How to Have Your Most Productive Week at Work

1. Lesson 1 Introduction: Hi I'm Abigail Ireland. So I've worked with executives and teams helping them to optimize their productivity and performance in the workplace. I do this through consulting, training, and coaching services. I have a background in banking strategy and business management. So most of my clients are in the professional services and financial services world. I'm also a qualified personal trainer, nutrition coach, and Pilates instructor. I'm really excited about sharing with you some of the fundamental tools and habits required to enable peak performance. In this class, you'll learn how to set yourself up for success by creating a schedule for the next seven days, enabling you to have your most productive weekend yet. You'll learn how to manage yourself, your energy, and your time more effectively, creating high performance habits that really last. We'll be covering the core principles of productivity, your mindset and how this impacts productivity and performance. Strategies to manage and boost your energy levels. How to master your focus, how to prioritize tasks, and finally, putting it all into actions so you can successfully complete your class project and have your most productive week yet. Why does it pay to be productive? Well, you get more done. That is you get the right things done in less time. You get results, you feel good. So you have that sense of achievement. You stay energized, you reduce burnouts, you reduce stress and most importantly, you have more freedom. So you can really free up time to do the things you'd rather be doing. Also, focusing on productivity really enhances well being, improves engagement and boosts morale, therefore resulting in happier, healthier employees. So it's a win-win for everyone. Who should take this class? Well, this class is really good to people who have a lot to do or towards people who want to get a lot done. If you're a procrastinator or doing busy work without achieving outcomes you want, then this is for you. If you want to get results. If you want to have more time back for yourself, this is a great place to start. Being more effective with autonomy half is really, really important. If you want to impress your boss by getting things done and perform to a higher level. Master of fundamental productivity habits is crucial. If you want to get on top of your to do list and regain control of your time, these lessons will really help you to become more structured. Without further a do, let's get started. 2. Your Class Project: Now this is the cost of productivity. So we're going to make sure that you're taking practical action throughout every single lesson rather than waiting until the end. This is a way that we can really ensure that you build these high-performance habits and become a more productive person. Your class project involves applying what you learn to create your most productive week yet. By the end of this course, you will have created a strategic work schedule for the next seven days so you can hit the ground running tomorrow morning and focus on getting things done. So I'd love to see what you come up with. Please share your work in the project gallery and I'll do my best to nip in and give you feedback. So our first lesson address is my three key pillars of productivity. So let's find out what they are. 3. The Pillars of Productivity: Before we dig into the practical part of the class, I wanted to give you a brief overview of the foundations of productivity and high performance. Performance can be optimized across three core dimensions covering psychology, physiology, and productivity. Psychology incorporates the neuroscience, and psychology behind high performance and productivity is the thinking along the lines of mindset, attitude, and thought processes. When we talk about physiology, we're talking about the optimal management of physical and mental well-being. Productivity looks at how teams and executives interact, communicate, and manage themselves and the way they work using business systems, strategies, and frameworks. These three aspects of performance are interrelated and integrated. All of them must be addressed to achieve peak performance on a sustainable basis. If you neglect one, it causes an imbalance. To achieve top workplace productivity, we really need to start with the mind. If we get that right, that's fantastic, and then we can look at optimizing the body, and then looking at how we can introduce business tools to make ourselves more effective. In this class, we'll be looking across all three dimensions to really help you to optimize your productivity and your performance so that you can have a highly productive week ahead. Let's start with the mindset. 4. Developing a Productive Mindset: First, we're going to be looking at mindset: which is the foundation of our performance and productivity. Now if your mindset isn't in the right place, it can be really hard to get things done, let alone get things done to a good standard. One tip is to think about where you are and the mood you're in when you're doing your best work. Take a minute to write down some notes and keep this in mind when you need to focus and get things done. You can pause this video and just answer these questions; what does it feel like when you're operating at your most productive, and what does it feel like when you're very unproductive? Where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? Interesting, isn't it? The preference is to have more moments when we're feeling in the zone. That is, our emotions would be very positive, we'll be feeling happy, energized, focused, motivated, and with a sense of purpose. However, I think we all know that there are times when we just can't get things done. We're not in the mood, we're not in the zone, we don't feel positive, we might be having a bad day, and so it becomes really hard to motivate ourselves to do things, and this is where the concept of consistency versus motivation really kicks in. Because we do need to be able to get things done even if we don't feel like it. That's the only way to be productive and to keep momentum going in our lives. Here are some tips to get things done even if your head isn't in the right space. Tip number one, know your why. So in advance of doing a piece of work, have a very clear idea of why you're doing it and what the benefits or rewards are. How are you going feel when it's done? Tip two, set deadlines and hold yourself accountable. Promise someone else, have an accountability buddy, commit to a deadline as this will give you the motivation you need to get things over the line. Tip number three, practice consistent habits by setting a routine or schedule, so your brain doesn't have to think for itself when lacking motivation. It can simply slip into that routine and follow habits that is built up over time. For example, I'll get up and first thing I do every morning is a workout before I start my working day, and because I've been doing that for so long, I don't even need to think about it. I basically get up, put my gym clothes on, and then head to the gym. It's become an automated behavior and that's, I guess, what we want to try and create for other areas of our lives, so we can become productive and stay productive even when we're not really in the mood. This default behavior path creates consistency, and that's the key to success. That's the fundamentals of creating a productive mindset. Now we're going to be looking at how we can maximize your energy levels 5. Managing Your Energy: Now, if you're someone who finds it really difficult to maintain a high energy level throughout the day, this lesson will be really useful for you. It's incredible how important energy is to have a productive day. But it's also amazing how many people just don't understand the connection between physical and mental energy and high performance and productivity. It is really important to optimize both physical and mental energy if we want to perform at our best. Why? Because if the mind and body are functioning at their best, we can operate at a high level throughout the day without slumps and slowdowns, without feeling easily distracted or lethargic. We also find it easier to recover and bounce back. Making it easier to go again and give it a 100 percent the next day. I'm going to go over three very quick basic tips to help you to maximize your energy levels throughout the day, each and every day. This is really going to help you to boost your productivity. The first tip is to increase your energy awareness. What times of day are you at your best? When you're at your most focused and productive? When are you the most distracted and unproductive? When do you have your energy highs and lows? I am going forward trying to your most challenging work at the times of day when you're at your peak. You can download the energy flow chart to track your personal energy flow and productivity throughout the day. Let me give you an example. Now, this chart shows my energy levels and the time of day. Now, I start the day at around 6:00 AM. At this point, if energies that are a 100 percent here and zero here, my energy is probably quite high. I tend to start the day very high and I will keep going through the day. Around noon, I noticed that my energy starts to slump a bit because I get hungry. I then we'll have something to eat and I notice that my energy is still fairly low, it's still in the high 70s and 80s, but it's not as good as it would have been first thing in the morning. Then towards the evening, around 6:00 PM, it tends to peak up again. Then gradually as the evening goes on, I tend to have a bit more slump as odd wind down. I also noticed that around 3:00 PM sometimes my energy might have dip. For me, if I'm going to structure my workday, I'm not going to do the work that requires the most brainpower at this time in the afternoon, so between 3:00 and 4:00 PM. I'm going to do the work that require brainpower when I get into the office at say, 9:00 AM. I'm going to carry on until about noon, which is when my productivity, when my focus is at its best. So it's really about thinking about how can you structure your day to align with your energy levels. You don't want to be doing admin when you're at your best. Likewise, you don't want to be doing your most challenging work that requires a lot of brain power when you're feeling like you're energy is quite low. My bonus tip is to download the energy flow template and really get familiar with how you work each and every day. Try and plot this for a week and see what your trends are. Reflect on your energy levels at the end of day, and then look at these trends over a week and see where do you do your best work? When are you at your most productive and most focused? When do you think you should be doing the work that's less urgent, less impulsive, and maybe the admin that doesn't require so much brain power? The second tip is to factor and breaks and recovery time. Think about your phone or your laptop. If you have too many tabs and apps open and never shall it down, eventually will start slowing down and it can freeze to the point that you might frustratingly need to turn it off and restart. Remember, it needs a break and so do you. If you ever had a lot of work to do and you've had that experience of sitting at your desk for hours on end without a break, you'll know what it feels like. Your energy will basically slowly, slowly deteriorate and droplet this as time goes on. I don't want instead is to keep those energy levels up high throughout the day. By having breaks, we're essentially doing this. We're working, we have a break. We didn't come back to work, we have a break. These little dips are helping you to recharge throughout the day, which means that your energy can stay at this level throughout sustain at that high level. In the next lesson, I'm going to be sharing a technique with you that allows you to incorporate breaks into your working day in and we're ready effective way. The third tip is to increase energy levels by making smart nutrition and exercise choices. The food we eat will affect our focus and productivity. It is just a given. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes this. If you eat well, you'll start to notice the improvement in your mood and your concentration. You're going to avoid those energy highs and slumps throughout the day. Essentially, we could have a whole house, just some fitness or just on nutrition. We don't have time to go through everything, but of what I'm going to do is give you my top five tips, the fundamentals of how you can use nutrition and fitness to have a productive day. Number 1, keep healthy snacks nearby so you can easily reach them when you get the munchies. Studies show that hunger can really affect mood and decision-making capability. It's important that we get enough nutrition so we can focus on the task at hand. Number 2, choose healthy options that promote brainpower. The brain needs fuel to stay sharp and focused. Good choices here are blueberries, almonds, walnuts, bananas, and green tea. Tip number 3, drink lots and lots of water. The best way you can do this, the easiest way is to just keep a bottle at your desk. Aim for about two liters a day, which equates to around eight glasses upon today. Think about this roughly about one glass an hour sipping, not downing on along go otherwise your body just won't absorb it. Tip number 4, like nutrition. Your physical fitness is going to help you to perform better. You're going to feel stronger, you're going get more blood pumping around your body. In turn, you're going get more oxygen to your brain and it helps you to think more clearly, which therefore helps you to be more focused and productive. You also reduce the risk of injuries and any aches and pains that can sometimes gets in the way of you having a productive day. When you're feeling lethargic, a good quick way to incorporate exercise in your day is to just stand up and spent two minutes alternating between upper and lower body exercises.This is one of the most effective ways to get the blood circulating, get a hot pumping, so the blood goes up and down the body. Tip number 5, if you can try and exercise first thing in the morning, get up an hour earlier, because this is a great way to start the day and it can be really time effective to wake up, workout, and then shower before work starts. Everyone's different it might not work for you, but I encourage you to try it out if you haven't. So there you have it, lots and lots of tips on how you can manage and boost your energy levels throughout the working day. Next up, we're going to be looking at focus and how you can get things done. 6. Mastering Your Focus: We've looked at how your mind and your body can really impact your productivity and performance each and every day. Next, we're going to be looking at how you can master your focus to become even more productive. Number 1, let's reduce mental clutter. Pose this video, get pen and paper and take five minutes to grind up your thoughts. That's everything that's swimming around in your head, whether it's personal or work-related. By taking this noise away, it's going to free up space and help you to clear your mind and therefore help you to think more clearly. When you're done, come back and we can carry on. Take five minutes and press pause now. Okay, so I hope that went well and you've managed to clear your head just a bit. Now just before bed is a brilliant time to do journaling like this. It helps you to take everything out of your head so you can go to bed with a nice clear mind. You can sleep well, feel fully rested and therefore wake up the next day, rejuvenated and ready to take the day on. Tip Number 2, working sprints. This is another way to train the brain to be more focused and disciplined. You may have heard of the Pomodoro Technique, which is one method. To keep it simple, start with setting a timer and work solidly for 25 minutes on a specific task. Then take a five-minute break, step away from the work and do something completely different such as making a cup of tea, do some simple stretching, walk around the office, get some fresh air. Then repeat that process a few more times before you have a longer break. You can work for longer or shorter sprints to suit your working style and you can flex the break durations too. Test it out and see what works for you. The goal here is to keep energy levels up throughout the day whilst being super focused, whilst you're going to sprint. Over time, you can spot trends and get better idea of how many sprints that takes you to complete certain tasks such as the report. This is really helpful if you're trying to plan out future work and think about how long it's going take you to do something. You can even figure out your most productive times of day, days of the week and months of the year. These are some really effective tools to build focus but remember, it does take time to get this right. Next, we are going to be looking at how we can prioritize effectively. 7. Prioritising Your Work: In this lesson, we're going be looking at clarity of thoughts and getting the right things done. We're going to be looking at how we prioritize and figure out what needs to be done and in what order. Firstly, take two minutes to brain dump your to do list on the attached task template. Pause this lesson right now and do that. Now that you've done that, find your top, top priority and write this down. We're going to keep this as simple as possible as it's highly likely that you know exactly what is pressing for your attention if you had to choose. Pause this lesson for a moment whilst you do that. Okay now pick the three next most important tasks on your list and note them down on the template. These are the three non-negotiables for this week. No messy work. Pause the lesson whilst you do that. Finally, pick the next five to eight items that you want to accomplish in the next seven days. It can be more or less depending on how much time you think you need to complete each one and whether you'll actually realistically be able to complete this within a week. Be really realistic about what you can actually get done. Pause this lesson and take a minute to complete the template. That exercise can be really therapeutic, or very stressful to people depending on your character. If you found it difficult to pick out your most important tasks or reflect on the older try answering these questions. What is a strategic activity that's going to get me closer to my goals? What is urgent and needs to be done now? What can be done later? What can be delegated? What can I dump? What doesn't add any value or contribute towards my goals? Secondly, understand your why. As said in lesson four, have a very clear idea of why you're doing a task and what the benefits and rewards are. Think about how you will feel when it's done. Are you doing things that really matter? Start your day by tackling those important value-add tasks. These aren't necessarily the ones that are urgent or demanding your attention. Thirdly, don't be overambitious. Make sure these tasks are achievable in the next week or if not, break them down into even smaller subtasks so you can get moving on them. We've covered quite a lot here in terms of tips and tools and strategies to become more productive. Now we're going to look at putting that all together and we're going to start on the first project. 8. Putting It Into Action: It's time for the class project. We're going to map out the next seven days so you can have your most productive week yet to earn everything that we've learned so far from the lessons. Step 1, get your weekly planning template from the project gallery and save it down or open up your electronic calendar. Step 2, plot your non-negotiable downtime into your calendar. You can do this on paper or you can do this on your electronic calendar if preferred. For example, plotting your lunch break, exercise classes, any social activities you have planned. Remember that this downtime is crucial to help you recharge and keep energy levels up. Step 3, map all meetings and appointments into your calendar. If you can control the timing of any of these or move meetings around, moving them all to one day or perhaps removing meetings that aren't really adding any value, then please do so. I color-code meetings and appointments, so I can easily see when I need to be somewhere specific. Step 4, review your prioritized task list and your energy flow chart. Step 5, map your most important activities into your planner, keeping in mind when your energy levels are at best and when in the week you need to action these activities. I'd recommend giving yourself 20-30 percent more time than you think it will take to accomplish each activity. This take into account any obstacles or interruptions that can come up or any emergencies. Again, color-code your action items, so you can clearly differentiate them from meetings and appointments. Step 6, map all other activities from your task list into your calendar. You might find that you can't fit them all in and that's exactly the point of this exercise. We need to be realistic when it comes to how much time we have in a day or a week. Be realistic about your task list and works on it. If you need to, you can swap out certain tasks and add in those that need to be done first. But remember, when you pop up to task, you do need to think about whether you'll do it later on or whether you'll delegate or dump it. Step 7, get your healthy snacks ready and prepared for your week ahead. Finally, you can sit back and relax. You've done an amazing job getting to this point so congratulate yourself. Tomorrow morning, you can come in, check out your weekly schedule and just get to work without even thinking about it. Looking forward to see your class projects, have fun, and enjoy the week ahead. 9. Wrap Up: You did it, so well done for getting to this stage. I hope you're feeling a lot more focused and excited about coming in tomorrow and kicking off your next seven days. Let's review what we've learned. We've learned how productivity performance is driven by the optimizing of three core pillars; psychology, physiology, and business productivity. We've covered how we can create a more productive mindset, manage energy more effectively, and learn how to train our ability to focus. We've also looked at how we can prioritize our task list each week and how to take all of this information and combine it to create a highly productive weekly schedule. Remember, this is just the start. Now the tools and training I've given you, I have given you the fundamentals to become a more productive person, to be able to manage yourself and your energy and your time more effectively. But it all takes practice. Don't even try and do this all perfectly first-time. Productivity is an art, and it's all about testing what works for you and dropping the things that don't. As we learn more about ourselves and our individual styles, you can really refine how you use your body, your mindset, and your business brain to become your most productive. The first step here is simply to get started. I'd love to see what you come up with. Please share your plans in the project gallery, and I'll be dipping in to give you feedback. Thanks very much.