G10 Share The Habits Of The Most Productive People In Business

GLASGOW, Scotland - July 12, 2014 - PRLog -- G10

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G10 Share The Habits Of The Most Productive People In Business

GLASGOW, UK, July 2014 – Ever feel like you’re just not getting enough done?

Know how many days per week you’re actually productive? We could all be accomplishing a lot more — but then again, none of us wants to be a workaholic either.

It’d be great to get tons done and have work/life balance. But how do we do that?

Below are six tips Tim Ferriss, author of the international bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek offered, the science behind why they work, and insight from the most productive people around.

1) Manage Your Mood

If you start the day calm it’s easy to get the right things done and focus. But when we wake up and the fray is already upon us — phone ringing, emails coming in, fire alarms going off — you spend the whole day reacting. This means you’re not in the driver’s seat working on your priorities, you’re responding to what gets thrown at you, important or not.

A routine is necessary to feel in control and non-reactive, which reduces anxiety. It therefore also makes you more productive. Studies demonstrate happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.

So think a little less about managing the work and a little more about managing your moods.

2) Don’t Check Email In The Morning

Many can’t imagine not waking up and immediately checking email or social media feeds.

If you do you’re setting yourself up to react. An email comes in and suddenly you’re giving your best hours to someone else’s goals, not yours. You’re not planning your day and prioritizing, you’re letting your objectives be hijacked by whoever randomly decides to enter your inbox.

You might need to get into your email to finish 100% of your most important to-dos. But can you get 80 or 90% done before you go into Gmail and have your rat brain explode with freak-out, dopamine excitement and cortisol panic? Yes.

Great, so you know what not to do. But a bigger question looms: what should you be doing?

3) Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All

Everyone asks, “Why is it so impossible to get everything done?” But the answer is stunningly easy:

You’re doing too many things.

Want to be more productive? Don’t ask how to make something more efficient until after you’ve asked “Do I need to do this at all?”

Doing something well does not make it important. This is one of the most common problems with a lot of time-management or productivity advice; they focus on how to do things quickly. The vast majority of things that people do quickly should not be done at all.

It’s funny that we complain we have so little time and then we prioritize like time is endless. Instead, do what is important… and not much else.

Research shows CEOs don’t get more done by blindly working more hours, they get more done when they follow careful plans:

Okay, you’ve cleared the decks. Your head is serene, you’ve gotten the email monkey off your back and you know what you need to do.

Now we have to face one of the biggest problems of the modern era: how do you sit still and focus?

4) Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions

Has modern life permanently damaged our attention spans?

No. What you do have is more tantalizing, easily accessible, shiny things available to you 24/7 than any human being has ever had.

The answer is to lock yourself somewhere to make all the flashing, buzzing distractions go away.

Focus is a function, first and foremost, of limiting the number of options you give yourself for procrastinating…

Top CEOs are interrupted every 20 minutes. How do they get anything done? By cutting out distractions.

5) Have A Personal System

Productive people have a routine.

Defining routines and systems is more effective than relying on self-discipline. Allowing yourself the option to do what you have not decided to do is disempowering and asking for failure.

Great systems work because they make things automatic, and don’t tax your very limited supply of willpower.

How do you start to develop your own personal system? Apply some “80/20″ thinking:

What handful of activities are responsible for the disproportionate number of your successes?

What handful of activities absolutely crater your productivity?

Rearrange your schedule to do more of #1 and to eliminate #2 as much as possible.

So you’re all set to wake up tomorrow with a system and not be “reactive.” How do you make sure you follow through on this tomorrow? It’s simple.

6) Define Your Goals The Night Before

Wake up knowing what is important before the day’s pseudo-emergencies come barging into your life and your inbox screams new commands.

Define your one or two most important to-dos before dinner, the day before.

Studies show that writing down what you need to do tomorrow relieves anxiety and helps you enjoy your evening.

So how does this all come together?

Sum Up

Here are Tim’s 6 tips:

Manage Your Mood

Don’t Check Email in The Morning

Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All

Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions

Have A Personal System

Define Your Goals The Night Before

The word “productivity” sounds like we’re talking about machines. But the irony is that much of being truly good with time is about feelings.

How should you strive to feel when working? Busy but not rushed. Research shows this is when people are happiest.

Once you are more productive, you’ll have a lot more hours to fill. So why not use them to make others and yourself happier?

For additional information, contact a member of the G10 administration team at nyomi@g10glasgow.co.uk

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