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Deadlines: How Effective Time Constraints Can Boost Productivity
Why deadlines are effective
- They can reduce the likelihood that you will procrastinate.
- They help make your goals feel more concrete, by attaching them to a specific timeline.
- They help you pursue your goals and complete tasks in a timely manner by serving as a precommitment device.
- They can also help you get things done on time by providing you with structure.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Set multiple deadlines
A way to create less stressful deadlines is to break large projects into smaller tasks. Set a deadline for each task instead of just one final deadline.
Regularly spacing the deadlines out will give a sense of moving forward, which can motivate you to complete the task.
Yerkes-Dodson law
The Yerkes-Dodson law states that the more mental arousal there is in doing a task, the more efficient a person becomes. After you get to a certain threshold, your performance begins to decrease.
An appropriate quantity of stress should inspire increased productivity.
Your ideal stress level
Difficult tasks require low levels of stress, while easy tasks require high levels of stress to trigger mental arousal.
The next time you set a deadline, try placing a rush deadline for easier tasks and set your deadline far out for more difficult projects.
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Key Ideas
Automate Decisions
- Transfer money to your savings account every time you receive a paycheck
- Choose all your outfits for your week on Sunday and hang them in the closet in order
- Subscribe to a weekly fresh delivery of organic vegetables and fruits to your home
- Standardize the typical daily meals you like the most, saving time in cooking and grocery shopping
- Prepare your sports bag every night and put it in your car. If you prefer running the morning, leave your running shoes near the bed
- Automate all electronic gadgets to go into sleep mode at a certain hour
Single Task
Switching between tasks can have damaging costs to our work and productivity.
Develop the habit of single-tasking by forcing your brain to concentrate on one task and one task only. Put your phone away, close all the browser windows and apps that you don’t need. Immerse yourself in this task. Only move to the next one when you’re done.
Brian Tracy
“Time management is not a peripheral activity or skill. It is the core skill upon which everything else in life depends.”
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Key Ideas
Paradox of Choice
Overthinking lowers your performance
Our working memory is what allows us to focus on the information we need to get things done at the moment we’re doing them. It is also in limited supply. You can think of it like our brain’s computer memory. Once it’s used up, nothing more can fit in.
When you overanalyze a situation, the repetitive thoughts, anxiety, and self-doubt decrease the amount of working memory you have available to complete challenging tasks, causing your productivity to plummet.
Overthinking kills your creativity
A recent Stanford study suggests that over-thinking not only impedes our ability to perform cognitive tasks but keeps us from reaching our creative potential as well.