Your time is a limited resource. You can't buy more of it and once you use it you cant get it back. Therefore we should treat it in that way. I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to procrastination or just playing around with my phone wasting my time away.
I am not a productivity expert but it is something I want to improve upon so have conducted some research on the topic. There is so much out there when it comes to Productivity and how you could use your time better but I just want to throw one idea out there.
Pay yourself first
As a Finance Manager if anyone was to ask me for a personal financial tip it would always be "pay yourself first". I read about this concept in Rich Dad Poor Dad, a great book that caused me to re think my thoughts about money.
It talks about how when you receive your pay check, the first thing you should do is pay yourself first before you pay your bills. You are the most important person and you should treat yourself in that way.
So it got me thinking, why do we not do that with our time? We wake up and we have the rest of the day to spend how we wish. What if you spent 5 mins first by listing out the things you want to accomplish that day that you believe will have the biggest impact to your life?
Once you have that list, you force yourself to do them and get them done as quickly as you can. If I was to do that it wouldn't take me all day so I would be left over with some time left. I can then use that time on whatever I like, knowing that I have done the most important things first.
The alternative is I don't spend those 5 minutes in the morning and I just wing it. I spend my time on whatever comes up and hope that I get round to doing something important to me along the way.
Assign the time for the important tasks
You have your list of important tasks for the day and now what is needed is for you to plan when time you are going to complete them and how long you will need.
Once you have that, there is no reason why they should not get done. Majority of us, once we have something planned in and have assigned time to do it, we will do it.
BUT, don't fall in to the trap of Parkinson's law...
Parkinson's Law
Anyone that has done research on the topic of productivity will probably come across the term Parkinson's Law. What is Parkinson's law? Parkinson's law is a hypothesis that "work expands so as to fill the time available or its completion". In other words, you will complete a 5 minute task in 30 minutes if you assigned 30 minutes to it.
That is because you will prolong the task knowing you have plenty of time to complete it.
So when you assign the time you need to complete these important tasks be sure to just assign the time needed to complete it. Don't build in any slack or you will end up slacking!
Great, your important tasks are now done and you can now pick up your phone and scroll Instagram/Twitter/Facebook, Or my blog.....
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Thanks for reading,
Gav
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