Get More Shit Done - It's Time To Achieve More With These Top Tips

Do you know anybody who’s not busy?

Most of us wake up each morning facing crammed calendars and mile-long to-do lists. As a business owner/father/husband/writer, I know I certainly do.

Out of fascination and sheer survival instinct, I’ve made a lifelong study of productivity and time management. Here are the top 10 tips that help me get done the things that I must or want to do without losing my mind:

1. Get it in your calendar & write it down

Every appointment, meeting, task, every commitment should be entered into your calendar or it doesn't exist. This frees your mind from the energy- and attention-sucking job of trying to remember. The first step to managing your life and time is getting every commitment, large and small, out of your head and into a trusted system & calendar.

2. Get a head start

The best way to hit the ground running is to start the night before.

Before leaving your workspace, or before going to bed, take ten minutes to look over the next day’s commitments.

Decide what you’ll do first. Look at that to-do list and decide whether any tasks on it can be delegated to someone else (see number 9 below) or, even better, crossed off the list altogether (see number 10 below).

3. Do your most dreaded task first

Every one of us has one or more tasks on our to-do list that we dread doing.

Maybe it’s that unpleasant phone call you don’t want to make. Or that blog post you’ve been putting off writing because you don’t know how to start. Or that project that just overwhelms you because it’s so massive. So make that call. Pull out a piece of paper and brainstorm ideas for that blog post.

If you don't it dog you all day or week. You will waste valuable energy & time worrying about that dreaded conversation, task or call.

4. Turn off distractions

One of the major productivity killers is the distraction of constant interruptions: emails, phone calls, people appearing at your door…

The technology that can (and should) make our lives easier and better also can make it virtually impossible to maintain the kind of focused attention that’s necessary to work efficiently and effectively.

But here’s the thing: you can control that technology.

5. Take breaks

There’s a limit to how long anybody can devote deep focus to a task or activity.

No matter how busy you are, after a certain amount of time the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and fatigue—physical and/or mental—starts to impair your effectiveness.

6. Batch process

If the demands of your day include routine tasks, try to group similar tasks and schedule certain times during the day to knock them out.

Answering emails? Returning phone calls? Entering expenses into a spreadsheet? Instead of interrupting your other tasks to do these things piecemeal, batch them.

7. Eat a healthy breakfast

Do I need to explain this? There are countless studies confirming the importance of breakfast for maintaining our health.

Healthy people are more productive. No matter how busy you are, eat a decent breakfast. It’ll fuel you for a terrific start to your day.

8. Get some exercise

Not to be too repetitive, but healthy people are more productive. Exercise makes you healthier, so be sure to get some exercise every day.

You don’t need to spend hours at the gym to get the benefit of this; take a walk around the block, or do some isometrics at your desk. Just do something to get your heart pumping and your blood racing. It will enhance your general well being as well as your ability to think more clearly.

9. Delegate

I’ll confess: I stink at this. I hate to ask for help, and often it seems more trouble to explain a task to someone else than to just do it myself.

But not everything that needs to be done in your life must be done by you.

Evaluate that to-do list carefully. What tasks could someone else do, thereby freeing you up to focus on the things only you can do?

10. Say No

How many commitments have you made that don’t really need to be kept at all? Have you taken on tasks that don’t actually matter to you or anybody else? Is your calendar cluttered with meetings that don’t accomplish anything? Has your day been hijacked by somebody else’s priorities?

If your calendar is jammed, if your to-do list is miles long, take ten minutes or so to look at each item with a careful eye. Can any of those appointments or tasks simply be crossed off to create some reasonable margin in your life?

As a wise person has said, “no” is a complete sentence. No explanation is necessary. Just no.

Hope these top tips help you GET MORE SHIT DONE!

Daniel King - Get More EnergyNow!