Another Approach to Productivity

from DLM:

Not Getting Enough Work Done? Try Taking More Breaks

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:20 AM PDT

It’s five pm on Friday, but you’re staring at a stack of work that you really need to get finished.

You’ll be working over the weekend ... again.

And you promise yourself that next week, you’re going to be more organized. You’re going to work harder. You’re going to focus.

Except, somehow, that never seems to work.

You’re wondering what the heck you’re doing wrong.

Well... You’re Not Taking Enough Breaks!

I’d guess that your typical day looks something like this: you’re sat at a desk for hours, stopping only to grab a sandwich (which you might well scoff down in front of your computer).

No-one can stay focused for hours on end, so you find yourself getting tired and demotivated as the day wears on. You end up on Facebook, or texting your friends, or watching a funny clip on YouTube.

At the end of the day, you feel frustrated and fed up.

You might start thinking all sorts of negative things: I’m so stupid, why did I waste time on Facebook?

And you’ll try to come up with solutions: I just need to be more self-disciplined.

But the truth is, no-one – however productive they are – works solidly for eight hours. Chances are, your work requires a fair amount of mental energy, and you need some down time to maintain your energy levels throughout the day.

So how do you do that?

You plan, and take, regular breaks.

How Taking More Breaks Works
I’m trying out a new system right now. It’s designed to solve a couple of problems:

• Problem #1: I sometimes get pulled off-task by emails, Facebook, Twitter, the news...
• Problem #2: I work from home (I’m a writer and writing coach) so I don’t have any sort of physical activity built into my day.

So, now, during the mornings – my peak writing hours – I work for 22 minutes at a time, then take a break and exercise on my elliptical trainer for 5 minutes. (I’m allowing 3 minutes for transition time.) That means I’m only working 44 minutes out of every hour. Surely I’m getting less done?

Actually, no. I’m able to concentrate much better – if I know that I’ve only got ten minutes before a break, I write faster! And because I’m getting up and moving during the day, my energy levels are higher too.

Try It Yourself
If you work in a traditional office environment, you might not be able to adopt a system like mine. But you can still take regular breaks – which will help you stay on task.

How about:

• Every hour, take a few minutes to have a quick walk around the building and grab a glass of water from the water cooler.
  

or

• Set an alarm on your computer to pop up every 45 minutes to tell you to take a five minute break from what you’re doing. Check Facebook, tidy your desk, grab a snack – whatever you like.

The crucial thing is that you get straight back to work when your break is over. Otherwise, you’ll just slip back into old habits of wasting time.

You might still be a bit skeptical about whether taking more breaks could work for you. All I can say is ... try it! And let us know how you get on: the comments are open.

Written on 8/16/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.

Photo Credit: Brian O'Donovan

Tech Tuesday Tip

Recently my wife wanted me to edit a couple of pictures so it would look like she was hunting buffalo.

For me it was an exercise in frustration because I don't have that type of software installed on any of our computers.

My brother in law ended up creating it, he does graphic imaging for a living.

Photoshop is the industry standard, but unless you are getting paid to use it, I would skip it and go with this suggestion from Kim Komando instead.

A free, easy alternative to pricey Photoshop

You can do amazing things with a good image editor. Take any photo you've shot. Make subtle changes to remove blemishes and improve the lighting. Or add impossible effects that are just plain cool. Almost anything is possible with the right tool. Photoshop is the best- known image editor. It has loads of features. And it can work wonders. But it will also dent your wallet.

Don't reach for that credit card just yet. Try GIMP. It's a free image-editing program. And it has an impressive set of tools. It can handle nearly any editing task.

Like Photoshop, GIMP is complex. It has a steep learning curve. In fact, it may be too much for a beginner. But if you've found other programs lacking, this is what you want.

Cost: Free

Link: www.gimp.org

System: Windows XP, Vista and 7, Mac OS X

Tech Tuesday Tip

I have a co-worker who is pretty tech-savvy, however yesterday I discovered that they were using Microsoft's Internet Explorer as their one and only web-browser.

So, let's get down to basics here.

Unless your computer is an Apple brand, or a Mac, you probably were told to click on the blue icon and you could visit the World Wide Web.

That's because Internet Explorer is pre-loaded on nearly all computers that are Windows based.

The problem with being so popular is that there are others who are trying to take you down.

There are hackers and other "bad guys" who are looking for vulnerabilities in Microsoft programs that they can exploit, and since Internet Explorer is the most commonly used program to go online, that's where they focus their activities.

Every Tuesday Microsoft issues "Patches" or fixes to their programs which you should download and install in most cases to keep your computer safe and secure.

However, I have noticed that these are less frequent than they used to be. Maybe it's because I am one step behind Microsoft. I have Windows Vista on my laptop not their latest version which is called Windows 7.

There are several alternative ways to go online, and these alternative browsers are free.

FireFox is my default browser. That's the second icon. Click here to go to their website and install it on your computer.

Another popular newcomer is from the folks at Google. They call it Chrome. That's the third icon. Click here to go to their website and install it on your computer.

Generally speaking, Firefox and Chrome are safer to use than Internet Explorer and they have all the bells and whistles, sometimes more, than Explorer.

I have all three installed on my laptop. The only time I use Explorer is when a website that I'm visiting does not function properly in Firefox, which these days is very rare.

Combining Creative with Logic

I find myself not fitting many of the personality style stereo types.

I'm not an engineering type, but again, I have those elements in me. I'm not the creative type, but I have those elements in me too.

I am a good puzzle solver and I like to simplify things and I like to look at both the details along with the big picture. And I get bored easily.

So maybe I am creative, maybe I am the engineering type, it's just not mutually exclusive.

And that's what allows me to work with a variety of people and circumstances.

Seth Godin wrote about combining these too elements:

The theory of the case

Here's a way to get more strategic.

Instead of arguing for a course of action based on the status quo or your emotional gut, describe the theory of the case.

A is true.

B is true.

If we do C, then A and B should permit us to get D.

The method of this strategic analysis is that you expose your assumptions, you describe your actions and your posit the results. This permits your teammates to supply facts that might change your analysis.

Wait, A isn't true.

Wait, we're not capable of doing C.

Wait, if we did C, it's not clear we would get D. Tell us how that would work...

This is far more useful than saying, "I hate you, you're an idiot." By making your assumptions and logic clear, you allow a more productive conversation to take place at the same time get buy in from your teammates who might be coming from a different worldview than you do.

Even better, you can then weave the case into a story, a vivid one that resonates.

If any of your steps involve doing something that's never been done before, you'll know where you need to focus your energy.

Too often, people fixate on a result they want and presume that if they just try really hard (with good intent) then maybe it'll happen.

PS if one of the steps is, "and then a miracle happens," you probably need to work on your case a bit.

Balance

I find myself doing several things at once. Well, not really.

I find myself working on several things at the same time, but time is relative. I might be working on a commercial for a client, looking for something online and drinking my morning caffeine.

Studies show that certain types of multi-tasking can be less productive than single tasking but in this current workplace, there is usually more than one thing going on.

Take a look at this from the DLM Blog last week:

Choose to Spend Time on High Impact Activities

Posted: 12 Jun 2010 08:50 AM PDT

As somebody with ADHD and an attention span of about 2 hours, I’m forced to continually understand my own productivity habits. As I study those habits, I realize more and more why the people of the world waste so much time.

In my Jack Bauer Guide to getting Shi#$# Done, I wrote extensively about the power of implementing time constraints. But, that’s just the beginning. How you choose to spend your time and what actions you chose to focus on will ultimately determine the impact of you have.

Sniper Rifles and Machine Guns
If you ever watch anybody in any tv show or movie, the sniper always seemed to accomplish his or her goal in one shot, while the people shooting machine guns seem to get caught up in a whole world of nonsense that results in nothing but a big mess. In many ways, our own attempts to be productive are similar. The worst thing I think we do is that we try to do too many things. I’ve become a strong believer in the idea of quality over quantity and when it comes to the actions you take, I think many of the same principles apply. I may not work 14 hours a day (not even close), but I make sure during the time I’m working I focus on only the activities that will have a high impact.

High Impact Activities

• Writing: In the context of blogging, the highest impact activity that you can spend your time on is writing. If you are an early stage blogger you should be writing and submitting as many guest posts as possible since that will have more impact than publishing posts on your new blog which nobody is currently reading. Even if you have been around for a while writing is one of the activities that will have the highest impact.


• Brainstorming/Mind Mapping: Some of you might question this one, but done the right way brainstorming and mind mapping can be extremely high impact. An hour brainstorming or mind mapping session could give you a month’s worth of content and in an upcoming post I’ll actually share my mind map of new blog post ideas with you.


• Reading: I believe that reading can be an extremely high impact activity depending on what you are reading. I’ve recently been spending time going through Dave Navarro’s Launch Coach library and reading his mini-courses and actually going through the worksheets is something that can have a very strong impact almost immediately. It’s highly likely that you often come up with an idea for a post while reading another person’s blog and if you use something like Evernote and keep reminders of blog post ideas you can significantly increase the impact of your reading.


• Networking and One True Friend: Networking events are an interesting place to test the productivity principles I’m talking about here. There are many people who will go to a networking event with the goal of talking to as many people as possible and getting as many business cards as possible. In my mind that’s a complete waste of time because you don’t give any value to the people you are meeting. I usually aim for one true friend or one genuine connection. I never concern myself with how this person can help me because it’s really not important. Genuinely connecting with them will ultimately have a much stronger impact in the long term.


• Insights vs. Hours: Last week sometime a good friend of mine was here and during our bike ride we were discussing the way I’ve setup my life. In this strange hybrid blend of entrepreneurship and a “real job”, one of the things I realized is that I get paid for insights more than hours. This is largely the reason I don’t even bother with hourly projects anymore because it’s not an efficient use of time. One insight that makes a big difference is worth way more than countless hours spent on pointless nonsense that doesn’t have an impact.

Low Impact Activities

• Email: I’m at the point now where I’m beginning to think I could get away with checking email once a day. Email is one of the biggest time sucks. In many ways those of who have to check email constantly seem to have created a false sense of urgency. I’ve had a habit of checking my email the second I get out of the water on the days when I’ve been out for a long time, and there’s never once been any sort of crisis that requires my immediate attention. The truth is if I checked email once a day, then I think I would be all good.


• Facebook/Twitter: As a social media marketer and blogger I do think that Facebook and Twitter play an important role in everything I do. I even wrote about how to use them when I talked about the ways you to build relationships with bloggers online. But, if you don’t use them strategically, they can be a real time suck. It’s really easy to get distracted by something that is completely irrelevant to what you are doing especially when people share links that grab our attention almost immediately. If we batched our time on these sites I think we’d be in much better shape and get much more done.


• To Do Lists: I create to do lists but I try to keep them small. Have you ever spent so much time creating your to-do list that you didn’t have time to actually do anything on the list? Seems ridiculous doesn’t it? Talk about a low impact activity. If you are into to-do lists, I would say limit your activity to the 5 things that will have the biggest impact today.

Imagine if you spent half the amount of time working that you currently do and worked on the things that had twice the impact. You would not only work less, you would get more done, and you would be working on the things that actually make a difference. Give a try and let me know what happens.

Written on 6/12/2010 by Srinivas Rao. Srinivas is an avid surfer/personal development blogger at The Skool of Life. He's also the co-founder and host of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers.

Photo Credit: Simone Artibani