10 secrets to do more in less time!

10 secrets to do more in less time!

I recently attended a webinar by Yi Shan on her 10 secret sauces for handling work pressure and be more productive. I must say it was a reminder i needed because i was looking for a direction in how to prioritize and achieve the most out of my work and personal life. Working at Teach For All, with team members from all around the world makes it messy at times in managing time for early morning or late calls, personal check in, and personal commitments. She explained the below 10 secrets, which i have started implementing and experiencing major improvements:

1. Start with goals in mind (can be not very clear at the start but that is the pivot)
   1. Eliminate what is unnecessary and control the results by choosing the shortest possible path to get things done.
   2. Identify what is important in terms of end-value
   3. Dream work – more work with more results (could be something totally unique work that you are expert at
2. Continue to reflect and improve
   1. Not everything is important and does not always carry equal importance
   2. Focus on what is important and time-sensitive in terms of results
   3. Pareto’s law (80/20)
3. Prioritization
   1. Identify that one key things (time-sensitive and requires most of your attention in that given time)
   2. Comparison in what is your unique skills and what it will take to get the task done
   3. Don’t treat everything as equal importance
   4. Someone might need 2-4 hours to move closer to their personal development goals
   5. Align this to your path and see what it takes to move needles
   6. Don’t blindly start working without any direction
4. One step at a time
   1. Breaking things down for any task helps understanding what it requires to complete the task
      1. Breaking down helps prioritizing things according to time and effort in terms of end-results
   2. Don’t let the sound of a lot of work over-whelm you
   3. Define monthly/weekly/daily goals
5. Manage your time and energy
   1. Befriend your calendar
   2. Don’t let other define your calendar
   3. Optimum use of your time, time is valuable, schedule accordingly
      1. Block time out for your personal work hours to be more productive
      2. Block no-meeting hours
      3. Define communication hours
6. Make planning a habit
   1. What happens when, how, if and then..
   2. Optimization, prioritization, unique work skills, scheduling and planning – let your brain practice it regularly and makes it a habit to follow these key rules.
   3. Work on your flow of work and see what works best for you and helps you produce more results.
7. Treat your brain like RAM (random access memory)
   1. Your brain is what a RAM to a computer – it has limited capacity to store information at run-time.
   2. Human brain requires limited energy and can only use that to function timely around limited tasks at one time.
   3. Use your brain wisely in terms of what information hold more importance or else your brain will work on its own and prioritize what can always be non-important task (something that’s not even due till next month – surely so neglecting what is due next week).
   4. Develop a habit of writing to-dos ALWAYS. Don’t let your brain remember trivial things.
8. Schedule time to check emails, chats, messages, social media etc.,
   1. Fix a time for everything (flexible of-course), don’t keep checking your phones for (emails, chats, social media) all the time. It can stress your brain because human brain is not functioned to multi-task – it surely can and ALWAYS switches between tasks but can’t always process at its best.
   2. Specifying time for your personal and professional life hold a lot of importance – as quoted by many successful entrepreneurs. This led all of them prioritize and increase productivity at the same time.
9. Focus on the PRESENT
   1. Let the brain rest and stop hopping between thinking and stressing over Past and Future – You and I and OUR BRAIN knows we can’t control what has passed and what is coming. What we can control is present hence focusing on Present will not only help increase productivity but will also keep us in the right direction in terms of progressing in our own professional development goals.
   2. One way is to eliminate the distractions, list them down and see what troubles and to what level it is effecting your productivity. STOP worrying about time management, future!
   3. Identify the troubles and problems not to push them away but to get rid of them for once and all. This is a process and it will be something that you and I need to practice every time we are performing any task in professional or even personal life.
10. Everything in one central system that has your TRUST.
    1. Don’t let your brain wonder for 1000 things at the same time.
    2. Come up with a system on how to manage your work load, prioritizing task in terms of their importance and what hold most impactful results.
    3. Brain will function smoothly hence your system works fine.
    4. Schedule everything – from the toughest to not so worry tasks. That will help you entertain in times of actual need when your brain needs relaxation and list of items can help you see what you can focus on when you don’t want to focus.

She is amazing and offering #30hourworkweeksystem.com program in 2019 to empower people to set up their own productivity and life organization system from scratch !