Are you an productive person? Productive people know how to gets things done efficiently and quickly.
Here are some tips that can help you be more productive:
- Reduce Distractions – Unless you are good at multitasking turn off television or the radio if you want to concentrate and get things done quickly. Sometimes you need time to turn off your telephone. If you have an email program that alerts you when new emails arrive, turn it off!
- Do the hard tasks first – When you first start work you are usually at your most energetic. Use this time to complete your hardest task of the day. It will get it out of the way and your sense of achievement will carry you through the rest of the day. Read more
I’ve just finished reading the book Unexpected Treasures by Dr. Mikel Brown.
The book is a collection of 72 short essays that give advice on self-development topics. Some of the titles are:
- Maintaining Mental Toughness in Tough Times
- Valuable Lessons for Success
- Develop Your Full Potential
- Procrastination: The Enemy of Success
- You Are Incredible
- What Motivates You
- Six Awesome Points for Greatness
Reading the above titles should give you some flavor of what the book is all about. Most of the advice given in the book is solid stuff. Nothing ground-breaking or new, but wise words.
It is easy to get distracted and unfocused, especially when it comes to getting things done. You may find yourself faced with a huge list of things that you need to do. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer size of your list if you have a busy home and work life.
One way of tackling this situation is to use the Getting Things Done (or GTD) system. Here is a brief introduction to GTD:
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
I was talking to a teenage friend the other day. he had just dropped out of college because he got bad grades. I asked him what he was going to do next. He had no idea.
This reminded me of when I was in my early twenties. Since leaving school any job I applied for I got. I thought that this was just the way things are. I then lost a job because the funding for the job had ceased. Full of optimism I applied for several jobs. I did not get any of them. The problem was that I had no aim, no goal in my life. Just like my teenage friend I did not have a clear idea about what direction I wanted my life to go in. There was no one around me to point out the importance of goal making.
A month or two ago I released the software program Life Manager Pro both for Windows and the Mac platforms. Since then Mac users have asked me to include some way that they can carry their essential information on their Iphones for use when away from their computer.
I've been working away to make this happen and now it is ready. Life Manager Pro is software that helps organize your life and be more productive. It keps track of all your to dos, contacts and calendar events. These can then be synced with Mac programs, Ical and Address Book, and from there they will automatically appear on your Iphone or Itouch. The to dos appear as a note on the Iphone.
Stress can have a major influence on your health. Whilst some stress is a natural component of life, too much can seriously affect your health. Many conditions such as heart disease and IBS are linked to stress.
One of the causes of stress is being disorganized, which makes you feel that you are not controlling your life.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is your office so cluttered that you waste valuable time searching for the things that you need right now?
- Do you sometimes wish for more hours in the week to finish all the tasks that need doing?
- Is your lack of organisation holding you back and causing you stress?
- Have you got the ideal work/life balance?
- Do you lose your car keys because you have forgotten where you left them?
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This Christmas I went to see the film The Avatar. It’s a great film, especially the world created in breathtaking 3D. Sitting in the Imax cinema it was like being on a beautiful colourful planet filled with exotic plants and creatures.
The film is rumoured to be the most expensive film ever made. The end credits seem to go on for ever as there is a vast army of people involved in the making of the movie.
Many of the notable makers of Avatar have personal assistants. This got me thinking, wouldn’t it be great to have a personal assistant to organize my life for me.
Life Manager Pro
As I get older I tend to forget things – or maybe I was always forgetful and I notice it more!
I used to think that this problem was peculiar to me, but the more I looked into it, I found that human brains are not wired up to retain and recall lots of information. That’s why post-it notes are so useful, or notes attached to the fridge to remind you when your running out of groceries.
Do you:
- Forget to pay your bills on time and receive threatening letters?
- Have to return to the supermarket because you forgot a vital ingredient for the gourmet meal you are making?
- Forget your friend’s birthday?
- Can’t remember where you put your car keys, your glasses, your pills? Read more
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This has been a hectic week. I’ve been finishing my software project Life Manager Pro and also getting my house ready for laminate flooring to be fitted.
Sometimes it seems that there is just too much to do each day. Do you lead a hectic busy life? What does it take to just slow down and relax whilst still getting things done? Read more
- Image by David Reber via Flickr
I used to work in an office of a large company. I generally worked from 9 until 5.30 at night thinking that I had done a fair day’s work for my pay. I noticed that others on the floor where I worked were always there when I arrived and still there when I left. I was never sure what they were doing early morning and late at night. Perhaps they were not doing a lot, but believed their presence gave the impression that they were working long and productive hours.
Though there are days when I do work long hours I now realise that the number of hours that I work are not as important as what I actually do during those hours.
- Do you work long hours?
- Are you working at optimal efficiency during all those hours?
- Could you work less hours yet achieve more?
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Many years ago I had the idea to write software that would help organise my life. Five years later and the goal is about to be achieved.
Why did it take 5 years? The answer will be revealed later.
If you want to build a shed in the back garden you don’t just think, I’ll get 10 planks of wood from somewhere and some nails then just sort of start building the thing. No, you follow a procedure:
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Here are 10 common ways that people use to achieve their goals. How many of these strategies do you use?
- Make a step-by-step plan
- Motivate yourself by focussing on someone who has achieved a similar goal
- Tell other people about your goal
- Think about bad things that will happen if you do not achieve your goal
- Think about the good things that will happen if you achieve your goal
- Try to suppress unhelpful or negative thoughts about your goal and how to achieve it
- Reward yourself for making progress in your goal
- Rely on willpower
- Record your progress
- Fantasize or visualize how great your life will be when you achieve your goal
The mind is disorganised and that’s just the way it works. Brains are not designed to create order in your life. They need some help.
How many of these statements apply to you?
- You think about something that needs doing, then forgot about it a few minutes later.
- You put small objects down in the house such as car keys or glasses and cannot find them a few hours later
- You are introduced to someone and then forget what their name is
- You say yes to lots of things and find that the day is too short to do them all
- You are working on your computer and find that you have been surfing the Internet aimlessly for the last two hours
- You find that you cannot get enough done and find yourself working long hours
If one or more of these statements describes you then you need help in organising your life.
I was looking at my doctor’s website yesterday and in particular the statistics on what they have treated. Ten per cent of patients are treated for depression. How many more people are not yet at the stage of clinical depression, but are very unhappy?
Are you happy? If not, what can you do about it. Positive psychology believes that it has the answer to happiness. Research has shown that 40% of happiness is under your conscious control. The other 60% is due to our circumstances, where you live, the family that you are bought up in and so on.
Happiness has two main components. You can asses yours by asking yourself the following questions:
- How satisfied are you overall with your life and are you progressing in your life goals?
- How often do you feel positive emotions and how often do you feel negative emotions?
- Image by thinkpanama via Flickr
The smart goals formula is a great way of helping you achieve success.
I once went with two friends to see a motivational speaker who told us to make a goals about how much money we wanted in earn in the next year.
In the car on my way home from the talk one of my friends asked us to say how much money we wanted to earn. He said £500,000, my other friend said £250,000 – and I laughed thinking that the whole exercise was just picking a figure out of thin air. I had no idea how much money I would earn during the year.
After 12 months I found out that neither of my friends had earned anything like the figure they had quoted. I did not earn much money in that year.
So, what stopped me and my friends earning a lot of money? Where had they gone wrong? What is stopping you earning your desired amount of money?
