Not Being Realistic

Treat the meeting with yourself as it was a meeting with a third party. It’s only you who can act on your most important tasks with priority.

Make sure that you set up boundaries for yourself and for other people. Remember to communicate with them clearly.

Such a boundary can be that you leave your office at a certain time each day because your family is your priority. It doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t work later in periods of high workload.

Ringing phones, text messages, reminders, pop-ups, social media, email.

There’re countless studies demonstrating that multitasking will hinder your work both in terms of quality and quantity. 

Resist the temptation to get in the loop and do one thing at a time.

• When we get tired, we make mistakes, which means more time and money must be put into correcting those mistakes. 
• When we get tired, it takes us longer to do things, costing more time and money to do something that could get done in less time if we were fully awake. 

Either one of two problems: you don’t like delegating tasks, or you’re having trouble prioritizing which tasks deserve your time. 

Figure out which tasks deserve your time the most (or those tasks that you do best), and outsource something that’s of low priority. 

"Effectiveness is doing the right things, but efficiency is doing things right. That means effectiveness is picking a direction and efficiency is running really fast in that direction."

"Hope is not a plan. Hope is nothing but waiting and letting life happen to you."

Unnecessary meetings can severely deplete productivity out of someone’s working day. 

Instead of arranging a meeting, see if you can speak with the person in another way. Skype, texting, emailing and phone calls are all efficient ways to communicate on important matters, while still focusing on your own projects.

Research has discovered that most people become less efficient while attempting to multitask.

Try concentrating on one task at a time for great, productive results.

For many people, their top time thief is social media or aimlessly wandering the World Wide Web. For other, it is spending hours organizing their office.

It’s not the task itself that’s the issue, it’s whether or not it is the right thing for YOU to be doing.

You might be falling into the trap of making yourself think you’re making progress when you might not really be.

Consider whether something you’ve put on your list is a small task that can be done almost as quickly as you write it down. If a task is only going to take you 5 to 10 minutes, such as sending a thank you note or paying a bill, just get it done. 

• Look at everything on your to-do list and ask yourself, ‘Am I the only person who can do this?’
• Anything that can be given to someone else should be put on an outsource list.
•  While outsourcing takes the extra time upfront to train someone else on the task, it saves you time later, which can be used to focus on the things you do have to do. 

Even if you think it’s too big of a dream but it’s something you want, write it down anyway. 

When you write something down, studies say you’ll be 33% more likely to do it because it sets an intention and puts a goal into motion.

Shifting our focus towards people and projects, rather than the time it takes for us to work on something is referred to as Attention Management.

Productivity is not a virtue, but just a means to an end, and it means nothing if the end is not worthy. Paying attention to your intrinsic motivation, on why you are excited about the project will make you push yourself naturally and achieve the goal.

Many studies show that bad weather days when it is too cold or rainy, keeps the working people glued to their work, being more productive as they are less distracted by the thought of going outside.

• Collect: Get ideas and to-dos out of your brain and onto a list.
• Process: Review your list daily and decide how to act on each item.
• Plan: Pick a few high priority items to accomplish each week and every day.
• Do: Schedule time to accomplish your selected to-dos without interruptions.

To clear your mind and improve focus, get your ideas and to-dos out of your mind and onto a list. 

Documenting to-dos in the moment lessens the likelihood that you'll forget to do something and gives you a master list of to-dos to reference when you're trying to decide where to direct your time.

Multitasking can be detrimental. Research shows it stresses and slows us down, increasing our potential for error. It also decreases information retention and focus.

We can be productive out of offices. Research shows that those who dislike office have increased productivity when working from home or on public spaces.

This behavior keeps you from dedicating your time to meaningful work. Replying to email may feel productive, but the truth is emails are rarely the most important thing on your to-do list.

So instead of keeping your inbox open all day, change your default behavior to working on emails in batches.

Real-time communication sets the expectation that you’re always available. And for many of us, our default behaviors support just that.

In order to change this behavior, you need to set expectations on response time. Mute specific channels, get rid of pop-ups, turn off mobile notifications, etc.