How to Be Productive Everyday
Scenario: "Dude, we'll just save the best work for last. Forreal. High-five!"
- You have a big project due in about a week.
- You haven't started.
- You have many other much less important tasks to do.
You have two options:
- a) Do the most important thing first.
- b) Finish the many less important tasks first.
If you're seeking to get the most out of your day, what would you do? The former. To be one productive SOB, start doing what's most important first; that leaves you more room to kick more frickin' arse on that important shizzle.
How Our Minds Trick Us
As crazy human people, we tend to think we have 9849830958320 hours to do task A, when reality says we only have a tiny fraction of that. That is, we overestimate the time we have on certain our most important tasks. So, we start procrastinating. Then, some more procrastinating. And, some more. ...until some looming deadline gets our butts in gear. At that point, feeling threatened, we work superficially -- producing shoddy work. Instead of wowing the freak out of our customers, we give them something that just 'works' -- but that's it. Boo.
Why Important Stuff First
When you do your most important tasks first, you give yourself more time to:
- Sufficiently complete the tasks.
- Refine and perfect the tasks.
- Boost more value to those tasks.
Think of the 20/80 rule; that is: 20% of your tasks serves 80% importance to you/business/customers. Completing the crucial 20% first lets you breeze through the rest, knowing -- at the least -- you've already accomplished the bulk of what's most important.
And Then When You're Done...
Do the second most important thing. Then, the third. And, the fourth. And, the yadda.
How do you determine what's most important?
Suggestions:
- Profitability.
- Urgency. (e.g. by deadlines)
- [choose-what's-most-important-to-you-here]
Win.
Freakishly important stuff first.
Read More Business Tips From Trizle »
9 Comments
on How to Be Productive Everyday
Pradeep
2007-05-31 05:11:58 UTC
really good article,I love trizle,kinda learnt many things from you.
Hendy Irawan
2007-05-31 09:19:51 UTC
Andrew it seems that most of your articles really kick my butt, rearing my ugly head ;-)
Kinda' feel guilty to myself...
...and people around me.
Thanks Andrew for constantly reminding me :-)
SpiKe
2007-06-03 01:43:36 UTC
I love that 20/80 rule, you can apply it to so many things :)
Organize IT
Ant
2007-06-06 12:50:52 UTC
I am not usuaally in to this blogging thing, however, I must agree that procrastination is my worst enemy.
Ana
2007-06-10 20:53:07 UTC
Great tips. And, at a great time for me. I have just spent one entire month not being very productive at all. :)
Oh well, I'm back now...And will hopefully be somewhat productive for quite sometime..
Jo
2007-12-23 19:50:18 UTC
That makes sense ..............
Akrid
2008-04-26 18:55:35 UTC
I realize that if I didn't procrastinate, I would have a ton of accomplishments by now. Our minds definitely trick us. I could be doing many projects I have due for classes next week right now, but fuck it, I'm going to play video games and watch south park.
This is a problem, but at least I acknowledge it, I guess that's the first step. In a way I think the lack of structure in my life is what the problem is. What people need are systems that schedule what they do for themselves, right down to every little thing. And don't just say it's time to do them but accommodate the project at hand.
I need a system that actually gets my attention to do things and keeps me organized. I think the reason procrastination is so hard to overcome is that we think it's just laziness. But we really don't understand the complexities of how we make decisions, so much of what we do is compulsive. Without outside influence it's hard to get yourself to be as productive as we would like to be. We need computerized drill sergeants or something.
enormousjimmyb
2008-11-06 16:47:16 UTC
This article was actually geared towards me. Dude, why are you spying on me. Procrastination and prioritization are my worst enemies. I spend lengthy hours fooling around the computer when i could be using the same computer to get my school and profitable work done. What brought me to this site was that, i had made C's in two of my tests and for sometime now i have been thinking that my computer,instead of making me productive is actually working against me. Infact i brought this upon myself, and as of today,i will be using it for school work and when that's done, the rest can fall in place.
Marco
2009-06-25 20:42:05 UTC
...this is my biggest weakness, i tend to always procrastinate, thanks for this helpful article.:)
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