Do you get to the end of your day feeling exhausted yet wondering what you have actually achieved? We all have days like that, but if those days are your norm, chances are you need a productivity system. Let’s face it, we all want to be more productive. After all, time is our most precious commodity in life. We all have goals, deadlines, social activities and the hum drum daily chores, and we want to rock them all with time to spare for some rest and self-care.
To get you on track your #1 read should be Zen to Done by Leo Babauta. It incorporates the best concepts from other productivity systems, such as Getting Things Done by David Allen and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The full Zen to Done system comprises 10 habits but Leo Babauta also identified the first 4 of these as the essential habits that form the simplest possible productivity system, calling this system ‘Minimal Zen to Done‘.
But how do you decide which tasks to do?
I always plan my day the evening before. I prioritize my tasks and then schedule time in my Passion Planner to complete them. This is known as time blocking and a planner with time slots like the Passion Planner really helps for this.
I don’t only block time out for my work tasks though. I make sure to block out the times that I am going to exercise, meal prep, walk my dog, meditate, read, play board games with my family, etc. etc. It’s important to get a balance and prioritise your self-care too.
An ever-growing to-do list can be overwhelming, sometimes to the point of paralysis, but making a plan for each day and blocking out the time in this way can really help reduce stress. It also allows you to see how much time you have available before you take on other commitments.
So, how do you smash that to-do list?
The answer is the Pomodoro Technique. Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s, the Pomodoro Technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. These intervals are named ‘pomodoros’. You can download the full details of the Pomodoro Technique in this free PDF, but Wikipedia summarises the six steps in the original technique well:
- Decide on the task to be done.
- Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).
- Work on the task.
- End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
- If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
- After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
As for timers, this TimeCube is my favorite. It was developed specifically for time management programmes and features 5, 10, 20 and 25 minute settings. You simply turn the TimeCube to your desired time setting to start the timer and it will give you a friendly beep when the time is up, which can be set to loud or soft. (Soft every time for me!)
This method works best if you do just one task for the entire 25 minutes or, if you have multiple small tasks, group similar tasks together. The most important thing is to concentrate solely on the task at hand and not get distracted by other things on your to-do list, Facebook notifications and the likes. Why? Studies have shown that it takes a whopping 25 minutes to get back into the swing of a task after you’ve been distracted!!
And then there’s time batching…
This brings me onto another productivity hack – time batching. Basically you do a lot of the same things together at the same time. It’s so much more time efficient as it reduces the time it takes to set up for a task and clean up afterwards, and it’s easier to concentrate and get in the zone for that particular task too. For example, you could allocate a specific day of the week to writing blog posts, allocate another day to creating pins for your posts, another day for scheduling your social media posts, etc. etc.
You could batch tasks based on their location too. For example, all within 500 yards I can meet a friend for dinner, then go to the cinema with another friend and then do my weekly shop!
