I have also used the excellent technique of listing things to do. I will never tire of advising this and I believe it is the basic step to increase productivity; the mind should focus on doing things to do, not on the effort of remembering what the hell they asked me to do this morning and that I have already forgotten.
As a refresher, here are the last two techniques I'm implementing this year:
Learning to say no. This is so difficult that I intend to write a post just on this topic. But in this time that we live in, we have many distractions and many options. I think that Colombians (although it surely happens in other latitudes) are very bad at saying no, basically because we feel ashamed, as if we feel obligated to accept everything that is proposed to us. Bad. So we start to look bad with everyone, because we don't know how to prioritize.
Planning the day and the week , scheduling work times. I try to m vietnam email address ix the urgent with the important and, above all, I respect them. Doesn't it happen to you that you have been trying to write that post that you have wanted to publish for a while but you haven't been able to because you have been asked for last minute meetings? Have you not been able to improve the website because you have been asked for a new proposal? Since what is important to us does not necessarily have a delivery date, we postpone it. We do not commit ourselves.
Set aside time for strategic tasks and optimize time
Now I set aside time for my personal or strategic tasks.
What I do is this: Every Monday morning, the first thing I do is list my pending tasks, with an emphasis on what is important, what is strategic, and I set deadlines , leaving room for what is urgent, even if I don't know what it is yet, something always comes up. I usually dedicate Monday mornings to purging the overdue administrative tasks, which always pile up.
Every morning, or the night before, I set aside time for the day. I fill in the spaces I have with uncommitted tasks, in blocks of one hour. I do this in Calendar, because it gives me a 10-minute warning and I can finish the previous task faster. And if I am asked for meetings, I leave them for the next day, because today is already full. Basically, what I do is treat my strategic tasks as if they were for a client, with the same level of commitment. I have to keep to my deadlines.
So far this year, both things have worked very well for me. I'm sure I need to improve some details, but I've started to get ahead on tasks that I had been putting off for a while, such as setting up a workshop on “How to write on social media” and another on personal branding “How to become a reference in your industry.”
As I get results to optimize time, I promise I'll let you know. Do you have other techniques? Leave them in the comments so we can all learn.
A hug!
@OmarGamboa