Most Productive People: 6 Things They Do Every Day
1) Manage Your Mood
Most productivity systems act like we’re robots — they forget the enormous power of feelings.
If you start the day calm it’s easy to get the right things done and focus.
But when we wake up and the fray is already upon us — phone ringing, emails coming in, fire alarms going off — you spend the whole day reacting.
Here’s Tim:
I try to have the first 80 to 90 minutes of my day vary as little as possible. I think that a routine is necessary to feel in control and non-reactive, which reduces anxiety. It therefore also makes you more productive.
Studies demonstrate happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful.
As Shawn Achor describes in his book The Happiness Advantage:
…doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.
So think a little less about managing the work and a little more about managing your moods.
2) Don’t Check Email In The Morning
Why is checking email in the morning a cardinal sin? You’re setting yourself up to react.
An email comes in and suddenly you’re giving your best hours to someone else’s goals, not yours.
You’re not planning your day and prioritizing, you’re letting your objectives be hijacked by whoever randomly decides to enter your inbox.
Here’s Tim:
…whenever possible, do not check email for the first hour or two of the day. It’s difficult for some people to imagine. “How can I do that? I need to check email to get the information I need to work on my most important one or two to-dos?”You would be surprised how often that is not the case. You might need to get into your email to finish 100% of your most important to-dos. But can you get 80 or 90% done before you go into Gmail and have your rat brain explode with freak-out, dopamine excitement and cortisol panic? Yes.
Research shows email:
- Stresses you out.
- Can turn you into a jerk.
- Can be more addictive than alcohol and tobacco.
- And checking email frequently is the equivalent of dropping your IQ 10 points.
3) Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All
Everyone asks, “Why is it so impossible to get everything done?” But the answer is stunningly easy:
You’re doing too many things.
4) Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions
Top CEOs are interrupted every 20 minutes. How do they get anything done?
By working from home in the morning for 90 minutes where no one can bother them:
They found that not one of the twelve executives was ever able to work uninterruptedly more than twenty minutes at a time—at least not in the office. Only at home was there some chance of concentration. And the only one of the twelve who did not make important, long-range decisions “off the cuff,” and sandwiched in between unimportant but long telephone calls and “crisis” problems, was the executive who worked at home every morning for an hour and a half before coming to the office.
5) Have A Personal System
Great systems work because they make things automatic, and don’t tax your very limited supply of willpower.
What do we see when we systematically study the great geniuses of all time? Almost all had personal routines that worked for them.
(“Give and Take” author Adam Grant consistently writes in the mornings while Tim always writes at night.)
How do you start to develop your own personal system? Apply some “80/20” thinking:
- What handful of activities are responsible for the disproportionate number of your successes?
- What handful of activities absolutely crater your productivity?
6) Define Your Goals The Night Before
Research says you’re more likely to follow through if you’re specific and if you write your goals down.
