Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a task or project? Perhaps you need to write a report that requires a lot of effort to prepare. Or you need to do something you don’t like that seems big and difficult.

In such situations, there are two responses you might take. The first one is procrastinating. Procrastinating is a way to temporarily relieve the pain associated with being overwhelmed. When you procrastinate, you choose to delay doing the task so that you don’t have to deal with it. The second response is doing the task despite being stressed. You still do what you need to do, but you have many things in your mind that drain your mental energy.

To deal with the situation, there is a good tip in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz:

I had the good fortune of being trained at Skip Barber’s racing school… What they taught me at Skip Barber was all about focus. In order to navigate the course at top speeds, I was trained to focus exclusively on the next turn while the car was still piloting the current one… Not the current one, nothing beyond the next one, just the next turn.

The paragraph is written in the context of running a company but I believe it’s also applicable to individuals. If you want to be more productive, you should focus exclusively on the next thing to do. Don’t think about what you did or what to do later. Just focus on the one thing that you need to do next. Doing this simplify the situation since you don’t have many things in your mind. Instead of having your energy distracted by the past and the future, you focus your energy on the task that you need to do now.

What if you still feel overwhelmed? Then make it simpler. Break the task to even simpler tasks.

Focus only on the next turn and you will navigate your tasks and projects at top speeds.

Photo by iwona_kellie

Note: This is a guest post by Glen Allsopp of PluginID

With the current economic situation, we are all looking to get more done in less time. Bosses are working out which staff to keep and which to let go, ex-students are looking to shine for future prospective employers and people who work from home realise they need to get more done on a daily basis.

With that in mind, I thought sharing some of my productivity tips would be of use to many of the Life Optimizer readers. These tips have helped put me in a position of being able to work from home in my own time, on projects that I enjoy.

Twice the Work in Half the Time

Plan Before You Execute – Unless you are one very efficient and productive individual, you’ll find that there are times where we sit down to do a project and then we just wander off into doing something completely different. For me this is common when I have to research something (online) and I end up getting distracted by all the intriguing sites the web has to offer; before I know it I’ve completely stopped focusing on my original task.

To give a personal example of planning before I execute, you could look at my blogging strategy. I always come up with a post title first, but after that I would sit down, open up my blog editor and hope ideas would come to me while typing. This works sometimes, but it’s certainly not very productive, and a blog post can end up taking 3 hours instead of 30 minutes.

Instead, I brainstorm on a piece of paper the main points that I want to cover in the article and then I actually go to my blog editor and start fleshing them out. This might add 10 minutes to my working time initially, but once I sit down it’s a total breeze. Whatever you are going to work on, have a quick plan of what you need to do instead of hoping the ideas will come or dealing with the ‘problem’ when the situation arises.

Work in the Quietest Time Possible – I worked at home for 6 months before moving across the world to South Africa, getting an office job in an industry I love. It was the first time I’ve worked in an office, so it took a while to get used to the activity of my surroundings. I’ve found that, without a doubt, my most productive time is when there is less going on around me.

Our work schedules were fairly flexible, so if I came into the office an hour earlier I would leave an hour earlier, or if I came in an hour later, I then left an hour later (I tended to go for the later option). I noticed that my last hour at work, when most people were at home, was far more productive, even in the same amount of time.

Three key areas I noticed that were the quietest included:

• In the mornings before most people arrived
• In the afternoon when most people had left
• During lunch, therefore I would change my own lunch schedule at times

Even if you don’t work in an office, you can use this to be free from distractions such as your kids, your partner or even just your friends. For example, if you work from home you could wake up early before everyone has gotten out of bed and get cracking on your projects for the day.

Eliminate All Distractions – Work distractions come in many forms. For me, I was often distracted by other websites (my job is online), Email, Instant Messaging clients and phone calls. You need to be aware of what distractions may be affecting you so that you can eliminate them from your environment / schedule.

Other possible distractions include:

• Colleagues
• TV
• Music
• Construction Work

Try to find a quiet place where you can work and eliminate as many distractions as possible. Limit your email checking to only one or twice per day, if you must use Instant Messaging clients then set your status to busy and if you must make phone calls, make them on a lunch hour. It’s likely the receiver will be in a rush to put down the phone, just as much as you.

Outsource What You Can – Before you think you can’t afford outsourcing, think again. You can hire virtual assistants for as little as $3 per hour who are very capable of:

• Sending emails
• Making phone calls
• Conducting research
• Completing documents (providing they have enough information)
• …and much more

If you are dealing with sensitive information, it’s probably best to have your virtual assistant or freelancer sign an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) so that your confidential information actually stays confidential. I tend to outsource manual work that can be done fairly easy by anybody but takes up a lot of my time. That way, I can focus on my areas of expertise and make more money back which covers my outsourcing fees and works best for me.

Write Down Your Most Important Tasks – Often, it’s not even our own lack of effort that causes some projects to take a long time; it’s simply that we focus on the wrong area to work. Each day before you start to do anything, write down the MIT’s that you would like to complete. MIT’s (Most Important Tasks) are the things which you need to get done which take priority.

Even if you spend all of your working day on the first of those MIT’s, there is no way your day could have been more productive. Think about that one.

What tips do you have for being more productive?

Glen Allsopp writes for PluginID on the subject of Personal Development. His goal is to help people see they can be who they want to be and live the life they want to live.

Photo by Bug-a-Lug

Have you ever feel overwhelmed in your life or career? Do you want to have more free time for your loved ones and still be productive? The Power of Less by Leo Babauta aims to help you do that. The goal of the book is to help you do less but achieve more. In the author’s words:

Picture a life in which you have a fairly peaceful workday, where stress levels are minimal, where you’re able to focus on your work. Imagine that you only do a few tasks, but they’re chosen so that they have the most impact. You accomplish major goals without the stress of doing everything at once.

Sounds like a great life, doesn’t it? I definitely want to do less but achieve more.

Let’s look inside the book.

Inside The Power of Less

The book has two parts with a total of eighteen chapters. Part one deals with the guiding principles and part two deals with how to implement those principles in key areas of your life.

Part I: The Principles

1. Why Less Is Powerful

If you are trying to do too much, you will feel stressed and overwhelmed. Even worse, you can be busy without accomplishing anything important. By choosing the essential, you will do less but get the most impact.

2.  The Art of Setting Limits

To help you choose the essential, you should set limits in everything you do. The limits force you to choose which are essential and which are not.

3. Choosing the Essential, and Simplifying

With the limits in place, how do you know which things are essential? This chapter has a series of questions to help you decide whether or not something is essential.

4. Simple Focus

To be effective, focus is your most important tool. Don’t spread yourself too thin. At any time, focus on just one task and focus on the present.

5. Create New Habits, and the Power of Less Challenge

You need to create new habits to make lasting improvements in your life. To successfully create new habits, focus on forming just one habit a month.

6. Start Small

One more tip for creating new habits: start small and make small increments over time. Don’t make drastic changes.

Part II: In Practice

7. Simple Goals and Projects

You should focus on just one goal at a time to increase your effectiveness. And don’t work on too many projects to achieve that goal. Choose only a few and focus on finishing them.

8. Simple Tasks

Each day, choose the three most important tasks (MITs) and work on them first before doing anything else. This way you can be sure that you will get the important tasks done.

9. Simple Time Management

Keep your time management simple by reducing your tasks and appointments. And do similar tasks at once to save time.

10. Simple E-mail

Minimize your time on e-mail so that you can spend more time on important things. To do that, you should reduce the number of e-mails that come into your inbox and have clear rules to deal with them.

11. Simple Internet

Apply limitations to your Internet usage so that you use it productively. Don’t let it become a productivity black hole. Also learn to work while disconnected to minimize distractions.

12. Simple Filing

Don’t waste your time going through stacks to find the documents you need. A simple filing system will help you find what you need quickly.

13. Simple Commitments

One thing you should do to free up time for the important is cutting back your commitments. Choose only a few essential commitments and eliminate the rest. Learn to say “no” to new requests.

14. Simple Daily Routine

Having simple daily routines can help you boost your day. A morning routine can help you prepare for the day ahead and an evening routine can help you prepare for tomorrow.

15. Declutter Your Work Space

Having a decluttered desk will help you focus on the task at hand. So get your desk down to the essentials and eliminate the rest. Have a simple system to process incoming papers and store items.

16. Slow Down

Slowing down your pace will make you not only happier, but also more effective. There are several ways to apply it: move your attention slowly, work slowly, eat slowly, and drive slowly.

17. Simple Health and Fitness

By eating healthily and exercise regularly, you will have greater energy and productivity. So form the habit of exercise and healthy eating. Start small and increase it gradually.

18. On Motivation

Making the all the changes suggested in this book requires motivation. This chapter gives you a lot of tips on how to find and sustain the motivation you need to make lasting changes in your life.

Conclusion

The Power of Less is a useful book that helps you do less but achieve more. Trying to do a lot could make you feel stressed and unhappy. This book advocates doing less but doing the right things and doing them well. The Power of Less is the right book for those who feel overwhelmed in any area of their life or feel like they can’t achieve anything important although they are busy. This book can also help you maintain your life balance.

What I like about the book is instead of just talking about the theory, it is full of practical tips in each chapter. You can apply them right away and start feeling the difference in your life.

When talking about productivity, we often talk about how to do things efficiently to save time. While doing things efficiently could save you time in the short term, you may still lose time in the long term. The reason is that you lose more time not by how you do things but by what you don’t do. Not doing things efficiently could cost you hours or days, but not doing things at all could cost you months or years.

Why does it happen? Why don’t people do what is right to do? There are three reasons for that:

1. They don’t know what is right to do.
2. They know what is right to do  but underestimate its importance.
3. They know it’s important but procrastinate doing it.

In this post I will focus on the first and second reasons. For the third reason you can read defeating procrastination habit or my review of The Now Habit.

The first and second reasons have cost me time again and again. One example in blogging is regarding Amazon Associates program. Since the early days of my blogging I often write about the books I read. Some of the posts (like 37 Lessons to Help You Live a Life that Matters and 106 Tips to Become a Master Connector) became popular and attracted a lot of visitors. But I didn’t know that I could earn commissions by referring people to Amazon through those post. Only after blogging for almost one year did I realize that and join Amazon Associates.

Experiences like this teach me that to save time I need to prevent such things from happening again in the future. I must find the right things to do and do them.

Here are some tips to save time by finding the right things to do:

1. Expand your knowledge

The first thing you should do is expanding your knowledge. If you don’t even know that something exists then there is nothing you can do about it. That’s why it’s important that you get as many options as possible on your radar. You can do this by regularly reading books, magazines, and blogs in your field. You can also read materials from other fields – whether they are related or not – so that you can cross-pollinate ideas. Of course, reading is just one way to expand knowledge. There are other ways like watching videos, attending seminars, and joining professional organizations.

2. Write down all potential ideas

While expanding your knowledge, you will find potential ideas along the way. Write down all of them in your idea journal. The act of writing makes the ideas sink deeper into your mind. You should write not only the ideas that incrementally improve your way of doing things but also the ideas that could radically change the way you do things. I often get such ideas from unrelated fields and experiences.

3. Take the ideas seriously

This is where I often make mistakes. It deals with the second reason above: knowing what is right to do but underestimating its importance. To overcome it, whenever you encounter an idea ask yourself: what if the idea is right? What consequences will it have on my way of doing things? Perhaps there is no consequences right now, but what are the potential consequences five or ten years from now?

4. Find the ideas that have the biggest potential regret for you

Since you have only limited resources (whether they are time, money, or energy) and most likely many potential ideas, you should choose only a few of them that are most promising to implement. My favorite way of doing this is by assessing the potential regret I would have if I didn’t implement an idea.

Imagine yourself years from now looking back. What can you potentially regret if you don’t implement the idea? Questioning potential consequences as you do in #3 should help you find the regret level you could have if you don’t implement it.

So here is a key question to choose the few ideas to look deeper into:

Which ideas – assuming the ideas are right – could make you regret the most if you don’t implement them?

5. Investigate the ideas

Now that you have a few promising ideas, you should look deeper into them. Get as much information as possible about them. Ask or learn from people who already apply them. Use the questions what, why, when, where, who, and how to guide your investigation:

• What is the idea?
• Why should I apply the idea? Why is it good?
• When should I apply the idea?
• Where can I apply the idea?
• Who should apply the idea? To whom should the idea be applied?
• How should I apply the idea?

If possible, find multiple viewpoints for the questions so that you get complete view of the idea.

6. Test the most promising ideas

From your investigation you will get one or two most promising ideas. Now what you need to do is testing them in the real world. Apply the ideas. Incorporate them into what you do. Find out by yourself whether or not the ideas work. Some of them will fail but that’s how you improve yourself to save time in the future.

***

These tips will help you save time in the long term. As you’ve seen, the idea is to minimize your potential regret. Minimizing your potential regret has nothing to do with playing safe. Instead, it requires you to take risks here and there.

Photo by Michel Filion

Can you imagine being productive without setting priorities for your tasks? It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s a characteristic of Getting Things Done (GTD). The lack of priority in GTD makes it different from many time management practices that use things like ABC method to set priorities for tasks.

As I wrote in my review of Ready for Anything, David Allen handles this problem by introducing a simple distinction: projects and someday/maybe. Either something needs to be done as soon as possible (which makes it a project) or not (which makes it a someday/maybe).

After knowing this, I then asked myself: Don’t we need to distinguish different projects to know which ones are more important? Don’t we still need to set priority?

Around the time when I was thinking about it, I watched Randy Pausch’s lecture on Time Management. There he featured Covey’s quadrant that classifies tasks into four quadrants:

• Quadrant 1: Important and Urgent
  For example, finishing a report that due tomorrow.
• Quadrant 2: Important but Not Urgent
  For example, building relationships.
• Quadrant 3: Not Important but Urgent
  For example, unimportant phone calls.
• Quadrant 4: Not Important and Not Urgent
  For example, playing games excessively.

Then, connecting this quadrant concept to GTD’s lack of priority, I saw a place where we don’t need to set priority:

We don’t need to set priority when we are in quadrant 2

The reason is simple:

For tasks that are considered important, priority setting are only necessary when some tasks are urgent.

When you need to finish something tomorrow, you have no choice but to work on it first. You must give it high priority. The situation is different when you have plenty of time to do your tasks. You have the freedom to choose what you want to do at any moment. You don’t need priority setting because – though the tasks are important – none of them is urgent.

So I would say that:

GTD’s natural place is quadrant 2

Of course, GTD can help you manage crisis (quadrant 1), but quadrant 2 is its natural place. Quadrant 2 is where you can have “mind like water”.

If you want to reach this position where you no longer need to set priority, here are some things you should do:

1. Eliminate unimportant tasks

This should be the first thing you do. You can’t afford to have your time spent on unimportant tasks in quadrant 3 and 4. So look at each item in your next action or project list, and ask yourself: Do I need to do this as soon as possible? Think before you answer. Be selective. Being selective is essential because you may leave some unimportant tasks otherwise.

If the answer is yes then you can leave the task in your project or next action list.

If the answer is no, then the next question is: Can I eliminate this? If you say yes then just eliminate it. Otherwise, put the task in your someday/maybe list.

Though it would be difficult to eliminate all tasks in quadrant 3 (sometimes you just can’t prevent unimportant phone calls), do your best to eliminate as many of them as possible.

2. Get the urgent things done

The time you save in step 1 can then be used to get tasks in quadrant 1 done. The key here is not to procrastinate (see Review: The Now Habit and 7 Can’t-Miss Ways to Defeat the Procrastination Habit for tips). The sooner you work on quadrant 1 tasks, the sooner you will finish them. Your goal is to clear quadrant 1 as soon as possible.

3. Finish tasks before they become urgent

Now that you have cleared quadrant 1, you can focus your effort on quadrant 2. Look at tasks that can potentially be urgent in the future and work on them. Try to finish them before they become urgent. This way you can keep your quadrant 1 clear.

4. Keep pushing back

You can take the previous point further by keep pushing back. Start with the tasks that will due first and get them done. Then push back and work on the task that will due next. This way you clear your tasks further to the future and you will have enough “cushion” for unexpected things. When unexpected things come, you can handle them without compromising your performance. It will also give you the freedom and flexibility to quickly seize on unexpected opportunities as they arise.

5. Allocate time for tasks that never become urgent

There are some tasks that will never become urgent though they are important. As I wrote above, building relationships is an example. For this kind of tasks, you should allocate time to do them. Make a commitment to do it as soon as possible and put it in your project or next action list.

***

When you do all these, you no longer need to set priority. You have the freedom to do what you want. You do something not because you have to but because you choose to.

Note: This is a guest post by Arjun Muralidharan of The Productive Student.

I have the classic problem of ‘thinking about being productive, but not putting it into action’.

That’s what’s troubling Life Optimizer reader Kashmira. The deeply ingrained problem here is procrastination, or the behavior of deferring tasks to a later time.

Deferring tasks is all right when done the right way. You can defer a task if you’ve decided when to defer it to. The number one reason for procrastinating seems to be anxiety, and fighting that can be a daunting challenge.

Here are 7 habits to implement to counter the procrastination habit.

1. Process without exception: As things come into your life, we collect them and at some point make decisions about what to do with them. Here’s the problem: Often the decision itself is put off to be made at a later time. The Solution: Make it a habit to process your inbox or pending items completely. In GTD, this would be processing your in-basket until it is empty. Ingrain in yourself a feeling of uneasiness when you see an inbox that isn’t empty. Even if you decide to do something later, decide. Don’t defer the decision.
2. Love thy calendar: Many task-management systems such as GTD depend strongly upon to-do lists of actions that need to get done “as soon as possible”. Here’s the problem: If you need to decide on the spot whether to surf blogs or finish that Excel spreadsheet, the decision will probably go the wrong direction. The solution: Take your tasks for the next day, or week (I plan on a 3-day-in-advance basis) and put them in your calendar right away, setting aside the time to do them.This is a long-term solution, as you will learn how much time you really need for tasks (they totally didn’t match up for me in the beginning) and where your time gets spent. Quick Tip: Start collecting tasks you like to do – right now you’re reading a blog post, so collect that – “reading blogs”. Then set aside some time to do these as well.
3. Reward yourself: Sprouting from the previous habit, you should not only budget work into your calendar, but fun as well. Balance these out, and you’ll get a good overview of how you’re work-life-balance is going once you’ve entered them side-by-side. Here’s the problem: Time is limited, and we usually go straying off, losing our perception of time. The solution: Get a timer. When I began using a timer, it changed everything. I recommend a physical egg timer, but a software one may do as well, depending on what you do all day. You learn an incredbile amount of things about how time passes, how much time something requires and you’ll be surprised at how long (or short!) those “15 minutes of coffee break” actually are.
4. Clarifiy outcomes crystal-clearly: One thing people often do wrong when defining projects or setting goals is the clarification of outcomes. Projects should be defined as the best possible outcome for that project, and so a moment of thinking on your part is required. Here’s the problem: People often clarify outcomes, but not clearly enough. The solution: Use S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. I don’t use many of these concepts, as they seem more of a hype, but this one makes a lot of sense to me and keeps me on track when defining outcomes. I often miss out on measurability or timeliness. How about you?
5. Stay motivated: Unless you’re motivated to do something, you won’t. Rational people think about what utility an action brings to them. If you decide to watch LOST, the utility might be 42 minutes of thrilling entertainment. The problem: In the context of work and tasks, we often don’t see the utility of doing them. The solution: Just like clearly defining goals, we can clearly define our long-term goals, which will explain anything we’re doing today. If I have to write a term paper, my long-term utility of doing it well is a good career and an 8-figure income (ha). Create incentives for yourself by picturing these long-term effects. Quick tip: Visualize! Putting these goals visually often helps to give yourself a motivational boost. Here’s the deal: Next weekend, find some paper, some magazines, and write, cut and paste together a motivational mission statement for one of your life goals.
6. Eliminate the unnecessary: Often people suffer from anxiety because of too many tasks and areas of responsibility in their lives. Here’s the problem: We often don’t know what to eliminate, or we just can’t get rid of it. The solution: Rethink your life. While this may be asking a lot, sit back and think – do you really have to be president of the debating club? What’s it’s utility? If so, where else can you cut back?I think everyone should have around 5 areas of responsibility in life – family, friends, work and two things that make you really unique. For me, it’s my political activity and music. Blogging is about to become one (that depends on you, reader!), so I’ll need to rethink where I position music or political activity.
7. Have a super-simple system: I’ve experimented with a slew of tools to help me implement efficient task management, and finally ended up with a select few that I’ve been using for weeks now. Here’s the problem: I’m sure you’ve found yourself endlessly fiddling around with tools and blog ideas (just like this one) without ever settling for one system. The solution: It took me a year to find my system. A year. Finally, I settled for the most simple system: a moleskine notebook for jotting down anything (and I don’t hack it, organize it or do anything to it – just collect free form) and text files on my computer. I also have a simple A-Z filing system physically as well as on my computer. I didn’t use third-party software to file my stuff or organize tasks.Gradually, I saw what my system was missing, if at all. I needed some basic sorting features for contexts, which took me to using TaskPaper. I then had a system that Things seems to encompass beautifully, which I use today, and probably won’t leave anytime soon. Its killer feature: A quick-entry box system-wide and support for David Allen’s areas of responsibility concept.
   Rethinking your system is always a sign of progress, but never forget to ask yourself: Why am I changing? Why exactly is my current solution not working? Then learn to settle.

Those are just a few points where you can start remedying your procrastination habit. There’s a slew of problems that can cause task deferral, and I hope to have addressed a few here. Happy tasking!

This post on procrastination is a contribution by Arjun Muralidharan, author of The Productive Student, a brand-new blog about productivity for students and life-learners. For more posts like this one, be sure to subscribe to the feed.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the danger of being obsessed. There I wrote that there are three states we can possibly be in: lacking focus, being focused, and being obsessed. The best state is being focused but there is always the danger of falling to either lacking focus or being obsessed states.

Having discussed the topic of obsession, here I’d like to go back to the topic of focus. Focus is essential to achieve anything we want in life. In fact, not only should we have focus, we should have it at every level of our life.

Looking at my life, sometimes I wondered why my progress was slow while I thought that I was already focused on my goals. Only later did I realize that there are different levels of focus. I may have focused on one or two levels, but if I do not focus on the other levels then the results won’t be optimal.

So what are the different levels of focus? In my opinion, there are five levels of mental focus based on the time frame:

1. Lifetime
2. Yearly
3. Weekly
4. Daily
5. Currently

Of course, you can add other levels like quarterly or monthly if they work for you, but for me these five levels are enough since having too many levels is confusing.

If you want to succeed, you should be focused at all five levels. Lacking focus at any of them will decrease the performance of the rest. In addition, you should also be careful not to be obsessed. The art of maintaining the balance without falling to the lacking focus or being obsessed states is an art that will take time to master.

How to Focus at All Five Levels

Let’s look at the five levels of focus and see how to focus at each of them:

1. Lifetime

Being focused at the lifetime level means that you should have a purpose for your life. What is your life purpose? Have you followed it?

Finding your life purpose is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in all five levels, but it is also the most rewarding. It sets the directions of the other levels. If you have this level wrong, you may end up making many wrong decisions in your life.

Here are some things you can do to find your life purpose:

1. Find what matters to you
   This is the starting point to finding your life purpose. There is one question that can help you find what matters to you:
   “What is the thing that you care so much about that you are willing to do it for free?”
2. Explore your passions
   I believe everyone has multiple passions that are waiting to be explored. Don’t limit yourself to only one passion. Build your portfolio of passions.
3. Find the intersection between your passions and the things that matter to you
   The intersections between the things you are passionate about and the things you care about are clear signs of what your life purpose could be.
4. Make a mission statement
   After you have an idea of what your life purpose is, you should write it in a mission statement. Ideally, it should be a one-liner: ten words or less.
5. Keep refining
   Finding your life purpose is not something you can do in one day or even one year. Just start with what you have and keep refining it. Over time, the direction of your life will be clearer and clearer.

2. Yearly

After dealing with the lifetime level, you should then go down to the yearly level. Here you should have a goal for the year related to your life purpose. Your goal should be both specific and measurable. To ensure that you are focused at the yearly level, you should have only one goal for the year (or two if you must).

One thing to remember is your yearly goal should be related to your life mission. Otherwise, there is a missing link between the lifetime and yearly levels.

3. Weekly

To have focus at weekly level, you should set a goal for the week ahead. What do you want to achieve in the following week to help you achieve your yearly goal?

4. Daily

The next level is daily in which you set your goals for the day. What are the things that you want to achieve today? You can start by setting your Most Important Task (MIT) for the day. Your MIT should be the thing that will make the most difference if you accomplish it today.

Here is a question to help you set your MIT:

“If I can only finish one task today, what will that be?”

You can then set other goals using a variant of the same question:

“If I can only finish one more task today, what will that be?”

By asking this question repeatedly you will get a list of the tasks based on priority.

5. Currently

After setting your goals for the day, the next level is the present. To get optimum result, you should be focused in whatever you are doing. It means that:

1. You should not multitask
2. You should prevent distraction
3. You should use ultradian sprint to accomplish as much as possible within the working session

Where is Your Weakness?

Being focused at all five levels is important to get the most out of your life. I realize this when I look at my own life. I’m focused at some levels but not at the others and as a result I do not get the results I want. Understanding these five levels help me see the levels which need improvement. In my case, my weakness is the weekly and currently levels. While there is still room for improvements at the other levels, those two levels are where I lack most.

There is one thing to remember though: while being focused at all levels is good, we should stay flexible if we want to avoid falling to being obsessed state. Perhaps you have set some goals for the day, but you should be flexible enough to adapt to changes that happen during the day. Your heart is often the best guide since it somehow knows what is right.

Have you ever experienced wasting your time without realizing it? You started working on something, but in the midst of it you were distracted by something else. The next time you checked the watch, one hour had passed and nothing got done. Or, perhaps, you didn’t even touch the thing you were supposed to do in the first place. Instead, you were just “busy” with something else.

I call such time “black time” and it is an enemy of productivity. You may try to save time by doing only a few things and do them efficiently, but once you are caught by black time you will lose your entire time surplus and may even fall into time deficit. That’s why it’s important to eliminate black time if you want to be productive.

In this Internet age, one important cause of black time is unplanned browsing. I experienced it a few days ago while researching for the post Brain Workout: 10 Free Mind Games to Exercise Your Brain. When I was researching resources for chess, I wanted to check the current world ranking. There I found some interesting players whose profiles I then checked on Wikipedia. Many articles later I realized that 2 hours had passed! Similar thing could happen with instant messaging, playing game, watching TV, and many other activities.

So how can we eliminate black time? I haven’t eliminated mine yet, but I’m minimizing it and I hope I will reach the point where I can completely eliminate black time. From what I learn, here are some tips to minimize and eliminate black time:

1. List your potential black-time activities

Different persons have different set of activities that can cause black time. For me, unplanned browsing is one such activity. So list yours. By making a list of potential black-time activities, it will be easier for you to recognize them.

2. Set a to-do list of the day

While you might have a longer list of things you want to do, choose only some of them to be done today. This list is useful because it helps you identify whether or not a certain moment is black time (see #3).

3. Recognize black time

The next step is to identify black time. Your list in #1 should be helpful here. Since you already wrote down your potential black-time activities, you will be more aware of their presence. Your to-do list (#2) is also useful. If what you are doing is not in your to-do list, there’s a good chance that it’s black time. Of course, there are exceptions. For instance, taking necessary rest or doing something unplanned due to emergency is not black time.

There is one easy way to help you recognize black time. Just ask yourself: “Is it black time?” In most cases, you can easily answer this question with yes or no.

4. Get out of the black time

Once you identify that you are in black time, you should take action to get out of it. Here is a suggestion on how to do that:

1. Stop what you are doing
2. Take a deep breath for a few moments. Doing this helps you shift your focus away from the black-time activity.
3. Check your to-do list
4. Pick one thing to do
5. Start doing it

This way you quickly replace the black-time activity with a useful one.

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It’s is not easy to eliminate black time, but you can start minimizing it. Do you have tips to minimize black time? I would love to hear them.

Photo by cell105

On the Easter weekend, I went out of town and spent several days at my parents’s home. There I enjoyed the holiday away from my normal routines. While usually I have a set of daily routines related to my work or personal growth, I decided not to follow them and spent my time to do different things instead.

That allowed me to get more from the holiday. Here are some benefits I got that I believe you will also get from a good (albeit short) holiday:

1. My mind was fresh
This is a significant benefit for me. The holiday decluttered my mind. It’s like having a new sheet of paper to write on.

2. I could see things from different perspective
Since I spent my time at different place doing different things, I could see things from a new perspective. Seeing things from a new perspective is important to keep our mind sharp. Think of your mind as a double-edged sword. Using one perspective is like using just one edge of the sword; over time it may become blunt.

3. I had time to think
When I’m too involved in an activity, it could be difficult to see whether or not it’s right. But when I’m away from it, it’s easier to see whether or not I’ve done the right things. I also have time to think about where to go next. No wonder Bill Gates has Think Week twice a year.

4. I had quality time with my loved ones
Busyness might make it difficult to have enough quality time with our loved ones. Holiday is a good opportunity to get it back.

Looking back, there are several things I could do to get the most out of the holiday. I didn’t do all of them, but I wish I did. Here are 10 tips to get the most out of your holiday:

1. Forget your routines

It should be the first thing you do if you want to have fresh mind and perspective. You should be away from your normal routines.

2. Minimize your Internet time

If you were like me, you spend hours on the Net everyday. Continuing the previous tip, minimizing (or even eliminating) Internet time is necessary if you want to be away from your normal routines.

3. Go out of town

While you can also enjoy holiday without going out of town, being at a new place can affect your mind significantly. It helps you see things differently.

4. Spend time with your loved ones

This is perhaps the most important tip in this list. Though we (me included) could sometimes forget it, relationships should be our top priority.

5. Read something different

I mostly read nonfiction, but in the holiday I read a novel (Dan Brown’s Deception Point, to be exact). It’s refreshing.

6. Go to nature

This may not always be possible (depending on where you go for holiday), but it’s perhaps the best place to go to refresh your mind. I’m lucky because just outside of the town, there is a mountain with fresh air and beautiful view.

7. Connect with old friends

If you happened to go to your home town for holiday (like I did), this is a good idea. There should be some old friends in your home town you haven’t met for long time.

8. Go to unusual places

Try to go to places you rarely (or never) go to. If they are not already your favorite, you can go to places like museum or national park.

9. Make it your “think week”

Granted, you may not have 7 days like Bill Gates for Think Week. But the time when you are away from your routines is the best time to think about how you do things. You can read more about it at Think Week: A Great Way to Get New Insights.

10. Make it your spiritual retreat

Holiday is also good time to fill your spiritual tank. Praying, meditating or reading spiritual texts may give you more when your mind is clear and there is no pressure from your normal routines.

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Do you have tips to get the most out of a holiday? I would love to hear from you.

Photo by Super Starfish

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James

The art of nonfinishing (which Tim Ferriss mentioned in The 4-Hour Workweek) is a key to productivity. We are productive not because we accomplish many things, but because we accomplish the right things. If we accomplish many things but a lot of them are unnecessary, then the value we produce won’t be as good as it should be. On the other hand, if we can prevent ourselves from doing the unnecessary, we will have more time to do the right things.

So, when we do something and realize that it’s no longer worth our time, we should decide to stop. Don’t hesitate to leave it unfinished. Just because you start doing something, it doesn’t mean that you must finish it. Save your time and get more value by doing something else.

Here are 7 time-saving ideas you can use by applying the art of nonfinishing:

1. Reading

If you are reading a book and no longer feel that you get enough value from it, then stop reading it. Leave it and move to the next book. The same principle applies to reading magazines and articles.

2. Listening

There are a lot podcasts you can listen to. If you find that the one you are listening to is not good enough, simply stop in the middle of it. You can then use the time to listen to another podcast.

3. Watching

If you are not entertained by the movie you are watching, then leave it. Why should you waste another 90 minutes if you know within 30 minutes that it isn’t worth your time?

4. Commitment

Do you have a commitment which just drains your energy? For example, maybe you commit to do a kind of social work but after doing it for a while, you realize that it doesn’t fit your strengths well. Or perhaps the cause doesn’t matter to you. If these happen, try as well as you can to cancel the commitment. You can then use the time and energy for another commitment or simply reduce the number of commitments you have.

5. Project

There are times when we work on a project but later realize that it won’t succeed. The wise thing to do is to just stop where you are. This way you can save a lot of time, energy, and money which can then be used for a more promising project.

6. Traveling

Maybe you are on the way to go to a place, but something happens that makes it no longer worth it. For example, you are going to your favorite restaurant, but you hear that there is a bad traffic jam ahead. If you don’t think the restaurant is worth a one-hour traffic jam, then turn around as soon as possible and go back home.

7. Career

Maybe you are now in a career which, after some time, you find is not fulfilling. Perhaps you do not work in your passions, or the workplace doesn’t allow you to grow to your maximum potential. If such things happen, take the decision to switch to another place or even another career. I know it’s easier said than done, especially if you have been there for years, but work takes so much time of ours that I don’t think we should tolerate something unfulfilling. It’s better to act now than to wait until everything is too late.

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The art of nonfinishing can be applied to many other things beyond these seven ideas. I want to be wise by knowing what to overlook, and I hope you do too.

Photo by laffy4k