Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Hi, I'm Mark from
the success Bureau. I've been working in
business development and media for over 25 years. I've worked with
clients such as MTV, Cambridge University, the British Home
Office, and many more. Effective time management
is a skill that you can utilize in all
aspects of your life. By managing time effectively, you will experience
less stress and a better sense of stability
in your daily life. Thinking through the
details of your day, from the places you work to the routines you implement will provide a secure structure and massively boost
your productivity. By learning time
management skills, it enables you to let
go of thinking about unnecessary details in order to focus on what is truly
important to you. The strategies in this class
will help you to make the most of your time supercharge
your productivity, and ultimately provide you with much more
time for yourself. For our class project, you'll be creating your own
time management system. To help with this, I've
included a worksheet which you can download from
the class project resources. Just fill it out and
post it in the class. Let's get started and I'll
see you in the first lesson.
2. Optimizing Productivity: Optimizing productivity
with time and space. Using effective time
management techniques provides a stability and
consistency to daily life. As a result, you'll spend
less time worrying about the future and more time
focusing on the task at hand. The first thing to
consider in mapping out your day as your peak
productivity time. Think about where
your most productive. And as you visualize
your whole day, you are more able to focus
on the small pieces. Schedule your time
to shine in order to effectively manage
your hour by hour and day by day routine. He was first asked yourself, what is the time of day
that I'm most thrive? Think for a moment about how your most ideal
productive day would go. The attack the morning slow. Do you get right into work or your most
productive at night? Wouldn't you can pinpoint
your most productive hours. You're better able to work
out the rest of your day. You can make the most out
of your valuable time. A California based
research study found that the most productive
time of day is around 11 AM. People are most mentally alert
between nine AM and 11 AM. You can use this
information while scheduling meetings
as this is the time where people will be the most
attentive information has even been found about the months where people
are most productive. The most productive month of the year is typically October. As you walk through the
typical layout of your day, picture, the parts you
might want to change. Perhaps there are daily
time management habits that you'd like to get rid off. Maybe you have multiple
times throughout the day, what you find yourself
in a productive state. If you can picture
your productivity in 90 minute increments, it might make it
easier to place those throughout your day
or all in one block. What if I only have a
limited amount of time? Because life is life, there will always
be distractions or needs that are unplanned. If you plan to have
four hours to work, but you wind up only
having one hour. That doesn't mean that day or the time to be productive
has been completely lost. It can be easy to have an all or nothing mindset when it comes to
following a schedule. If you cannot do all
of it, do some of it. Once the schedule
has been thrown off, it can seem like the
rest of your day will be negatively effective as well. This doesn't need to
be the case in order to make the most of your
time all of the time, take the hour you have and do
everything you can with it. You don't need to rush. Choose your highest
priority task first, assign yourself an
hour of working on what will move
the needle the most, whatever will move you
ahead the furthest. Take it one minute at a time. An hour may not seem
like a long time. However, a lot can
happen in ten minutes. It can be easy to
let an entire hour flyby without having
done anything. Minimize distractions. Turn your phone on silent. Focus on exactly what
is in front of you. Focus on tasks that
will move you the most towards your goal in
the time that you have. Prioritize the tasks that need the most
immediate attention, the places that inspire you when considering the time of day that you're most productive, you must also consider where
you are most productive. Now and vision the setting of your ideal most
productive workspace. Look around there,
others around you. What does it sound like? Is it a casual or
a formal setting? Perhaps you have a favorite coffee shop where
you like to work. Make a regular habit of going to that place at your most
productive time of the day. If you're not able to get
to your ideal setting, create an atmosphere with other qualities that reflects
an ideal work setting. Consider these ideas
for places to work. Go to a coffee shop. Your favorite coffee
shop can provide a comfortable and
productive familiarity. A coffee shop is a great
place to go to get out of isolation and be around people without being
directly interrupted. Join a co-working space. Many cities have
co-working spaces. A co-working space has all of the amenities of a
typical workplace. You can enjoy some
great motivation by surrounding yourself with
others who are productive. Your office. If you already work
in an office setting, look around the
office to see if you can work in your favorite spot, or setup your desk to
reflect your needs. If you need minimal
distractions, take all distracting
items off of your desk. Outside. Refresh yourself and
your mind with nature. Find a table in the
shade and take in nature while diving into
a productive state. Your house. If you have a workspace
where you live, you can add and remove setting elements according to
your ideal environment. Be sure to keep your workspace
away from where you sleep. If you find that other
people give you energy, consider that fact in
choosing where you work, the Hampshire or social person, but not productive
while being social, be honest with yourself
or make a decision based on how you
use your time best. If you have one person or group of people that you
weren't well around, invite them for a
weekly work session and use that time to
inspire yourself. Establishing your best
work time and setting will propel you to more
effective time management. Asking the simple questions
of when and where will enable you to create the structure that will
handle the rest of your day. Having this environment
in place will anchor you to your schedule when obstacles
and distractions arise.
3. Focused Task Management: While working on three
things at a time, it can feel like you're
getting a lot done. Sometimes a mindset can
occur that tells you the more that you're doing a once
more you are getting done. This thinking is false. In fact, the opposite is true. When you focus on just
one thing at a time, you'll achieve
higher-quality results. Having one thing that
you're working on will free up more time moving from
one thing to another, or focusing on many
things at once. A2 ineffective ways
to manage time. You may find yourself
beginning a long to-do list, jumping from task to task. At the end of an hour, you
may find that you have attempted many tasks
but accomplished none. There are three obstacles that may come up
during your day. All of them can adversely affect time management
in different ways. These obstacles
are multitasking, task switching and context
switching. Multitasking. Multitasking involves
doing many tasks at once that are all related
to the same end result. Many people attempt multitasking in an effort to be efficient. In fact, it's often celebrated. However, multi-tasking is not as effective as some believe. If you think you're an expert
multitasker, think again. For example, you may
have experienced walking while trying to type
an email on your phone. While these are both
tasks that you know well, they become much more difficult when that
don't at the same time. This is because your
attention is split between two tasks
instead of one. Task switching. Task switching is
similar to multitasking, and that involves doing
many things at once. However, task switching
is even less productive. The multitasking task-switching
occurs while focusing on many things at once that are not related to one
specific goal. For example, you may have a conversation on
the phone about an upcoming event while writing an outline
for a new project. These tasks have nothing
to do with each other. You're more likely to miss
important details when you're trying to give your attention to two different things at once. It can always be
difficult to focus. Task switching makes
it even harder. The focused feeling of
losing track of time and being in the zone is
invigorating and productive. This habit prohibits the ability to get totally
lost in your work. Switching from task to task simultaneously means
that none of the work produced will be
as high-quality as work that is done while
only focused on one thing. There are two types
of task switching. Interrupted task-switching. Interrupted task
switching occurs most of the time when
you have e-mail, social media, and text
message notifications. If you have noise alerts or
pop-ups on your computer, you'll likely be
easily distracted and pulled out of the moment of the work that
you're working on. If you're in a flow state, totally focused and
even enjoying yourself, that can all be lost with
a simple notification. An example of this
unfortunate interruption is illustrated by our biggest
distraction, social media. Once you notice a new
social media notification, the moment you click on it, you have officially
task switched. You might be working
on the project in one window while checking
social media on the next. These interruptions are a major obstacle in
time management. They inhibit you from entering the flow state
required to get done, just what you need to do. Rapid task switching. Rapid task switching involves
switching from task, the task in rapid succession. Taking notes on your notebook
with your computer open to another task is
one sure-fire way to fall into rapid
task switching. You may move from typing
an email to writing an outline for a
project you're working on in the same second, going from task to task in quick succession
diminishes awareness, not just on your work, but on the rest of the
world around you as well. That limits your ability
to think clearly. And with care. Context switching. Context switching
occurs when we go from one task to an
entirely different task. This is different from
multitasking and task-switching, and that it does not involve
doing many tasks at all. Context switching
means moving from one project to another without
completing either project. If you have eight hours
and your work time, choose your most important
project and work on that in order to use your
time most effectively, complete that first project before moving on
to anything else. If you move from a
project before it's done, you'll likely end up with
two unfinished projects by the end of the day instead
of one whole task done. A huge disadvantage of context switching is that it
wastes precious work time. Once you've come out of focus, it takes about 25 minutes to get back into
another state of focus. If you switch contexts
three times in your day, you've lost over
an hour of time. That could've been
expertly well-spent. Strategies. Though there are many
things that come up and there is so
much to get done with so little time as possible to prevent these
distracting habits, use these strategies to focus on just one
thing at a time. One, implement the when and where of your
work environment. When you're in your
idea work setting, you're more likely to become
engulfed in your work to make it a rule to complete a task before you
begin the next one. This will increase
your work endurance and will help you
to get more done. You won't waste
such precious time. Three, turn off all your social media and
e-mail notifications. Turn all of your topology
on a Do Not Disturb Mode. You can even have
an auto message letting people know when
you're back online. For stay away from
distracting websites, you may have a
habit of typing in your favorite website when you really meant to
check your email. You can avoid this by
using applications and remind us that will protect you from
distracting websites. Five, take advantage of sound, put on your favorite background
noise or eliminating background noise altogether with noise canceling headphones.
4. Prioritizing Daily Tasks: Prioritizing daily tasks, mastering time management
doesn't come easy. It takes practice
and consistency. The best way to ensure that you get done everything on your list is by prioritizing the
most important tasks and doing those first. Prioritization skills
come with practice. They may not always be clear what exactly is most important. Though some projects have steps, others are more
general and can be accomplished in a variety
of different ways. Pick out the tasks that are most shore to move you forward. Ask yourself, if I
complete this task, will I be satisfied
with what I have done? Consider the item
that you would do if you could only choose
one thing to do, which task would move you closer to your goal in
the allotted time. It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to prioritizing a to-do list
full of important tasks. You can begin the
process by talking with others about how they
prioritize their work. You could also look
at your old habits. Consider whether your current work habits are sustainable. Do you find yourself with money incomplete tasks
during the week? Do you miss deadlines? These might be signs
that you need to look at the big picture and
re-prioritize your items. Follow this proven process
to prioritize your tasks, one, start by making a list
of everything you need to do. You can make a list that covers the entire week and
then break it down into day-by-day sections to write any deadlines or
time constraints while observing your list. This will help you
determine when you need to start
working on what. Be sure to consider the size of each project and deadline. Three. The night before each workday, look at your list and
visualize your day. Once all the tasks that you can get done in your
designated world, time for set-aside
tasks that are unnecessary or not pertinent to what you're currently
trying to get done. It how you want to spend
the day and sets aside tasks that don't relate to the objectives you
have for your day. Five, it's helpful to start on the most dreadful or
difficult task first. If you first
accomplish something that you don't want to do, you'll feel less burdened
and more motivated. Six, you can use all of these things to set
your priorities straight. Take a step back and
weigh the importance of each task according to the
goals you have in mind. Remain flexible. There are bound to
be destructions, new things, pop-up,
surprises occur. An important phone
calls come in, even though you
plan out your day, the night before,
there are days where nothing goes as planned and
things get pushed back. When these unexpected
turns occur, you can use your priorities
to guide you towards the tasks to focus on when
you do have the time, if you have an
impending deadline or particularly difficult
task, begin with those. If you're asked to take on too much practice boundaries and avoid promising more
than you can deliver. Use your time wisely, carefully consider your
high priority items as you look at each day. Take advantage of your
most productive hours by doing the items that
need your utmost attention. Use your time wisely by
knowing how things are going to go and giving
care to each minute.
5. Pay Attention To Your Time: Pay attention to your time. There are 1440
minutes in each day. Most people are awake for
about 16 hours out of a day. That means you have
around 960 minutes to do what you need to do in order
to have a successful day. This may seem daunting and
it may seem inspiring. Regardless, it's important to be cognizant of the ways
you spend your time. On average, humans are able to focus for around 20
minutes at a time. However, it's possible
to be focused for 20 minutes and then
repeatedly refocus. You can use this information
to your advantage when you estimate how long
each task will take. If something will
take four hours, look at it in 20
minutes sections. How much of this project can
you get done in 20 minutes? How much can you get
done in one hour? Take planned breaks. Maintain your attention
on each task, but be sure to take a
break every 90 minutes. If 19 minutes seems
like too long, you can also take breaks
every 50 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes is
a perfect length of time to give your brain
a refreshing break. You can also practice
being mindful of your time by being mindful
during your time to brakes. Practicing a quick
mindfulness activity is more effective than taking a break to get on social media
or read the news. Mindfulness enables you to calm your mind and come to
the present moment. Social media stimulates the mind and distracts from
the present moment. Try these mindfulness activities
during your work breaks. One, meditate. You can meditate for
just a few minutes. Sit up straight in your chair, close your eyes are
focused on 1 ahead of you. Start to simply pay
attention to your breath. Notice I am inhaling. Exhaling. To go on a walk. Embrace the feeling of
fresh air and sunshine by taking a step away from
your work and going on a walk. Leave your phone behind. Simply observe and
notice the greenery, the sound of the cause, and the color of the sky. Three, take a coloring break, grab a coloring break and
sets a timer for ten minutes. Use those minutes
to relax and color. This exercise will
help keep your mind engaged without thinking
about other things. Full. Notice your five senses. Take a moment to notice
all of your senses. What do you see, smell, taste, and feel. Go through all of your muscle
groups and relax them. Starting with your toes and
ending with your heirs. Set reminders. Set reminders for
yourself to help notify you of an upcoming
transition in your day. These smaller alerts
can serve as a line of accountability when you're
trying to practice new habits. If you notice a
ding five-minutes before it's time to move
onto your next task, you'll be able to find a
stopping point and make a smooth transition to the
next item of business. You can also take advantage of the opportunity that's
an alert presents. Use a small moment in your
transition to acknowledge your day and check that your focus is on
the task at hand. You don't always have
to stop what you're doing in order to be mindful. You can take advantage of
moments at work where you can bring your attention to
exactly what you're doing. If your next task
calls for movement, bring your focus
to your walking. Feel the ground beneath your shoes and focus
on your breath. Even if it's just for a moment, It's easy to look to
the future and concern ourselves with
imagined scenarios that we truly cannot predict. These small moments of mindfulness can provide
a chance to let go of worry and focus on the task at hand without
disrupting your day. How does mindfulness
affects productivity? The ability to focus
on the present moment. It brings about a
stronger connection to the task at hand, rather than your
entire to-do list. Those who practice
mindfulness have been shown to be less effected
by distractions. Mindfulness increases
productivity by creating a manageable stream of thoughts
that do not overwhelm. By practicing
mindfulness regularly, you're likely to
increase your ability to regulate emotions. This stability provides focus on only the thoughts that count. Treat your time with
care and attention. The best way to be mindful
of your time is to be aware and conscious of what you are doing and
when you do it. You can do this by creating a system or a routine
for each day.
6. Setting Up Your Daily System: Setting up your daily system. Time management isn't just
about getting stuff done on. Time management is about
structure and consistency. Structure provides a sense of security and relief to each day. It decreases the need for worry
or time wasting thoughts. If you already know how the first three hours of
your day are going to go, you don't need to wake up and wonder how the next
three hours we'll go. You'll already know
because you have a system. Follow a routine. Working within a structure, no matter how subtle,
provides numerous benefits. By having a routine, you're more likely to not
just be more productive, but also to feel
better or round. You'll get sound asleep,
feel less stressed, and have a stronger
ability to focus on each task at each
designated time of the day. You can begin thinking
about your routine by splitting your
day into sections. Begin with the first hour. What does the first hour
of your day look like? Tried to spend the first hour of your day off of technology. Avoid checking your email or
responding to text messages. Take the first hour of your
day just for yourself. Then you can transition
into your day by preparing, thinking through, and
strategizing for the day ahead, you'll feel a greater
sense of stability. Ask yourself these questions
about your routine. Warm morning routine. What is the first thing you
want to do each morning? What is the second thing you
want to do each morning? What will make your morning
feel like a success? What is the most important
daily task you'll do each morning to nightly routine. How do you want to end your day? How are you wind
down from your day? What is the most important task you want to do each night? What task will help you feel a sense of completion
about your day? What are the most
important things you want to get done
in the morning? Accumulate small successes
early on in your day. This will help you feel confident
and ready for your day. For example, you can start
your day by making your bed. Though this may
seem insignificant. Making your bed start your day in a refreshingly
successful way. Unless you know that
you're officially beginning your day
and it gives you a success right away and a nicely made bad is
waiting for you. At the end of the day. Think about the rest of your
day in sections as well. What do you want to
do before you work? When do you take breaks? When do you eat? Consider these questions as you walk yourself through your day. Once you have basic routines and take care of
the little stuff, take a look at your
long-term goals to come up with a daily system. Create your system based on
what's right in front of you. Though you have goals. Having a system is actually a better use of your
time and productivity. What's the difference
between goals and systems? Goals are important. They motivate us to become the
people we are meant to be. They guide us through
the storms of life by providing a light
at the end of the tunnel. Goals determine our values and the way we
look at our lives, we look at the future
and the bigger picture of our life in the long-term
when we set goals. Systems are also important. Systems zoom in on the day
to day and minute to minute details on the actions that will bring your long-term
goals to fruition. However, if you spend all your time looking at
the goal on the horizon, you might lose track of what
is right in front of you. Instead of focusing
on the future, look at this exact moment. Look at each moment
and the role it plays in propelling
you to success. In order to create your system
in the most effective way, you must start by
setting your goals. Big picture goals are
based on the lifestyle and career paths that
you want to pursue. Systems are the building
blocks to these goals. Follow this process to
set long-term goals. Consider your values. What do you consider? Success? Do you want to
accumulate a fortune? Accolades, community? Think about what your
life will look like when you fail that you've
reached your full potential. To zoom in on one aspect
of your desired outcome. For example, consider what
job you would like to have. What kind of person
do you want to be? Five years from now? What would you like
to have accomplished? Three, time your goals, realistically, think
about how long it might take you to
get to your goal. This will help you
visualize your goal. Be careful not to
take on too much. You want to set yourself up for success instead of
disappointment. Building a system. Once you have a long-term
goal set in place, you'll be able to set up
your day-to-day system, breakdown your goal into
six month intervals, then break it into
one month intervals. Finally, think about the specific things
you need to do on a daily or weekly basis to take constant steps towards
the official destination. Your system consists of the
daily things you do and focus on that move you forward towards your
long-term goal. By creating your daily system, you'll be able to
let go of the future and focus on enjoying
the present moment. You won't need to worry about your goal when you're
following your system, because success is
built into each day. For example, imagine
you have a goal to rot a 300 page
book in one year. What do you need to do each
day to reach that goal? By breaking down each page
into months sections, and taking one day off per week, you could realistically
write 500 words per day. So at what time of the
day would you write? Build your system based
on your long-term goal? When there's a long-term goal, the small steps
support that goal. You don't need to keep
your eye on the prize. You only need to keep your
eye on this present moment. By doing this, you'll experience less stress and a greater
likelihood of success. The step you take each
day to work towards the finish line
can be seamlessly placed through each
part of your diet. Sets up the rest of your day to reflect the goals you
want to work towards.
7. Set A Schedule And Stick To It: Subtest schedule
and stick to it. Lay out your entire
day by creating a realistic schedule
of your day to day system in order to make the most effective use of your time and be the
most productive. Map out the hour to hour details that comprise
each of your days. Before you schedule anything, take a look at the way you're currently
spending your time. Take one week to observe
each hour of your day. Document the way you
currently spend your time. This exercise will help you to create a structure
that can provide support and help you
make the most of your time with the
least amount of stress. An example of a schedule on a typical day could be
seven AM to eight AM. Wake up, make bad, meditate, eat breakfast,
eight AM to nine AM. Go to work, review to-do
list and priorities. Check e-mail nine
AM until 12:00 PM, work on tasks in
order of priority. Take planned breaks at
least every 19 minutes. Reduce the scope. You don't need to do
everything all in one day. If you put too much
on your plate, you'll wind up losing more
time and producing less work. Imagine a doctor who books
too many patients in one day. If there's any disturbance
in the schedule, the waiting room will grow more crowded as the
white gets longer. Reduce the scope of your day of focus only on what is realistic. If you end up
taking on too much, it will be harder to
follow a schedule. A full plight is a catalyst for stress
and incomplete work. Be quick but don't hurry. Avoid overwhelming yourself
in order to be efficient. Leave no task untouched. Maintain the order of your day to the best
of your ability. If you have a daily routine, you want to follow, stick to it. Follow the order of each event, even if you no longer have
the planned amount of time. For example, if you plan to
clean your house for an hour, but you only have 20 minutes, you can focus on one room
and get that one done. This habit will also help you maintain your daily
schedule in the long run. Even if it doesn't
work on one day, things may not be
going as planned, but time can still
be used wisely. Even though not everything
was accomplished, the feeling of
success will still come after doing everything
that you could do. Batching. When you batch your days, you complete tasks that are similar to each
other in sections. For example, you might
have one hour on your schedule to check e-mails
and return phone calls. You can split your
days intersections and create a streamlined
organization. There seems to be a culture that encourages constant
email checking. However, new research suggests checking email just
three times per day. For so this sounds stressful. The fear of missing
out comes into play, which makes checking
email irresistible. This habit is a
difficult one to break. You can start small, check your email
five times a day. You can even let people
know that all of the e-mails will be responded
to within 24 hours. Social media is a huge part of daily life for many people. It has become a natural way
to communicate and connect with those within our community
and throughout the world. Social media can also be as
addictive as checking email. A healthy habit to
implement is one of conscious social media time. Rather than checking
notifications every time there
is a free moment. Choose a time of day that you'll dedicate to social media. Batching categories. Here are some examples of
categories that may work well for your time management when you batch them together. One, professional
correspondence. Check email, return, phone calls to social hour, check text messages, coordinate social plans, check
social media. Three, current events,
Check-in on the news, get updates on topics of
interest for self-improvement. Go to the gym, work towards
your long-term goal. You can examine the rest of your schedule and look at
the most productive time of the day in order to choose where you batch which tasks, use your productivity time
to your advantage and create a schedule according to which tasks need the
most attention there, or even days of the week
when you might want to take care of an entire
category of tasks. Theme your days. Some activities don't need
to be done every day. For example, you
might not need to go to the grocery
store every day. Activities that can be
put on just one day can be categorized into
themes for your days. If you have multiple
errands to do each week, choose just one day
to do all of them. These themes are part of
your weekly rituals and habits that you want
to maintain over time. Whether you take your dog
to the park once a week or choose one day each week to have meetings with coworkers, doing them on the
same day each week, we'll create a
stable consistency. Consider the suggested themes. Mastery, Mondays,
practice a new hobby, improve on a new
skill, productivity. Tuesdays, complete big projects. Scheduled meetings for this day, dedicate extra focus to work, work out Wednesday's schedule, a longer workout session. Work with a
professional trainer. Thinking of your weeks in
sections like this helps you to focus on the day ahead rather
than the month or year AD. Make time for fun. Create time to pursue the things you love that are
not work-related. A great way to reward
yourself after a satisfying and
hard day of work is by engaging in
one of your hobbies. Productivity is essential. I'm embracing Hobbes is also an essential way
to avoid burnout. When you schedule your day
and prioritize your tasks, you'll be better able to make time for the things you love. If you find that you
have too much on your plate and that you
don't have time for fun. The solution isn't
to eliminate phone. Instead. Start by carving out as little as one hour per
week to dedicate to a hobby. Whether you most enjoy cross stitching,
rock-climbing, or juggling, you can make time for both your high priority
responsibilities and your extracurricular
hobbies. It can sometimes be difficult to find hobbies as life tags over. Time flies by as the hustle and bustle determines
how our days go. By taking charge and making positive changes in your
time management skills, you'll suddenly find that
you have more free time to dedicate to fostering a
well-rounded lifestyle. If you're short on phone, use these techniques
to choose a new hobby. Wall. Make a list, write down all of the things
you're interested in. You don't need to
have a plan in mind. Just jot down the first
things that come to mind. For example, you might be
interested in astrology, painting, or filmmaking, too. Once you have a
list of interests, choose a couple to try out. By exploring a new hobby, you'll broaden your
horizons and have a stronger ability to approach
work with a fresh outlook. Three, avoid limiting yourself. You don't have to
have just one hobby. You can pursue a number of
things you're interested in. Just ensure that you
don't take on too much.
8. The Bottom Line: The bottom line,
take inventory of your daily life and let go of the habits that
no longer serve you. Acquiring new time
management skills will foster a greater spark of productivity that will endure through the obstacles
that naturally arise. You don't have to
expend energy and worry on the organization
of your day. Regular practice and
implementation of a few simple skills can actually save you time so that
you can better focus on what is pertinent
to the current moment. Follow this process to integrate effective time management skills into your daily routines. Step one, begin by considering when you're
most productive. Take stock of what your day
is currently looked like, and make realistic adjustments in order to use your
time most effectively. Use your highest alert times to take care of your
highest priority items. Schedule your meetings and free time according to the ebb
and flow of your day, create your ideal setting
for productivity. Think about where you feel
the most comfortable. Find an accessible and
consistent setting where you can focus and get into
the flow of your workday. Step two, choose one task
to focus on at a time. Let go of old
multitasking habits, that whole productivity,
diminished work quality, and stir up more stress. Use strategies that will
limit distractions. This will help you
to maintain focus. It takes around 25 minutes
to refocus on a task. Once you've broken focus, switching from task to task is unproductive and we'll
end up wasting time. It's best to focus on
each task as it comes. Complete one task before
moving onto the next day with one complete project is more successful than a day with
two incomplete projects. Step three, examine
the importance of each task ahead of you. Depending upon time
constraints and level of focus,
prioritize your tasks. Begin your work time with
the most important task. Despite all of the
planning in the world, many days go in a different
direction than intended. Remain flexible in the face of distraction or interruption. Referring to your prioritized
list can help you make decisions about how to use the limited time you have. Step four, Be attentive
of your time. Take care to notice how
you spend each day. The day doesn't need to be
daunting or overwhelming. Planned mindfulness breaks will help the day go by
at an even pace. Take a step back after
around 90 minutes of work. In doing so, you'll
be able to maintain a consistent pace of work
and quality of focus. Follow a simple and
consistent routine. Think of your day in sections. Consider what each part
of your day looks like. Beginning with the
moment you wake up. Step five, develop and sustain an efficient system
in which you will thrive. A system is created based
on your long-term goals. Instead of constantly
looking towards the future, bring your attention
to what you do each day that will inevitably
lead to your goals. Goals are based on long-term big picture ideas for your life. Systems are the
small daily steps that lead to the achievement
of those long-term goals. Step sex, create a schedule
that works for you. Be careful not to take on
more than you can handle. Knowing your limits
is good for you, good for your work and good
for the people around you. If your daily schedule
is disturbed, do your best to
get to every task. If you plan to an hour, but only have 20 minutes, spend a focused, productive 20-minute period on
the scheduled task. Categorize sections of your days based on the similarity
of different tasks. If you have administrative
tasks to do, do them all in the
same part of your day. Spend less time checking email scheduled times
to check your email and take care of those
responses during planned parts of your
day, pursue hobbies. Making time for
intentional phone ensures a consistent and stress-free
quality of life. Though life may sometimes
seem too busy the hallways, you can make time
for them when you implement effective
time management skills. A natural consequence of time management is an
increase in productivity. Distractions and warriors are minimized when your days
are predictable and simple, consistent, and
regular practice of these time management tools are the catalyst for
innovation and growth. Well, that brings us to
the end of this course. I wish you the very
best for the future, and I hope to see you
on another course soon.
Marc Hamill, CEO of The Success Bureau
