up For The Challenge? Now, I am testing this new theory of writing down my top 3 priorities every single night. I have been challenged to go in and pick from that list, or if I’m adding new items to it, are any of those more important than the other? Are any of those pushing me more towards my ultimate goal, or are those 3 things that I’m writing down not steering me in the right direction and I need to go back onto that list in order to draw from? I would challenge you right now to write down three things every single day that you need to get done, and then ask yourself a question. Does this get me closer to my goal? If the answer is “no,” then put it on your normal to-do list, and find something else that’s more productive to get done.