We’ve all heard that the most successful and effective people have habits (consistent ways of doing things day after day) that are essential to their success. In fact, there are studies that show that people who make their beds every day are more successful. It’s not just because having a tidy environment clears the way for distraction-free effective action. It’s about taking on the mindset to do tasks consistently so they become a reliable part of who you are.
It may seem like a paradox, but establishing particular habits and structures actually creates freedom and allows you to accomplish more.
The habits below allow you to get clear about:
- the work that really matters
- when that work is going to happen so nothing falls through the cracks
- what’s not going to happen and how to deal with those items
- Prioritizing
Prioritizing is nothing new. Everyone from Stephen Covey to Dale Carnegie will tell you to deal with the important stuff first.
You can use the A, B, C method and do all the “A” items first, but the real meat of prioritizing is to ensure that you’re not just organized to put out fires.
Many of us spend so much of our time reacting to urgent items that our important stuff never gets worked on. This is probably the most important distinction that Covey has given us and it may be hard to make it a habit at first, especially if you’re in crisis or emergency mode in your business.
To ensure you are making progress on the objectives that are most important to you, rather than simply reacting to what other people throw your way, do the important stuff first! Then, over time you will find that the more you are dealing with the important things before they become urgent, fewer urgent things overall will come up for you to deal with.
- Putting the Important Stuff in Time
When you put your important tasks in blocks of time in your calendar—blocks of time when you’re actually going to work on them—you will instantly experience a sense of relief and freedom. This habit has met with the greatest resistance in teams I’ve managed, from help desk support teams to web development teams, but in the long run I promise it is the most liberating practice you can get in place. And it’s the practice that has allowed me to successfully juggle multiple social media clients in addition to other freelance web jobs and personal commitments.
When you KNOW EXACTLY WHEN you’re going to work on something because you have it realistically blocked out in actual chunks of time in the coming days and weeks, you don’t have to worry or remember anything.
If what you’re going to work on lives in your calendar, and when the time arrives to work on it, you ACTUALLY WORK ON IT and when the time comes to stop working on it and move on to the next thing and you ACTUALLY DO THAT you will experience an incredible surge of power. Try it for a week and it will change your life.
There are a couple tricks to this. One, you have to know how long stuff realistically takes (see #3 below). And, two, you have to allow time for interruptions, goofing off, emergencies, and the daily “small stuff”.
Here’s a rule of thumb based on an 8-9 hour work day.
- Block out 4-5 hours (broken up in chunks of no more than 90 minutes) for the Important Stuff.
- Pepper in at least four 15 minutes sessions for “interruptions”
- Block out 30 minutes for emergencies
- Block out 15-30 minutes for capture/schedule handling (#4 below)
- Suggested: Schedule no more than two 30 minute meetings per day
- Suggested: Daily small stuff – 30 minutes
- Suggested: Goofing off – at least two 15 minute sessions
- Suggested: Put your fun stuff and personal commitments (working out, meditation, lunch plans, family fun) in the same master calendar and block your work stuff AROUND your fun and personal commitments. This gives you a deep sense of running your life rather than your work running you.
Email, returning phone calls, skype messages, etc. get handled during your interruption and emergency windows.
- Figuring Out How Long Stuff Takes
Before you can effectively put stuff in TIME, you need to know how long tasks take. For routine items, it’s a no-brainer. You need to know how long it takes to do all the daily tasks for a single social media client (for example) so you can figure out how many clients you can manage and when it’s time to add resources/personnel.
There are thousands of time-tracking tools out there (See list below). My favorite is Toggl which I have running in a browser all the time. You type in a phrase to describe what you’re working on and click “start.” You click “stop” when you’re done.
It only takes a couple days to have a clear idea of how long repetitive tasks take.
When you bring on additional resources, you’ll already have a snapshot of how long each of the tasks you’re assigning them should take and this also allows you to know when the people working for you are maxed out.
I use Toggl for everything I’m working on. Even for planning and creative work (writing, designing, etc.) I want to be able to estimate how much time to allocate for these activities and the only way I can know how much, is by having the hard data for how long it’s taken me before.
- Capturing Everything You Need to Address
Keep a notepad at your side or a blank document open on your computer. Throughout the day, things occur to you that you need to deal with or handle. Jot it down immediately and let it leave your mind. An idea for a new project might occur to you. Jot it down or capture it in your open document and let it leave your mind. Whatever comes up, spend a few seconds to capture it and then return to what you were working on.
When your “interruption” window occurs in your day, use that time to handle whatever you may have jotted down or captured. This may require you adding a task to a project management system, making a phone call, or scheduling a future occasion in your calendar to handle.
You may not be able to address everything you’ve jotted down in your interruption windows, so you always, always, always have a block of time near the end of your day to address whatever items may be left over AND to plan your tomorrow.
By the end of the day, whatever you jotted down is now in the appropriate place (e.g. your calendar) so it will get handled and there’s nothing at all for you to remember or stress about.
Click over to your tomorrow and ensure your day is blocked out —you have plenty of time scheduled for the IMPORTANT STUFF – and plenty of interruption windows to handle the small stuff. You can end your day with peace of mind that tomorrow will take care of itself, too. Here, too, there’s nothing for you to remember or stress about.
- Letting Go Of The Stuff You’re Not Going To Do
As you empty out all the items you jotted down each day, you’re going to come across stuff that you’re not going to get around to anytime soon. It simply doesn’t make sense to schedule certain items in your calendar right now. You need a way to keep track of the stuff you’re NOT going to do.
Here’s what you do: throw it all on a single list—a list of stuff you’re NOT doing. You don’t need to put it any specific order or category. Just throw stuff on that list and save and close the file. Once a month, schedule an hour to review the items on this list. Anything you’re in fact ready to get to work on (or will be ready soon), take it off the list and put it in an appointment in your calendar.
In your monthly review, you’ll begin to notice that month-after-month there’s stuff you’re never ready to schedule. Here’s a radical idea: Delete it completely from your list and from your life.
- Knowing Yourself
Getting at least some of the habits above into your life will dramatically affect your sense of freedom and how much you can accomplish. And, it’s important to know yourself. I know it makes sense to prioritize the important stuff and to get to work on those. And yet I know the way my brain dances around. My brain wants to busy itself with solving dozens of teensy un-related problems when I want it to concentrate on a single, large, important item.
So quite honestly, I throw my brain a bone and block off 30 minutes early in my day to knock out the little junk that’s going to distract me otherwise. Even with this concession though, the 30 minutes has a rock-solid beginning and end and I stick to it. It gives me as much clarity and freedom to move on to the important stuff as 10 minutes of the zen-iest meditation.
- Goofing Off
Allow yourself time to goof off in the exact way you’re most pulled to goof off. I’m not prone to chasing adorable baby pandas down Internet rabbit holes, but I am at risk to blow 15 minutes setting the record straight because I saw that
“a friend of a friend” maligned The Clash by casually commenting that they’re “not the real deal.” I find it really works to schedule time to goof off, especially if you’re spending much of your time working in social media where it’s so easy and fun to get pulled in different directions.
Time-tracking Software:
Klok [http://www.getklok.com/] Free version; paid robust versions that integrates with basecamp that you can use with teams
Toggl [toggl.com] Free; Insanely simple
Slimtimer [http://slimtimer.com/] Free; create tasks, time them, run reports
Zoho [https://www.zoho.com/invoice/tour/time-tracking/] Paid, allows you to track times across team members and generate invoices
Recommended Books, Programs, Articles
http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/04/become-a-rockstar-of-productivity/
The Nerdist Way by Chris Hardwick
Mission Control Productivity Workshop