5 Unusual Ways to Start Working Smarter, Not Harder, Backed by Science One of the things I love about the culture at Buffer is the emphasis on working smarter, not harder. Our team is all about getting plenty of sleep, exercise and recreation time so that our time spent working is as productive as it can be. Working harder can be an easy habit to slip into, though. Sometimes it’s hard to switch off at the end of the day, or to take time out on the weekend and stop thinking about work. With a startup of my own to run, I find this even harder to manage lately. If this happens to you, too, here are five methods to try that’ll help get you working smarter, not harder. 1. In one of my favorite books, Stephen Covey tells a story about a woodcutter whose saw gets more blunt as time passes and he continues cutting down trees. The analogy is an easy one to remember, but harder to put into practice. Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you. Just getting away from work and having a rest can be a good start. 2. 3. 4. 5. P.S.
How to Wake Up Early: What to Do When You've Tried Everything Source: PicJumbo. As a self-confessed “night owl”, I’ve always wanted to become a “morning lark” and learn how to wake up early so I could get a head start on the day ahead. And, like most people, I tried everything. Alarm clock on the other side of the room? Check. Create a morning playlist? Use a sleep-tracking app? I tried everything – but nothing worked in the long-term. That is until I researched the evening routines of famous artists and creatives for an article I wrote for Fast Company. That’s when I realised something important… A lot of us want to have a productive morning routine; we want to wake up early, eat a hearty breakfast and exercise – all within an hour of waking up. But having a productive morning routine isn’t enough, you need an evening routine as well; one that sets precedent for your morning routine by being just as productive – if not more so. So, with that in mind, I focused on designing an evening routine, one that made waking up easier. Here’s how I did it… 1. 2. 3.
The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity : Be the CEO of Your Own Life Some people are naturals at personal productivity, others have to learn it. I’m definitely the latter. My first year teaching, I was so awful at managing my time that I would go days in a row without sleeping more than five hours a night. The following post contains the knowledge and skills I’ve amassed over three years of constantly working on becoming more productive and therefore becoming happier and healthier as well. Manage Your Energy to Manage Your Time Tip #1: Figure out when you have the most energy and block that off for solving Big problems with a capital “B.” Favorite resource: Read Adam Swartz, “HOWTO: Be More Productive.” Tip #2: Figure out what energizes you and schedule it into your calendar as a recurring event. Tip #3: Take regular breaks. Favorite resource: Read “To Stay on Schedule, Take a Break.”Favorite tool: My computer, which tells you the time every hour on the hour.How this works for me: Every time my computer tells me the time, I stand up and stretch.
10 Foolproof Tips for Overcoming Procrastination …and the very best tip is the easiest (hint: it’s the first one). Procrastination has been extensively studied by psychologists, probably because they have some world-class procrastinators close at hand: students. Students don’t have a monopoly on wasting time, though, almost everyone procrastinates now and then. The difference is that some people learn effective strategies for dealing with it and get some stuff done; others never do. Here are ten tips for overcoming procrastination, based on science: 1. The first tip is simply to start with whatever is easy, manageable and doesn’t fill your mind with a nameless dread. Have a look at your project, whatever it is, and decide to do the easy bit first. The great thing is that after getting going, you start to build momentum and the harder bits are more likely to flow. The tip relies partly on the Zeigarnik effect: the finding that unfinished tasks get stuck in the memory. 2. Planning can help with this, but planning is also a trap. 3. 4. 5. 6. Hmm.
How to Hone Your Creative Routine and Master the Pace of Productivity by Maria Popova “When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.” We seem to have a strange but all too human cultural fixation on the daily routines and daily rituals of famous creators, from Vonnegut to Burroughs to Darwin — as if a glimpse of their day-to-day would somehow magically infuse ours with equal potency, or replicating it would allow us to replicate their genius in turn. And though much of this is mere cultural voyeurism, there is something to be said for the value of a well-engineered daily routine to anchor the creative process. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (public library), edited by Behance’s 99U editor-in-chief Jocelyn Glei and featuring contributions from a twenty of today’s most celebrated thinkers and doers, delves into the secrets of this holy grail of creativity. It’s time to stop blaming our surroundings and start taking responsibility. Step by step, you make your way forward. Donating = Loving
How to Set Yourself Up for a Productive Day How many times has this happened to you? You go to bed after a long, unproductive day with the intention that tomorrow is going to be different. Before you know it, it is time to eat lunch and you can’t point to one significant thing you’ve accomplished. In my experience, the best way to ensure a productive day is to set myself up for one the night before. This gives me a chance to make sure I do the most important things first. Even if my day gets hijacked—and sometimes it does—I’ve achieved my most important tasks. Here are five strategies I use to set myself up for the most productive day possible: Protect my morning routine. Set up your computer with only the first programs you will need loaded. Do I ever fall short of this ideal? I then said to myself, I’m a little ahead of schedule. Bad mistake. Oh well, I don’t beat myself up about it. Fortunately, I’ll have another chance to practice tomorrow. or upgrade to a self-hosted WordPress blog?
The Complete Guide to Productivity Like us on Facebook. We'll love you forever. Let’s face it. We all want more time in our lives. It could be an evening to spend more time with our family and friends, a 30-hour day to grow our business, or simply time to close our eyes and relax. If you would like to make more effective use of your time, maintain your energy levels throughout the day, and achieve your goals faster — read on. I’ve already written a few pieces on how to have more time and avoiding the 9 to 5, but this is going to be a complete guide to productivity. In this complete guide to productivity, we’ll discuss: SchedulingGoal PriortizationGetting HelpProductivity Treasure Chest This is going to be longer post so I recommend either grabbing a cup of joe or brew some tea before digging in. Scheduling Scheduling your day, week, and even month ahead of time is going to be crucial for maximizing your time and getting things done. As Peter Thiel says, “a bad plan is always better than no plan at all.” The 90 Minute Rule 2. 3.
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) — an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality.
The Science of Productivity. “It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about?” ~ Henry David Thoreau Busy is already a given in our twenty-first century stampede. Busyness has multiplied by all kinds of parallel realities. It used to be just made of flesh. Meet Lady Productivity, our century’s muse. How do you assess your productivity? Contrary to what we tend to believe and try, productivity can’t be increased only by willpower, ability, or the amount of time we spend on a project. Optimal productivity boils down to a healthy balance between work and play, activity and rest. The brilliant creators at AsapSCIENCE, try to decode productivity in this animated science bite: Created by AsapSCIENCE in collaboration with Sparring Mind. Review, Rewind, Remember… Tips to boost your productivity: 1. What works for you? What doesn’t? What could? What’s the first step? Take it now? More creative, compact curiosity by AsapSCIENCE: >> Could Zombies Exist? >> The Scientific Power of Naps. >> What’s behind an orgasm.
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod 22 Life-changing Tips on How To Phenomenally Boost Your Productivity I’ve been testing and adjusting various productivity techniques for the past five years, read lots of books (most of them repeating) and here’s some of my findings: It’s not about time. It’s about energy. We try to squeeze as many hours in one work day, to be “productive,” but in the end everything depends less on time, and more on your focus, motivation and overall well-being (all of them linked directly with energy levels). I’ve recently talked about my productivity techniques obsessions in an internal presentation at Grapefruit, and the resulting presentation is on Slideshare: Productivity porn Some of the key findings: Decide what’s important because in 5 years, 80% of what you do today will not turn into anything. Sleep, food and exercise can help you triple your outcome, because they increase focus, motivation and energy levels. The 2-minute rule: if you can do something (like replying to an email, or a house chore) in 2 minutes, do it now. Tiny habits (Tiny Habits w/ Dr. Pomodoros.
Stop Beating Yourself Up for Not Getting Everything Done Every Day | Inc.com One of the biggest challenges that we all face is the steadily increasing number of things that we have to do on a daily basis. There is nothing new about this but many people struggle with a sense of daily frustration simply because they can't get everything done and in all likelihood they never will. I get the feeling that this sense of frustration is becoming a little more desperate every day. I'm suggesting a simple process that can dramatically change how you feel. At the end of the day, when you look at your to do list, and start the afternoon "I'm not good enough" session, beating yourself up because you didn't get everything done, try making a new list. On this list, jot down a few bullet points for each of the following 5 questions? 1. Now don't just give them a cursory glance, actually read through the list of things that you were able to cross off and give yourself a pat on the back for getting them done. 2. 3. 4. 5. When you finish your "DONE" list--go home.