Productivity

Increase Productivity: A Review of The Mastery Journal

Increase Productivity; that has been my goal for years as a personal development blogger. I’ve read a number of books and applied various techniques over time. Some have worked well, others have failed miserably. My challenge is that I’m a creative. I have shiny object syndrome. I love to create and use new things. This challenge often presents itself with a lack of focus. Put a new post from Facebook, a new tweet from Twitter, or a notification of a new email, and my focus instantly deflects.

For years my best defense from shiny object syndrome has been time boxing. I simply turn off all distractions, set a timer for 50 minutes and do one (and only one) thing till the timer goes off. Then I take a ten-minute break and repeat as necessary. This technique works well and can often double or triple my productivity during a distraction-filled day.

Since the time boxing technique has been my go to productivity strategy, I was intrigued when I heard about the Mastery Journal from podcaster, John Lee Dumas of EOFire. Listed right in the description was the fact that this journal could help me master these three skills:

Productivity: Accomplish tasks that matter to you and your business by putting a plan in place!
Discipline: Learn how to take your plan of action and EXECUTE that plan!
F.O.C.U.S.: Follow One Course Until Success and remain distraction-free in the process!

Once I looked at the pictures of the daily pages, I could see that time boxing was a major component.

Each day includes 4 time boxing sessions plus a place for your morning routine. You get to choose your time box. For me, I like to use the 50/10 box (fifty minutes focus time, ten-minute break) or for longer projects a 100/20 box. [Read more…] about Increase Productivity: A Review of The Mastery Journal

Ten Working Hours: A Productivity Mindset

by John W Richardson Leave a Comment

Ten working hours. That’s a reality for many people. In my forty years in the workplace, my workday door to door averaged about ten hours, even though I was usually paid for eight. It was simple math really. I usually had a half hour commute both ways and an hour-long lunch period. While I had freedom to do what I wanted at lunch, I was far from home and it limited my choices. As my commute got longer, I had the choice to shorten my lunch or work a longer day.

Ten Working Hours

The bottom line was, I had a ten-hour time block while I was away from home.

The time block in my head I was using was based on an eight-hour workday.

Somehow, in my head, I was living a lie. I told myself I was only working 8 hours.

Once I came to grips that I was away from home ten hours, I got mad. Really mad.

Mindset Change

The reality was, for many years I had a complainer mindset. I hated my commute and would get visibly agitated in traffic. I was constantly complaining about the lines at lunch. Many times I would hang at with others at work and spend breaks and lunch complaining about everything. It’s really easy to get really negative in a group. Our jobs were bad, everything was unfair etc, etc.

Then one day I picked up a book by Dale Carnegie, called How to Win Friends and Influence People. This simple book helped change my life. Over time, the concepts I learned changed my mindset from complaining to one of productivity and abundance. This led to books on productivity from John Maxwell, Stephen Covey, and David Allen.

Looking at Things a Different Way

By taking on a productivity mindset, I became interested in time management. Once I started tracking my time, I realized that I was wasting much of my day away. Wasted time in traffic, wasted time in lines, wasted breaks. For years, it made me mad. I kept thinking; this stupid job I have is making me sit in traffic and eat at this crowded and expensive deli. If only I could get a job closer to home.

I can remember brooding about my situation. I was a victim of Southern California traffic. I can tell you this. A victim mentality is deadly. It instantly took the focus off of me and put the blame on some government traffic bureaucrats. In my mind, I was helpless to do anything about it.

Then I read a short disastrous blog post from Michael Hyatt, considered my situation, and I asked myself one simple question. . .

What does this make possible?

Opportunity Showed Up

That simple question really opened my eyes. My time in traffic was my time. I could choose what to do with it. While I had to commute to work, I could use this time for something productive. My lunch time was my time. I didn’t have to go to the expensive deli. I had choices. I had a whole hour. During the workday, I had two ten minute breaks. This was my time. I had choices. I could control the outcome.

Once I started looking at my workday time block as a whole, I was able to maximize the options that I had.

That’s when I took action and made some . . .

Simple Changes

Living in Southern California, commuting to work in traffic is a reality for most people. By shifting my work day to start earlier (7 am instead of 8 am), I cut my commute time in half. This made it easier to enjoy a full lunch hour.
Once I figured in my commute time, I asked a simple question; Can I use this time for something productive? This led to turning off the radio and listening to audio books instead. Over my years of commuting, I was able to listen to over 200 business/self-help based books while in traffic.
Since I worked many miles from home, finding time to go to the gym became a problem. I discovered a gym within walking distance from where I worked, and spent three days a week there during my lunch hour.
By starting earlier, I was able to negotiate an earlier lunch period, which completely eliminated the lines at the local restaurants. This saved a massive amount of frustration and wasted time (I hate lines).

I realize that most of these items seem like common sense, but it wasn’t until I looked at my day as a whole that I was able to work a schedule around them. By figuring in commute times, meal times and breaks, I was able to schedule them for greater productivity.

Working From Home

Now that I work from home as a solopreneur, I still use a ten working hours time block for my workday. Even though I may not be actively doing productive work during that time, the ten-hour block gives me great flexibility when it comes to planning. Here are some of the advantages.

Ten hours is metric (ten base numbering) with allows for easy percentages (one hour is 10%)
I break my day in half with a five-hour focused work block and five hours non-focused work
It ties in perfectly with my five, ten, fifty time management system (more in a later post)
Ten hours a day, five days a week, equals fifty hours. Perfect for work/life balance and productivity
Per day I use a ten-hour work block, a five hour free/play time block and a nine hour rest time.

The Ten Hour Workday Scheduler

To make the most of a ten-hour workday, I’m currently designing a ten working hours scheduler/planner template. It will help you maximize your productivity and find wasted time during the day. We’ll take a look at how to use this and offer a free download in our next blog post.

Podcast

Check out our Daily Drive cast here: The Ten Hour Mindset

Question: Would a ten working hours time block work for you?

The Ten Hour Workday Can Change Your Life

by John W Richardson Leave a Comment

The ten hour workday. Sounds grueling, doesn’t it? So many people I know are working to shorten their days. The ideal seems to be the four-hour workweek, espoused by the human beta tester, Tim Ferriss. Four hours a week sounds amazing, yet I can tell you this. Tim Ferriss and most entrepreneurs are not sitting on a beach somewhere, drinking a margarita. They are filling their days with useful activity. And that’s where the ten hour workday can really help you get a handle on extraneous time wasters.

The Forty Hour Deception

Here is my point. In my forty years of working, I have never worked an eight hour day. Never. Nada.

Not once did I clock out my front door at 9 am and return home at 5 pm. Didn’t happen.

My week was not forty hours, clocking in and out. Nope! Each time it was more like fifty hours.

You see, our modern existence, especially here in California where I live, includes the superhighway of slow.

Things like traffic, crowds and the ever-present line at Starbucks slows us down and adds time to our day.

Yet we usually process our workday as an eight hour day.

We miss the time wasting activities that suck and drain the very life out of us. [Read more…] about The Ten Hour Workday Can Change Your Life

Why Technology May Not Be The Answer To Greater Productivity

by John W Richardson 2 Comments

I have a confession to make. I’m a gadget geek. I love new technology and all the things it provides. I can now communicate faster and in more ways than ever. I can make a phone call, send a text message, leave a videogram, forward an email, blast a tweet, like a Facebook Page, and even just drop by your office for a friendly chat.

Yet, I’ve noticed something profound lately. It’s actually harder to get a hold of people now than ever before. I’ve got all this technology, but I can’t get a hold of you about the meeting tomorrow. Why is that?

The growing problem is technology fatigue. We have so many things vying for our attention, that our mind just tunes them out. It tunes them out, that is, until they interrupt us with a flash of the screen, a beep, or a ringing in our ears.

Then our conscious mind must stop what it is doing and send it’s very limited focus unto this source of interruption.

Constantly throughout the day, the interruptions come.

Our mind deals with them in one of two ways.

We either focus on the source of the problem, or we try to ignore them.

But our course of thought is always challenged.

And our productivity suffers.

I suggest a better way.

Why not plan out your week, prioritize your day, and focus your time – on paper.

Then turn off all of the distractions for a while and focus on one productive thing and get it done.

That’s the premise of my new Kindle eBook, Get a Life.

Unlike technology, paper doesn’t constantly interrupt us.

It sits there waiting for our attention.

It gives us control.

It helps us get things done.

My new book comes with 9 template downloads.

Weekly planners, daily planners, & time management sheets.

Free downloads, that can help you get more done, on time, with less stress.

For greater productivity, get a copy today and… Get A Life!

Goal Setting Toolkit

by John W Richardson 71 Comments

It’s that time of year again… time to set our goals. And we have all been told that we need to WRITE them down. But the question is… where do you write them down? We usually put them in our Outlook calendar or paper based planner. But can we see them?

I have found that this is the biggest challenge, putting our written goals in a common place where we can reference them on a daily basis. If you don’t see them, they will soon be out of sight… and out of mind. We need a tool that will allow us to take our goals with us and always be on. I’ve put my goals in my phone, but the screen is usually off. When they are in Outlook, they may not always be on the screen.

What will work?

Introducing the Goal Setting Toolkit.

This paper based kit has business card sized reminders that you can take with you in pocket or purse. You can put them on your desk or clip them to your monitor. They can be attached to your dashboard in your car. You can take them almost anywhere. [Read more…] about Goal Setting Toolkit

Creating The Ultimate To-Do List

by John W Richardson 2 Comments

I was on a radio show yesterday with my good friend, Steve Matley. We were talking about productivity and To-Do Lists. Steve has a background in the construction industry and has worked on major building projects with hundreds or thousands of details. He has routinely spent weeks working in complex software such as Microsoft Project or industry specific design software.

His viewpoint on a to-do list is very different than mine. He wants everything listed; how long it will take to complete, who is working on it, deliverables, costs, completion dates and on and on. For me, I want a simple to-do list to plan out my day, without getting too complex and stopping me dead in my tracks. As our conversation went on, it was interesting to see many of the things we had in common.

We both agreed that we need to list the important items, but we can usually leave off unimportant or micro-managed details.
We need a way to check off completed items, track needed actions, and have a reference area for contacts and other information.
We need to have the list in one place for easy reference.

And while a detailed project management list like Steve would use for a construction project would be total overkill for my daily plans, we were able to come to come up with some ideas for a daily to-do list that would include enough information to be practical, but keep it simple enough that it would fit on one sheet of paper.

I sat down this morning with Microsoft Publisher and came up with version .01 of The Ultimate To-Do List

It contains the following

Check-off boxes
Action code area
Two line area for description and context
Reference area for phone numbers, email addresses, and other reference items
One sheet design with ample space for data entry

Here is what the alpha version looks like…

In the graphic above, I have created a single to-do item. Under mark I can use a shortcode or notation to let me know what action I will be taking. In the example I use the letter “C” for creation. I’m going to create something. Next to it I put a description of the action (create dual line to-do list) and in the reference area to the right, I have included the name of the software I’ll be working in.

Now I have a second line I can use for context. In the mark area I put down 50 (minutes), for the time I’ve set aside for the item. In the description area, I give context to the document (Downloadable PDF), and in the reference area, I note that I’ll have to use a FTP program to upload the finished product. Once I am done with this, I can use the checkbox area to the left to mark off completed tasks.

This two line section is designed to be very flexible. You can easily design your own shorthand notation, and reference items.

In the graphic above, I’ve added a second to-do item (highlighted in blue) with a different shortcode, and reference items. As you can see, each two line area is set off with a thicker dividing line.

The overall sheet looks like the graphic above.

For your convenience, I’ve created a PDF version that you can download here.

Just download, print, and fill-in with Sharpie or pen.

TWO LINE PRINTABLE TO-DO LIST

This is the first iteration of an ongoing to-do list project. As the sheet evolves, I’ll provide updates and list out new features as we add them.

Question: What features would you add to the sheet?

Productivity

Increase Productivity: A Review of The Mastery Journal