Keys To Productivity: 5 NOT to do's

In my eternal journey of self-discovery and with a keen focus on mindfulness, I always strive to find ways to make my time more productive and to re-focus my priorities. I've done a lot of work understanding my personal values and strengths and have built a daily routine that drives positive energy and ensures that everything I do is in line with my overall life goals. I truly believe that if you can understand your strengths and build upon them it is far more productive than understanding your weaknesses and trying to plug gaps.

A really good resource for lessons in improving productivity, understanding how the body and the mind works and challenging yourself to improve your daily life is Tim Ferriss who runs a really fabulous podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/

One of his earlier podcasts focuses on stressful and common habits that people should strive to eliminate in the workplace. With all things like this, it’s important to take from it what works for you and disregard the elements that don’t. There are some things here lifted directly from Tim but overall I have amended this list to make it more applicable to myself. These are not gospel truths, they work for me, but you may well find that some of the list below can help you too and as such, I thought I would share:

The NOT to do list:

1. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night

The former scrambles your priorities and plans for the day and the latter gives you insomnia. E-mail can wait until 10am, after you’ve completed at least one of your critical to-do items. Email weighs us all down. It fills space in our heads and your goal should always be to empty as much as what sits in your mind as possible. At worst, get a pen and paper, write down the things that are weighing you down and add resolutions to your task list. At best, practice inbox zero - it may seem impossible, but it's transformational if you have the discipline. Your focus should always be on execution of your top to-do’s instead of responding to manufactured emergencies

2. Do not work more to fix overwhelming and unimportant tasks — prioritize

If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. The answer is not spinning more plates — or doing more — it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life. Try journalling every morning and every evening. I highly recommend The 5 Minute Journal which allows you to offer gratitude to the things that improve your life (a well known psychology to improve happiness), define your key goals for the day and assess what you could have done better

3. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers

Feel free to surprise others, but don’t be surprised. It just results in unwanted interruption and a poor negotiating position. Let the call go to voicemail and put yourself in the stronger position by calling back

4. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time

Always request an agenda in advance so you can best prepare and make good use of time. Time is a precious commodity and no meeting should really last more than 30 minutes if you all understand why you are there, and what you are trying to achieve

5. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers

"There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone. Do an 80/20 analysis of your customer base in two ways–which 20% are producing 80%+ of my profit, and which 20% are consuming 80%+ of my time" Then create rules and discipline around those who drain time and profits. I have seen many businesses falter because they are addicted to serving the needs of the customers who deliver the least gain