How to be productive in a chaotic environment?
Hear less
Due to god’s embrace we all have excellent senses, believe me or not you have better ears than dogs when it comes to corporate gossips.
Everyone thinks there problem is priority no. one, no one will be able to schedule the priorities better than you for yourself. So stop blaming others and cursing life.
Don’t miss hearing the person who is provides paycheck
Morning Ritual
This ideally should begin really in night. Our subconscious mind is 7 times more faster than conscious mind. Which means when you are sleeping, its solving your tomorrows problem.
Easy hack is to prepare list of 3 toughest tasks every night before you go to sleep.
Execute priority list
Distractions are part of life, phone call from family or boss is what you can’t miss.
If in middle of execution of list, take a deep breath and cancel the call. This will give them time to think again when they call, was that an urgent call to make or just something came up there mind and they thought it’s okay to disturb you?
If you get a call back, then pick it, understand and “take a deep breath” — Very Critical, don’t ignore this step. Easy hack is to keep your phone in priority mode. Phone will ring only if caller calls back within 15mins.
Place the take away from call in the priority list and adjust based on criticalness.
Do Not jump next on that task immediately, leaving behind all that you prepared yourself for whole night.
Must read: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/23/eisenhower-decision-matrix/
Energy, will power and decision funnel
Our day is split into 3. Morning, noon and evening. Our energy, will power and decision making skills goes down as the day passes.
As its said, eat like kind in morning. Similarly execute the toughest and fearful first.
Don’t afraid to say No
Most of the time we say yes, saying no is an art in itself. When we say yes we don’t think too much and accept the task which could have prioritized better or was just a distraction.
There are primarily 4 types of people and art to say no is very different for all of them.
- Junior colleague
- Parallel colleague
- Reporting manager
- Family and friends
Don’t be rude, be humble as much as you can.
Will share about this in more details in future articles.
Time challenge yourself
When we have list of 25 small tasks, which we know are 100% 5 min job. Try reevaluating them.
If you see yourself, in past you have never made to finish all 25 tasks in 1 day.
Let me tell you why
- You will procrastinate till end of the day.
- You will say to yourself — these can be done in 1 hr tomorrow morning.
- You gather your will, which is lowest at the end of the day and see the first task which you picked has dependency and the dependent person is away from your reach.
End result 23 tasks are not done and before you sleep your subconscious mind is preparing to solve the stressed work not the list of 3 top task you will add today.
Best way to solve:
- Don’t create top 3 task today, it’s okay to leave yourself out of rituals. Cause you are not ready to deliver mentally.
- Prioritise the list of these 25 tasks again, are you sure they are required to be done tomorrow?
- Don’t estimate this time.
- And if you still think they are 5 min task, then CHALLENGE yourself with a pomodoro clock. You will see clock is faster than you.
Workout
It makes you happy and when you are happy and passionate, you will take less time to complete the task. Will have laser focus and concentration. Will power will last longer.
And you don’t need to go to a gym or do heavy workout.
Take a lap of min 20 mins around your society and try to hear birds. Avoid earphones cause thats what you day while travelling in cab and while you are in office to avoid noise.
If you still want to avoid noise, then put some 3m noise cancelling earbuds and hear your breath.
Gratitude
While you are stressed, take pen and paper and write down all you have. Eg.
- God made you physically well — a lot are not.
- You will eat dinner tonight.
- You will have roof over you.
- There is a family at home waiting for you.
You have much more than you deserve, share it with others. Think of nature, if it stops sharing air, you will die before you read this article.
“Don’t think too much, life is very simple to deal with”
