How do you maximize your productivity and efficiency?

I found the greatest component for maximizing my focus time is getting the right amount of sleep and eating the right types of foods. All the tools in the world, strategic planning, and processes that I’ve created, for myself, would collapse if I was not getting an adequate amount of proper nutrition and rest. When those two components are in play, I have proven to be much more effective at getting more done in a shorter time frame. My process is typically 25 minutes on, with five minute breaks. In those five minutes I’ll check my emails and text messages to see if I missed anything important, if not, then I start up my next 25 minutes of focus time. I put my phone on do not disturb and I have notifications turned off on my emails.

For me, the old-school notepad has worked best. This is because when we write something, it has better retention. And it takes us away from digital devices - where we tend to do context switching each time we reach there. Add your tasks on a notepad / pocket diary. Keep striking out as the tasks are completed. That also has a relaxing and positive psychological effect.

I’ve found helpful to consider the productivity is the result of passion + knowledge/competence, both to be employed in an organization/position. So to maximize the productivity you need to find your passion, develop you competence and employ these in a respectful, organized organization.

Work is not merely a set of tasks to complete; it's a manifestation of your skills, expertise, and value-addition to an organization or cause. Therefore, having a comprehensive understanding of your work is the cornerstone to being productive. It's crucial to know what tasks align with your skillset and contribute to your larger objectives, as this allows you to prioritize effectively. Planning can be seen as a form of "mindful working." When you plan, you are essentially setting intentions for your work, making a conscious choice about where to invest your time and energy. This alignment between intention and action can bring about a sense of purpose and fulfillment, elevating work from mere toil to a more meaningful endeavor.

Before planning what you are going to do, you must ensure that; - You have set your long-term goal clearly, - You know the definitions of “urgent” and “important” enough to differentiate. - You trust your self-discipline. Urgent is something that cannot be postponed. Important is something that helps us reaching our goal. Somebody said reaching a long-term goal is like eating an elephant. You cannot eat it at once and you are able to eat one piece a day. Any negligence means delay, any over-eating means stomach problem. Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do whatever necessary on time regardless you like it or not. Whatever you do to reach your goal is the cost and your goal is the benefit.

carving up stuff into urgent vs. important really helps massively it’s the urgent & important stuff you definitely want to handle yourself

Prioritisation is not a one-time activity but a continuous process. The landscape of your work can change—new tasks may come in, deadlines may shift, and priorities may be redefined. Hence, revisiting your task list regularly is imperative. Ideally, prioritization should happen at the beginning of your workday or workweek, as well as whenever there's a significant shift in your tasks or goals. Prioritizing tasks can be viewed as a modern adaptation to “Doing one thing at a time”. It allows you to focus on what's essential at the moment, fully engaging with it, and thereby practicing a form of professional mindfulness. This approach not only enhances your effectiveness but also brings a sense of fulfillment and purpose to your work.

I found the following helpful: 1. Prioritizing tasks and attend to the more urgent ones first 2. Attend to one task at a time until it is done before your start with the next thing 3. Finish what you started 4. Remove distractions, sometimes this is challenging in an open plan office and I found that headphones with some music really helps 5. When I know I have a busy day ahead, I found that proper planning and scheduling things assist, and keeping to same is key. I try not spend more time on a project that I allocated to it in my planning 6. Delegate what can be delegated, this is also good for employee development 7. When done, exercise, recharge, eat healthy, hydrate and get proper sleep to reboot to do it all over again the next day

First leave and forget all that are not important (that have no relationship with your goal). Then find your “focal point”, the most important task to reach your goal. It will be your starting point. And prepare a to-do list in accordance with the order of importance. Don’t forget! 80/20 rule applies here. First 20% of what you should do brings 80% success in reaching your goal, if your list is correct.

Ahhhh yess!!! no prioritizing = inviting chaos, = making the squeaky wheel the boss of you, and you don't want that. There are plenty of different ways to prioritize your to-do. The most simple one is by creating four quadrants of urgent/important, urgent/not important, not urgent/ important and finally that last one that needs to be delegated/ditched or ignored (unless it changes category at some point): not urgent and not important

Please consider MENOPAUSE, be kind to yourself, and know you are not going insane. If you are a woman in peri or menopause concentrating may become incredibly difficult. Reading a business requirement document or a 60-page slide deck is more difficult for me now than it ever was before. Acknowledge this and take steps to help you focus like closing open windows, turning off email notifications, and setting goals and timers for work.

I personally love multitasking, it makes me feel busy in a good way. This said, it's not for everything and it is a good recipe for not accomplishing much. My advice, if you're like me and like to do many things at once: find your soft spot, where you are doing stuff by chunks of time. As soon as you have reached boredom, take a quick break, switch to the next, and then back to finish what you have started. P.S.: you will need a tracking system to ensure nothing is falling through the cracks.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a limitation but an empowerment, as it enables you to perform at your peak capacity. Focusing on one task at a time allows for deeper engagement, leading to higher-quality output. Techniques like the Pomodoro can further optimize this by providing structured time intervals. This heightened focus can significantly reduce errors, rework, and the cognitive cost of switching between tasks, thereby making you more productive. Focusing on one thing at a time resonates with the principle of "presence" found in many philosophies. Being fully present in the task at hand is a form of mindfulness that not only enhances your work quality but also adds a layer of existential satisfaction to your daily activities.

Since I am depending from anytime call or email with last minute important business I feel comfortable in managing different tasks at same time. However I use a lot of note pads and follow email alerts on calendar for following up. This high speed dynamic keeps me motivating and confident in dealing with guests and colleagues situations. But every slow down moment needs a very important capacity to re-organize and evaluate the important vs urgent and following up the pending topics.

In today's scenario lot of people feel proud that they are multitasker. There are several tasks at hand for everyone. But if you are trying to do lot of stuffs together believe me you are not efficient. Instead focus on one task at a time and complete it before starting another task. The biggest enemy of focus is distractions. We can use sprint techniques like POMODOR or 50/17 to do task with great focus and then taking some break. This really helps and improves your quality of work.

Trying to do everything yourself is an inefficient use of time and energy. Prioritize your unique skills and strengths and identify responsibilities that others could potentially handle as well or better than you. Choose reliable, qualified people to take on delegated work. Provide clear instructions, expectations and training. Focus your freed-up time on high-value work only you can do. Surround yourself with capable, motivated people and trust in their potential. Thank those supporting you. Recognize their contributions and commitment.

I had to hit the wall full speed to realize I cannot conquer the World alone, and I cannot achieve that by delegating only simple and irrelevant tasks either. You might think you would handle the tasks better, faster, more efficiently but that’s only according to your own standards, and by avoiding delegating important tasks, you are robbing your team of the valuable practice and growth. When the time comes, they won’t be ready to step up. All you do is imposing your insecurities and lack of trust diminishing the team culture. Create a circle of trust by actually trusting your team. Let them be free and creative, coach them when necessary and your team will perform better than ever. What’s the most challenging task you’ve ever delegated?

Having worked with exceptional executives, I've witnessed the power of delegation, outsourcing, and automation: - Outsource: Consider external professionals or services for tasks that can't be delegated within your organization, such as graphic design, content writing, or data entry. - Delegate: Empower team members by identifying tasks they can handle, lightening your workload. - Automation: Utilize tools and software like email filters, social media schedulers, and CRMs to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks.

Many professionals are afraid of losing control or the quality of work when they share responsibilities. However, it's important to understand that by dividing tasks, we are enabling the growth and development of other team members. Furthermore, collaboration and cooperation increase the chances of success in complex projects.

When we talk about delegation lot of people get insecure as they feel they will loose their importance. But believe me delegation is your friend. It will help you to shed down lot of tasks which are not important (i.e. task can be done by other) and you can focus on completing the tasks which are important and can be done only by you. This also makes you an efficient person in the group.

Manual, repetitive tasks are time and energy drains. Leverage technology to automate and streamline routine processes. Use software, tools and apps to set up automatic scheduling, reporting, invoicing, analytics, etc. Automating repetitive administrative and operational tasks liberates mental focus for higher-level work. Streamlining processes through technology and consistency boosts speed and accuracy.

Automation and streamlining can be seen as a form of "workplace minimalism." Just as minimalism advocates for eliminating unnecessary clutter in one's life, automating and streamlining remove the 'clutter' in your work processes. This leads to a clearer mental space, allowing you to engage more deeply with tasks that truly matter. Tasks you find yourself doing over and over again with little variation,like data entry or scheduling can be automated. Tasks that can't be fully automated but can be simplified like creating templates for frequent reports. Automation and streamlining serve as force multipliers for productivity. You can reallocate that time to activities that require your unique skills and creativity.

If you are seeing yourself resisting delegating, consider these 2 questions: * is it a question of trusting others? ==> Not every work is suitable for everyone, find the right person, or sit with your junior and explain the reasons why behind the task, the risks and rewards. * are you hanging on to older tasks because you are scared of freeing time and needing to go outside your comfort zone? Now you know what to do!

Automating boring but tedious tasks helps a lot to improve time management as well as contribute to workplace wellbeing. It would be tough to go through thousands of rows of data manually to check for something when it can be easily and accurately done via automation.

I recommend trialing a few digital project management solutions as a free user, to get a sense for how you like to use automation and digital process management. I trialed Jira and Asana, before sticking with Asana as my personal task management solution. Rather than being overwhelmed by the large range of efficiencies that these programs offer, I focused on what I needed, and what I felt was intuitive to achieving my goals. This way, I was able to prioritize increasing efficiency based on how I like to work.

The act of reviewing and improving aligns with the concept of 'lifelong learning.' It’s an acknowledgment that we are all works in progress, always striving for betterment. The review process is essentially a productivity audit. It helps you identify bottlenecks, measure ROI on time invested, and understand your own work patterns. Regular reviews are more effective than sporadic ones. Weekly or monthly reviews can provide timely insights into what's working and what's not, allowing you to make adjustments before issues escalate. It's also beneficial to conduct a more comprehensive review at the end of major projects or milestones. This involves collecting data, evaluating results, and most importantly, being open to feedback.

During the review process, I like to take that time to challenge any mindsets I've formed around time (scarcity? never enough time/energy/resources?) and think of ways to reframe that. One helpful reframe for me around time management has been to focus on energy management instead. I now prioritize my energy and capacity by considering 1) what's reasonable for me to expect of myself in this given moment? 2) where can I group tasks? 3) what are my needs and how can they be met even as I'm accomplishing my tasks?

Beyond practical advantages, activity review also offers profound cognitive benefits. When we temporarily disconnect from a task, our brain continues to work in the background, processing information indirectly and subtly. This creates a conducive environment for the emergence of new ideas and perspectives, which can enrich the work in surprising ways. This period of "mental distancing" is fertile ground for identifying gaps or enhancement opportunities, giving rise to valuable insights that can foster creativity and innovation. Therefore, allocating dedicated time for review is an approach that improves the quality of work and inspires fresher and more original thinking.

Two questions are very important for any step in our lives: “What did I do correct, and what can I do better?” The answers makes us see our correct behaviors and be happy first and they make us see our improvement opportunities by modifying little details.

Reviewing how my daily work was performed is absolutely critical for continuous improvement. At the end of each day, I always ask myself two questions: did I accomplish my most important and urgent tasks? Did I take one more step towards my goals? If both my answers are “Yes” - well done!, and I assess what were the main aspects that may have helped me that day so I can keep those habits (morning meditation, healthy food, good time management, correct assessment of the time required for each task, correct priorization…). If either answer is “No”, then I reassess my day, identify what went well and what were my challenges. In either situation, I finish my workday by reviewing the tasks for the next day as to prepare for it.

According to McKinsey, a 20% productivity boost can increase company profitability by 30%. These aren't mere numbers; they underscore productivity's transformative power for both individuals and organizations. Productivity has a ripple effect. When one person excels, it often motivates others, fostering a more effective and cohesive work setting. This is crucial in especially service sectors where teamwork is key to innovation. It’s about creating a meaningful impact! It aligns with “Ikigai," meaning "reason for being." When you are productive in a manner that aligns with your skills and passions, you don’t just get work done, you also find your Ikigai.

Why do you want to be more efficient? see what's in it for you. While motivation can get you far, it can also wane at some point - discipline and self-accountability are your inner engine to get you where you want to go. Find what gets you going and do more of it.

After-X generations seek for comfort. Working less, gaining much. Increasing productivity is the key for it. If this practice becomes a lifestyle, they can reach everything easily within shorter time periods. However, without doing whatever necessary under self-discipline this cannot be possible,

Consider the power of task batching, time blocking, and technology tools for efficient time management. Tailoring your schedule to your energy levels, taking mindful breaks, and staying adaptable is vital. Outsourcing through platforms like Upwork and a commitment to continuous learning can further boost your productivity and success.

Consider the energy you spend towards finishing a task. There are tasks which may take 2 hours in terms of time but 60 % in terms of energy. If you schedule a meeting that requires your 100% attention immediately after completing such a task, it will not be fruitful even though it may take only 10 mins.