You Can Be Productive Wherever You Work
How to Manage Your Time and Get Things Done
Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash
Twitter recently announced that their employees can work from home permanently. Facebook’s staff will continue to work from home until the end of 2020. Microsoft is also allowing employees to work remotely through October. There will be more companies changing their work-from-home policies. The work culture will be permanently changed after COVID-19, which means we all have to adapt to the new norm and yet still be productive.
Being productive, in a nutshell, is about managing your time effectively to get the most important work done and achieving the results you want. It’s like running a business. You are the CEO of your own time and the results you get are the return on investment (ROI). Some of the most successful people in the world, such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk, even break up their schedules into five-minute intervals. Every moment is meticulously planned. It may sound crazy but time is the most precious and non-renewable resource we all have. If you manage time well, you’ll be as productive as you want.
In this blog post, I’ll tell you why you might not be as productive as you’d like, the framework I’ve found most effective for me to boost productivity, and some actionable steps that can help you manage your time like a CEO no matter where you work.
The common challenges preventing people from being productive
Challenge 1: The task is too big or difficult. You don’t know where to start and hence you get distracted by other small tasks or start procrastinating.
Challenge 2: You have too many competing priorities at the same time. You are always busy but it doesn’t always feel productive.
The above two are the most heard challenges. When people procrastinate, start with the easy tasks first, or prioritize the wrong tasks, the most important tasks remain undone, or you may have to sacrifice your sleep to make up for the unfinished work.
The framework I found most helpful
You probably have heard of the Pareto Principle – 80/20 rule. It was a concept developed by an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, when he found out 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Essentially, 80% of the effects are generated from 20% of the causes. In time management, it means 80% of the results generally come from 20% of your efforts. Once you understand this rule, you can apply it to all aspects of life.
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
Graphic created by Emily Gothmann
Productivity is built on top of your goals and careful planning. If you don’t have the input, you won’t have the output you want. That’s why you need to be specific about your goals and strategic about what you work on every day. Your goals are the foundation that gives your purpose and motivates you to work. Planning is the vehicle that drives you to reach your goals. Productivity is the outcome of the two. Remember you’re the CEO of your own time and you only have 24 hours a day. You want to work on the tasks that yield the results that align with your goals.
How to actually get things done?
1. Break down your long-term goals into small actionable steps.
80/20 is an arbitrary division. It could be 90/10 or 75/25. The idea is to identify the tasks that will maximize your success. The rest of the tasks are just “noise” and can be eliminated.
Looking at your own goals, you will define the milestones and the steps needed to take to help you get there. For example, my goal for this year is to be a better writer. The action steps for me to get there are:
Start a blog and publish regularly
Keep writing every week
I wrote down my goals and keep reminding myself of the 2020 goals on a regular basis. It helps me prioritize more easily. I even broke them down in specific timeframes such as this quarter, this week and today with a quantifiable action. Here’s an example:
This quarter – Publish 6 blog posts
This week – Look for inspiration by reading 10 articles
Today – Write down 3 possible topics I can work on
Breaking them down into smaller, actionable steps gives you clarity where to start and you’ll realize you don’t procrastinate anymore.
You can even apply the same principle to other aspects of your life. The beauty of the 80/20 principle is that it can be used in other areas - health, relationship, education, etc. You can ask yourself the same question in those aspects: what’s the most important task I need to do today to…
lose 5 lbs in three months?
get the online certificate next month?
decompress today?
ensure my partner and I can spend some quality time together?
2. Identify the most important tasks of the day that will help you achieve your goals
Once you have clarity on the goals, you’ll be able to identify the most important daily or weekly tasks for each goal. For example, one of my goals last week was to write this article and I gave myself three days to do it. When I planned my schedule, I asked myself the following question:
What is the one thing I need to do today so I can finish the blog post in three days?
o Day 1: Write an outline
o Day 2: Draft the post
o Day 3: Proofread and polish
This helped me finish the blog post on time so I could move on to other projects that help me achieve other goals. It also gave me the momentum to keep working once I got an important task done.
It’s tempting to write down more than you can do but a lot of them are just distractions. Even the most successful people only create a short to-do list. Marcus Lemonis, the CEO of the Camping World, only makes a list of 5 tasks he wants to get done every day. Make sure you ask yourself the following questions when planning your daily schedule:
Does this task help me achieve my annual/quarterly/weekly/daily goal?
How urgent is this task (high/medium/low)?
How much time should I spend on this task?
You’ll then have a much more managed to-do list. Don’t forget to build in small breaks between tasks.
Here’s a sample of my to-do list. I typically spend 5-10 minutes drafting my to-do list and I only include the most important tasks that I need to do in a day.
Created by Emily Gothmann
Take the work portion on this sample to-do list as an example. I've identified the single most important task that would drive each project forward and estimated how much time I'll need. It doesn't mean that once I finish the tasks, I'll be done. It means that after finishing the tasks above, everything else will move much more smoothly. For instance, everyone on my team will know when the deadlines are after seeing the work back schedule. As such, the project will keep rolling.
This method has not only helped me stay on task, but it has also boosted my productivity. I’m a visual person. Once I have the to-do list in hand, I don’t need to spend time thinking “what should I do next?” or “will I get all the work done on time?” I can simply stay focused and check all the boxes.
3. Find out your most productive hours of the day
Doing the most important tasks during your productive times can optimize the results. As a reference point, research shows that Monday is the most effective day of the week for most people and 11 am is when people complete the most tasks. After lunchtime, productivity takes a big dip. It proves that timing is a very important factor when you plan your schedule.
Everyone works differently. For me, I get the most done in the morning between 8 am-11:30 am so I plan the most important tasks for the morning time slots. In the afternoon, I work on tasks that require less of my brain energy, such as doing chores, responding to non-urgent emails and walking my dog.
If you need help finding your most productive hours of the day, here’s a good resource to show you how to get started, track your activities and optimize your routine.
“Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the only thing he can’t afford to lose”
Let's all be better CEOs of our time. What are you waiting for? Get on your most important tasks today. Goals are reached by accomplishing one task at a time.