Five Simple Steps To Being Highly Effective And Productive

1.The 45-5-45 Technique

This technique is simple. You divide your time allocation for tasks, projects into capsules of 45 minutes each. You work uninterrupted for 45 minutes, take a 5-minute break away from your desk, your computer and then get back to work for the second 45-minute capsule.

You take a break of 5 minutes again after the second 45-minute capsule and so on. This way you achieve three things.

One, you stay focused for 45 minutes at a stretch, two you give yourself short breaks and refresh without losing out much time and three, you avoid physical, mental fatigue and can continue to work longer.

Try this today, you will be amazed at how much more you can achieve in a focused, uninterrupted capsule of 45 minutes.

2. Review The Toolkit

Well begun is half done, said Horace and he couldn’t have put it better.

How many times have you had to stop your presentation because you or your team forgot the supporting slides or documents? How many times did you end an important call or meeting because your cell phone or computer battery ran out?

What happens is that you restart the same task again a little later or the next day and end up spending twice the time it actually required.

This applies even to simple things like going to the grocery store without a list and forgetting a few items, being stuck on the road with your petrol tank dry or a flat wheel with the spare tire either not in place or not in working condition.

You get the point, work to do things once and do them right. You will save yourself a whole lot of time.

3. Start Early

Are you the first one into office every day? If you are not, trying being early tomorrow. You will be surprised by the quiet and peace. You can spend just 30 minutes in that kind of environment and get work done equivalent to 120 minutes in the rest of the day.

This is because you will have zero interruptions and very, very low background noise, thereby giving your mind the freedom to focus and concentrate. Try this. Reaching 30 minutes early is better than leaving office 120 minutes late.

4. Work @ Work

Here is some simple advice, when you work, work, don’t play and when you are home, play, don’t work. 9 out of 10 people get this wrong and neither manage their work or their personal lives well.

There will always be more to do than the time on hand. That’s universal. You just have to learn to plan and focus on your tasks better so you can have a healthy work-life balance.

5. Think Productivity

Have you taken steps to avoid distractions, time-wasters and other productivity killers at work and home? Have you disabled annoying pop-ups on your computer?

Have you registered on the Do Not Disturb list or are you still accepting calls from everyone who wants to sell you credit cards and low-interest loans?

Do you have some kind of reminders in place to ensure you do not miss any payment on utility bills and the subsequent frustrating disconnection of service? This could be for your electricity, phone, cell phone, gas cylinder or any of the multiple services that are essential to run our daily lives?

The faster you fix these, the greater will be your peace of mind and productivity.

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