If productivity improved, we can do more things costing the same time and leave more time for family and our other interests. Refining time is a practical way at work.

Tag: improve productivity, refine time, time management, task planning

Many friends have been suffering such a problem: I can’t feel any sense of achievement with a busy-like day passing. Although I get up at 6am and don’t sleep until 0am the next day, I feel I have done nothing. It is a sense of lack of fulfillment. Before going to bed, many uncompleted things coming to my mind, I feel especially worried, especially some special important but complex projects.  With the deadline comes nearer, I will feel a more serious stomach-ache, stomatitis, insomnia and so on.

All the feelings above come down to one important question: productivity improvement. With our lives improved, we need more things as well, such as: a new house, a new car, a fashionable digital product, a new-published book and some other necessary bills. For most of us, we have to work to survival ourselves. Many work on the shoulder, but little improvement on productivity made, we eventually fell overstressed and sick.

Now just suppose we have double our productivity, we can complete more work or we can finish our work earlier than before and have more time with family or on our own interests. If you love reading, imagine that you can comfortably read your favorite book without worry about your work anymore. What a pleasant feeling it is.

To double your productivity while still use the same time is easier than your imagination. The secret lies in the tip below:

Write down your tasks and time available

   Wow, are you cheating my feelings with such a tip which I have already heard of before? No, I don’t mean that. Yes, many people have ever heard of this, just as we have already known many time management and stress management tips but we still can’t improve ourselves. What are the reasons? One is that we need not only knowing but also acting, the other is we need detail and practical steps to carry them on.

Write down your tasks

   In fact, the way of writing down tasks depends on your choice. You can take out a piece of A4 paper to begin, open outlook in your computer to begin, use GTD tools to begin. You can also use mind mapping tools to begin as well. With all these various ways, one important thing is the same: when you begin, write down as many as and as fast as you can in limited time, for example 5 minutes. The tasks can include things on jobs, study, family, party, amusement and so on.

The step above is the base of all productivity improvement techniques. Many articles have explained the importance of planning in advance and you can get many articles on such topic through google. Please pay attention to the time limit, the more important thing is pointed action, so we will spend necessary but more time on this step.

After this step, we should:

Estimative your time available

With tasks listed, we need to computer our own available time left. To effectively complete this step, it is better to begin in the morning after you get up.

Eliminate your time spent on fixed things for today

Breakfast, lunch and super are a fixed time cost. At the same time, ask yourself some questions to get further answers. Do you need a lunch break? Need you do housework yourself? Do you keep on exercising every day? Do you take a walk with your family? Do you have some appointments today ……

Make a list with the fixed time

Recall the usual total time available a day and list the beginning time and ending time on a paper. Then for the fixed time spent on the fixed things, please fill the corresponding the estimated beginning and ending time. To be conservative, give more time than usual while filling. After filling, please compute the time left now for you, using minute as a base unit.

For the end of this step, please preserve 15 percent of the available time as preserved time which is used to deal with unexpected time. Of course, you can change the number of preserved time according your situation.

Choose the tasks to do

  With the time available and listed tasks before you, now you can choose tasks more seriously.
First, choose 10 tasks you feel important and urgent at your first glance, list them down.

  Now to refine your task by asking yourself such questions in order:
  1 which task will affect you most in 5 years?
  2 which tasks will affect you most in 1 year?
  3 which tasks will affect you most in 3 months?
  4 which tasks will affect you most in a week?
  5 which tasks must be finished today?

Let the answer of the fifth question as the first task on your list. Although it is not the most important, but if you don’t complete it first, you will feel extremely nervous today. The next order for tasks is according to the answer of the question 1 - 4. But the detail time arranged is according to the urgency of tasks, the more urgent the task is, the more time we should spend on. For example, if you are student and you will have to publish an article for the need of you scholar degree in one month and you have to finish a little project for your friends in one week. The time available for you is only 3 hours, then one available arrangement is:

First complete some sub-jobs on article using one hour, then continue to finish sub-jobs on project for the other two hours.

Begin your task one by one right now with a clock in front of you

Yes, with a clock, especially a clock with count-down ability. Once you begin a task, pay all your attention to your task and don’t interrupt the process by yourself. When to have a break depends on your setting on the count-down clock. Tell yourself such a belief: all of the time available is not the whole day; it is only the time I just set. I need not consider the other time, thing and people now until unexpected interruption.

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