Though not applicable to every job situation out there, I found the biggest leap in productivity for me was to crate a rule of "write down 3-5 things you must do <i>today</i>. When those are complete, you are done working for the day".<p>I find myself completing the tasks around lunch, and aggregately accomplish 2-3x more than when I had fuzzy goals. Procrastination is limited, knowing I can (go to gym/eat with kids/play golf) when the work is complete.
My take on these. I'm curious what others think.<p>1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.
I have no idea why more people don't do this.<p>2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop.
See my response to #1<p>3. Be militant about eliminating distractions.
I'm not militant enough. Hence this post.<p>4. Schedule your email.
I need to try that. Setting a filter to only alert when my boss emails me has helped in the past. Other emails get answered between 60-90 minute tasks.<p>5. Use the phone.
I despise the phone. Email conversations provide a written record of the exchange and allow me to cut/paste responses if it's something for work (like a URL or code snippet). That said, I will force myself to pick up the handset.<p>6. Work on your own agenda.
My new job and situation allow for a lot more of this. It's life changing.<p>7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.
I do try to do this. It works very well, although I usually don't make it to 90 minutes, just 60 minutes of just coding goes a long way. Do that a few times in a day (with meetings and such filling the balance of the day) and you're getting somewhere.
Former support tech here. Phone calls are not getting things done. Phone calls are usually telling someone else to do something. Information passed on phone calls is mostly lost as soon as the other side hangs up. I've had many 30-45 minute time wasters with clients when they called instead of thinking about what thy were trying to say and replying to their ticket. The phone kills the productivity of two or more people at once, so it's as bad as a meeting. Stop calling people and start finishing stuff.
This is why I'm such a big fan of the pomodoro technique: the majority of these 7 things are taken care of automatically.<p>1. Tasks are already broken down into manageable chunks<p>2. There is no multi-tasking during your pomodoro<p>3. No distractions either<p>4. Ok, so I actually check email at the end of every pomodoro and not 2-3 times a day, but close enough<p>5. This is the one that is not really handled by the pomodoro technique<p>6. I plan out all my pomodoros at the start of each day<p>7. I get up and walk around for a few minutes at the end of every pomodoro
>When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).<p>I would like to see a citation on this.
"Work on your own agenda."<p>This is the only point that matters, though the explanation after is idiotic and should be ignored. But just by following this list, or even this one point, you won't become highly productive. Perhaps more productive, as its a drive inside you that makes a person highly productive. That can't be taught, it has to be unleashed by a passion and a dream (which this list misses).<p>I was business assistant (at VP level) to a Very Highly Productive Person who worked on what he wanted, when he wanted, much to his staff's detriment. Which was likely the point, he was more than able to afford staff and could delegate what he didn't want to do to us. His focus was on doing what was best for himself and privately owned his company.<p>The compulsion for achieving goals, be they deals, launching a new product or company, can have significant impact if there isn't a good work-life balance, and as his staff, we had to force him, and his wife, to take breaks to avoid burn out. This is often a hidden problem that can manifest other issues and bring the downfall or public embarrassment of highly productive people.
Another good one is sleep. Optimally, you'll go to sleep at the same time every day and wake up without an alarm. You might lose some waking hours, but you'll more than make up for it in the productivity.
Re: No. 5: I know some people hate taking on the phone, but when you are working remotely and are trying to work through a problem with someone, there's no substitute (at least for me) to getting on the phone (or voice chat via Skype, etc.) and talking through the things you're trying to figure out. IM works to a degree, and email is better for larger exchanges that you'll need to reference back to, but for brainstorming and group problem-solving, I still feel like an actual spoken conversation is still the most effective way to go.
I have found this list more valuable:<p><a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/02/nine_things_successful_people.html" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/02/nine_things_successful_peopl...</a>
The thing that's always missing from these articles is the definition of productivity. Is it doing more? Is it working more hours?<p>What most people don't realize is that productivity is not about how much you do - it's about how you feel at the end of the day. Don't forget why you're working in the first place. Effective productivity is simply doing what needs to be done, one day at a time. The key is turning your overwhelming to-do list into an actionable today list - so you're working towards an achievable goal each day. When you're working towards an end point, you'll get things done much more quickly, and you'll have no reason to procrastinate.<p>Productivity doesn't need to be stressful or overwhelming; it can actually be very fulfilling if you look at it the right way. Stop focusing on "work" and focus on progress instead.
"if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours."<p>No. If this is actually effective nobody will expect you to be there longer than 8 hours. Either way, there are more important things in the world than being productive.
#1 Don't read articles like this.<p>I must be on the way to being cured I didn't even click this one, now if I can just wean off hacker news and reddit I might be half way to becoming highly productive.
What I've found for myself is that there's a certain part of my mind that just needs constant distraction, and if I can somehow <i>parallelize</i> that distraction with the continual work that the rest of my brain is capable of, I'd be in good shape.<p>That's where music and podcasts come in. One steady IV drip of distraction to placate the rebels while the rest of my brain gets down to business and stays there.
This is such fluff, guys. These things have been vomited up by writers with nothing to say for forever.<p>Basically, stop getting distracted. Multitasking is impossible. Okay, we get it.<p>The real question should be "why is this same old, same old advice not working despite being common knowledge"? I know not to do this stuff. I try to follow the rules. I end up screwing up eventually. How come? Is there a way to cut that out? What we really need is an advice article about how to make sure we stick to the advice of other advice articles.<p>I'm not trying to be sarcastic so please don't take it that way. I'm really just so frustrated with the same old advice that just doesn't add anything new or special. It's easy to tell me not to get distracted and offer up a few half-hearted ways to follow through but what about pointing us to the root of the problem. I think this generic advice is best left for the trash. What we really need is something each of us will have to work out on our own.