16 Tips for Getting 90 Percent of Your Work Done Before Lunch

Imagine this.

By the time lunch rolls around, you push back from your desk with a satisfied sigh, saunter off to your car, and drive off to have a leisurely, stress-free lunch, daydreaming about the 18 holes that you’re going to play for the rest of the day.

This can be for real.

You can get 90 percent or more of your work done in the morning. Around the time people are groping for the next shot of caffeine, you’re shutting down your Macbook and chilling out.

How do you do this? I’m going to give you 16 amazing productivity tips, but first let me set the stage:

  • First, I’m defining work as stuff that you do–important stuff. Ideally, meetings can be shoved out of the picture.
  • Second, this approach is built on the Pareto principle. The Pareto principle states that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percen of your efforts. Getting your work done in the morning means that you can take a leaner approach to the important tasks–a smart approach.

1. Schedule your day the night before.

Every day, you should list all your tasks and when you’re going to do them the following day. You will not be productive unless you plan out everything you’re going to do the next morning.

Quick tip: Don’t schedule too much. Keep your to-do schedule light to actually accomplish real work.

2. Clean your office the night before.

Clutter in your office creates distractions. A sticky note on your desk that says “Call Bob ASAP!” can throw off your whole day.

Showing up to work in a spic-and-span environment helps you to think clearer and work harder.

3. Wake up at an ungodly hour.

To really get stuff done, you’ve got to get up in time to make it happen.

I recommend anytime from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. If your morning routine takes a little longer, bump your wake-up time back a little more.

Obviously, you’ll need to adjust your bedtime accordingly.

4. Exercise.

Scientific evidence shows that morning exercise can make us think better, work better, and become more productive.

Harvard’s John Ratey is the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. He writes that exercise is essential for reaching “high-performance levels in intellectually demanding jobs.”

A quick jog or 30-minute yoga session can prepare you for a powerful session of getting stuff done.

5. Stick to your schedule.

Don’t let yourself veer off the course that you’ve mapped out. You have a limited amount of time. Don’t ruin the schedule.

Take your schedule, allow it guide you, and you’ll be able to accomplish more.

6. Give yourself 20 minutes to reach flow.

Flow is when you’re in the zone. This happens when you are completely absorbed in your activity, singlemindedly accomplishing things at a high level and rapid pace.

It takes some time to reach flow, so if you don’t feel productive or engaged in your work, just give it some time.

7. Make 60-second decisions.

Decision making is a time-draining vortex. When you’re faced with a decision in the course of your work, give yourself a one-minute limit. Your decision will be just as good, but it will take less time.

8. Wear headphones.

Headphones can shut out distractions and keep you focused. Harvard Business Review advises workers to put on their headphones to be more productive.

9. Do the toughest tasks first.

Mark Twain wrote, “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.” Brian Tracy turned this statement into an entire principal (and even wrote a book on it)–“Eat that frog!”

If you get your biggest and ugliest task done first, the rest of the day will be massively productive.

10. Do your writing early on.

Writing is one of the most mentally demanding tasks. However, writing also has the power of focusing your brain and improving your productivity. Do you writing early in the day, and you’ll improve both the quality of your writing and the rest of your day.

11. Don’t commute.

If you typically have a lengthy work commute, do everything you can to avoid it

It’s not just wasted time that you want to guard against. It’s the mental havoc. A commute is one of the most stressful parts of the day. Starting your workday with that level of stress can completely ruin your productivity.

Don’t even commute to Starbucks. (Have Starbucks bring it to you instead.)

12. Don’t hold meetings (even over the phone).

If you’ve been in business for very long, you know that most meetings are a waste of time. Avoid meetings if at all possible.

13. Don’t check your email first thing.

The electronic communication pipeline can be as destructive as meetings. Sure, you need to deal with email. It’s important, but don’t let it swallow your day by starting out with it.

14. Stick to a routine.

If you do something repeatedly, you’ll be able to do it better and faster each time. Once you find a routine, stick with it. Your routine is the ramp to your productivity.

15. Make yourself comfortable.

Do whatever you need to do to position yourself for success. If that means showering, shaving, eating breakfast, journaling, meditating, feeding the dog, opening the blinds–do it. When you accomplish these preparatory tasks, you are creating an environment that will make you more productive.

16. Reward yourself at a certain time.

Set the clock–a countdown timer if you have to. At a certain point, you’re going to stop. So, stop.

Break out the kazoos, throw some confetti, and do your happy dance. It’s time to reward yourself.

Apply and get more done!

For those of us who possess unstoppable energy and an internal drive to get even more done, we don’t have to quit in the mornings. If work makes you happy and fulfilled, keep going.

Getting 90 percent of your work done in the morning just means that you might get more than 100 percent of your work done every day.

 

Originally posted here

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16 Tips for Getting 90 Percent of Your Work Done Before Lunch

Don’t have enough time in a day? Follow these tips to get majority of your work done in the morning.
By Neil Patel

Imagine this.

By the time lunch rolls around, you push back from your desk with a satisfied sigh, saunter off to your car, and drive off to have a leisurely, stress-free lunch, daydreaming about the 18 holes that you’re going to play for the rest of the day.

This can be for real.

You can get 90 percent or more of your work done in the morning. Around the time people are groping for the next shot of caffeine, you’re shutting down your Macbook and chilling out.

How do you do this? I’m going to give you 16 amazing productivity tips, but first let me set the stage:

  • First, I’m defining work as stuff that you do–important stuff. Ideally, meetings can be shoved out of the picture.
  • Second, this approach is built on the Pareto principle. The Pareto principle states that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percen of your efforts. Getting your work done in the morning means that you can take a leaner approach to the important tasks–a smart approach.

1. Schedule your day the night before.

Every day, you should list all your tasks and when you’re going to do them the following day. You will not be productive unless you plan out everything you’re going to do the next morning.

Quick tip: Don’t schedule too much. Keep your to-do schedule light to actually accomplish real work.

2. Clean your office the night before.

Clutter in your office creates distractions. A sticky note on your desk that says “Call Bob ASAP!” can throw off your whole day.

Showing up to work in a spic-and-span environment helps you to think clearer and work harder.

3. Wake up at an ungodly hour.

To really get stuff done, you’ve got to get up in time to make it happen.

I recommend anytime from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. If your morning routine takes a little longer, bump your wake-up time back a little more.

Obviously, you’ll need to adjust your bedtime accordingly.

4. Exercise.

Scientific evidence shows that morning exercise can make us think better, work better, and become more productive.

Harvard’s John Ratey is the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. He writes that exercise is essential for reaching “high-performance levels in intellectually demanding jobs.”

A quick jog or 30-minute yoga session can prepare you for a powerful session of getting stuff done.

5. Stick to your schedule.

Don’t let yourself veer off the course that you’ve mapped out. You have a limited amount of time. Don’t ruin the schedule.

Take your schedule, allow it guide you, and you’ll be able to accomplish more.

6. Give yourself 20 minutes to reach flow.

Flow is when you’re in the zone. This happens when you are completely absorbed in your activity, singlemindedly accomplishing things at a high level and rapid pace.

It takes some time to reach flow, so if you don’t feel productive or engaged in your work, just give it some time.

7. Make 60-second decisions.

Decision making is a time-draining vortex. When you’re faced with a decision in the course of your work, give yourself a one-minute limit. Your decision will be just as good, but it will take less time.

8. Wear headphones.

Headphones can shut out distractions and keep you focused. Harvard Business Review advises workers to put on their headphones to be more productive.

9. Do the toughest tasks first.

Mark Twain wrote, “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.” Brian Tracy turned this statement into an entire principal (and even wrote a book on it)–“Eat that frog!”

If you get your biggest and ugliest task done first, the rest of the day will be massively productive.

10. Do your writing early on.

Writing is one of the most mentally demanding tasks. However, writing also has the power of focusing your brain and improving your productivity. Do you writing early in the day, and you’ll improve both the quality of your writing and the rest of your day.

11. Don’t commute.

If you typically have a lengthy work commute, do everything you can to avoid it

It’s not just wasted time that you want to guard against. It’s the mental havoc. A commute is one of the most stressful parts of the day. Starting your workday with that level of stress can completely ruin your productivity.

Don’t even commute to Starbucks. (Have Starbucks bring it to you instead.)

12. Don’t hold meetings (even over the phone).

If you’ve been in business for very long, you know that most meetings are a waste of time. Avoid meetings if at all possible.

13. Don’t check your email first thing.

The electronic communication pipeline can be as destructive as meetings. Sure, you need to deal with email. It’s important, but don’t let it swallow your day by starting out with it.

14. Stick to a routine.

If you do something repeatedly, you’ll be able to do it better and faster each time. Once you find a routine, stick with it. Your routine is the ramp to your productivity.

15. Make yourself comfortable.

Do whatever you need to do to position yourself for success. If that means showering, shaving, eating breakfast, journaling, meditating, feeding the dog, opening the blinds–do it. When you accomplish these preparatory tasks, you are creating an environment that will make you more productive.

16. Reward yourself at a certain time.

Set the clock–a countdown timer if you have to. At a certain point, you’re going to stop. So, stop.

Break out the kazoos, throw some confetti, and do your happy dance. It’s time to reward yourself.

Apply and get more done!

For those of us who possess unstoppable energy and an internal drive to get even more done, we don’t have to quit in the mornings. If work makes you happy and fulfilled, keep going.

Getting 90 percent of your work done in the morning just means that you might get more than 100 percent of your work done every day.

Sounds good to me.

 

Originally posted here

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Good leaders practice making good decisions

Decisions.

How we make them is a hallmark between pastors who are naturally hardwired by God to lead declining churches to renewal (roughly 15 percent of those in ministry) and their ministry colleagues who aren’t similarly wired.

Contrary to what we expected, our research revealed that rapid fire decision makers are generally poorer at leading church turnarounds. In contrast, the most effective renewal leaders are those who are slow, thoughtful and collaborative decision makers.

Fortunately, pastors can learn to be more effective decision makers. We’ve developed a variety of techniques that we impart in our mentoring relationships. Here are two; one helps the “ready, fire, aim!” crowd work more deliberately, the other insures that impulsive decision makers bring others along with them.

Rule of 3

This simple exercise not only requires greater deliberation, it also boosts creativity by requiring you to think of multiple options before settling on a decision. It’s a simple exercise.

  • At the top of a blank sheet of paper, write down the decision that needs to be made. Include a few details highlighting the nature of the problem. Underneath that write out how you’ve solve this problem (or seen others solve it) in the past.
  • Draw a vertical line down the center of the page
  • In the left-hand column write out what you’re leaning toward for this decision.
  • In the right-hand column list at least three new options, all of which are outside your “tried and true” zone.
  • Pray over this for several days.
  • Consult with your mentor or coach to discuss the options.

Decision alignment

Impulsive pastors tend to make decisions without giving careful thought to who will be affected. It’s easy for a pastor, particularly the solo pastor of a small church, to turn someone else’s work upside down by making rapid decisions. (Could this be one reason why the snap decision makers tend to pastor stagnant churches?)

Fortunately, this is also easily fixed.

  • Look at what’s on your calendar for the next quarter.
  • List what decisions you need to make over that quarter.
  • Reverse engineer those decisions to see who will be affected by them. (Don’t stop with just one name; more often than not multiple people are touched by a given decision).
  • Set appointments in your calendar for when, where, and how you’ll discuss these decisions with each person who will be affected. Jot a few notes about what you plan to say about those decisions.
  • Confirm those appointments by phone or email. Drop a “reminder” so that you’ll be reminded a few days ahead of time so you can review your notes and be ready for a thoughtful discussion that brings each person into the process.

“Ready, fire, aim” isn’t just a bad idea. It’s ineffective leadership. By practicing the rule of 3 and decision alignment, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a thoughtful, innovative and collaborative decision maker. And those are the ones who lead churches in renewal.

 

Originally Posted Here

 

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10 Ways to Create More Margin in Your Time

8.1.CC.HOME_.WaysCreateMarginTime

“How do you fit more into an already busy schedule?”

How do you fit more into an already busy schedule?

Isn’t this a great question?

Because, aren’t you being asked to do so all the time? Isn’t your standard reply to the question “how are you?”—BUSY? Aren’t we all?

How do you create more margin in your schedule—to do the things you want to do and the things you need to do?

 

Here are a 10 tips to help create more time margin:

Start your day with God.

Of course a pastor would say this, but it is amazing if I start the day talking to God about my day how much better my day flows. If I ask God for margin in my time and to help me complete my “to do” list, He actually seems to listen and help me. (Try it!)

Prioritize your life.

It is important to have a life purpose. What do you value most? Without knowing this we find ourselves chasing after many things that have little value. Have you discovered why you are here and what God has most for you in life and in this season of life? If not, start here.

Make sure your priorities line up with your desires.

This sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it is not. Many times, we say our purpose is one thing, but what we actually do is something entirely different. This is often because people are going to do what people want to do. We may need to ask God to change our heart and plant in us His desires.

Stop unnecessary time-wasters.

If you “veg” out every night on three-plus hours of television or browsing Facebook, don’t be surprised you didn’t get to spend a lot of quality time with your children or friends. Most of us form bad habits or have unorganized methods of doing something that waste bulks of our time. Make a list of what you spend the most time doing and see if there are places you can cut. (I suspect there will be.)

Work smarter.

I can’t imagine being successful and leading a team without some system of calendaring your week or keeping a planner, yet I know so many pastors and other ministers who simply handle things as they come up rather than work with a plan. The benefit of organization is that you can do what you need to do more efficiently and faster and be more productive. Give a shoutout to the checklist people!

Schedule times to organize.

This is so important, but most people don’t do it. Spending an hour or two actually planning the week will make the whole week more productive. Usually for me this is the first part of my week. If I know where I’m headed and my work space is organized for efficiency, it’s much easier to get everything done and still handle distractions, which are sure to come.

Do the most necessary things first.

You may have tried the A/B/C list of scheduling priorities. It doesn’t matter what system you use, but the important thing is you have one and use it to help your rate of completion. (And, this may be rest, it might be family or it could be the project you have to complete today.)

Don’t say yes to everything.

Be picky with your time allotment based again on your end priorities and goals.

Schedule down time.

Especially when my boys were younger, I would write on my calendar time for them. This may sound mechanical, but it allows you to be there and keeps things and others from filling up your schedule. (I still schedule this time for Cheryl—and, it sounds counterproductive, but we get away even more frequently during busier seasons.)

Evaluate your schedule often.

Plans should not be implemented and then ignored. Develop your plan to create margin in your life, then periodically review the plan to see how you are doing and what needs to be changed.

For some people just reading this is laborsome. I especially encourage those of you geared this way to push through the difficult part of this and give it a try. You will be surprised what a positive difference it will have on your life.

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8 Things highly effective people do

Be more productive

  1. They focus on hours even down to the minutes, not days. Most people default to hour and half-hour blocks on their calendar; highly successful people know that there are 1,440 minutes in every day and that there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed.

They are Driven – always working, moving thinking.  They seldom waste time.

 

  1. They intently focus on only one thing in bursts of uninterrupted time.

They work in one to two hours periods, without interruptions.

What task will have the biggest impact on life, ministry and work?

What accomplishment will get the vision successfully operational?

That’s what you should dedicate your mornings to every day.

 

They minimize interruptions – process e-mails only a few times a day. Ultra-productive people don’t “check” their e-mail throughout the day. They don’t respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded into their inbox. Instead, like everything else, they schedule time to process their e-mails quickly and efficiently. For some, that’s only once a day; for others, it’s morning, noon, and night.

  1. They turn to-do lists into plans.

Automate – repetitive tasks (autoresponders, Social media schedulers, Online banking etc.)

 

Delegate – Ultra-productive people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead, they ask, “How can this task get done?” They take the I out of it as much as possible. Super-productive people don’t have control issues, and they are not micro-managers. In many cases, good enough is, well, good enough.

 

They follow the 80/20 rule. Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases, 80% of results come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results. Focus on those and give minimal attention to the rest.

Train the people who show up and get involved – they will minister to the 80%

 

Procrastinate – It turns out that only 41% of items on to-do lists ever get done.

 

Reduce duplicated decisions; they process things and tasks only once. How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down, only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an e-mail and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to “touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it is—they deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress, since it won’t be in the back of their minds, and it is more efficient, since they won’t have to re-read or re-evaluate the item again in the future.

To-Do-Lists usually rob us of priority.  We put things in our schedule by what can be accomplished in the time allotted. That is not the most effective method.  It should be done by what will add the most significance to life, work and play.

Now schedule priorities on your calendar. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live by that calendar.

 

  1. They make it home for dinner. Yes they value work, but also value personal significance at home. They value family time, exercise, and giving back. They consciously allocate their 1,440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put them on their calendar), and then they stick to that schedule.

    5. They use a note pad or journal.     We often lose great ideas because mind clutter. Ultra-productive people free their minds by writing everything down as the thoughts come to them. A great way to avoid distraction during prayer is to have a notepad available to write down important things that come to mind to attend to after prayer time is complete.

    6. They limit meetings and stick to a tight agenda.     Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander around their topics, and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can and hold fewer of them yourself. If you do run a meeting, keep it short and to the point.

    7. They say “no” to more things than not.     When you are saying Yes to something you are saying no to an infinite amount of things you could or should be doing. Make sure it is significant to what God has called you to. 

  2. They practice a consistent routine for mind, body and spirit – The most productive people nurtured their bodies in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast, light exercise, and they nurtured their minds with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, or journaling.

Energy is everything. You can’t make more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy to increase your attention, focus, and productivity. Highly successful people don’t skip meals, sleep, or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more. Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and breaks as opportunities to recharge in order to get even more done.

 

Adapted from original post found here

 

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Life change by who you hang out with

How to Change the Habits of 107,000 People

It was 1995 and Pieter Ernst was battling a serious problem.

Ernst was a physician with an interest in community-wide behavior change and he was currently in Mozambique. For nearly twenty years, a brutal civil war had ravaged the population and landscape of the country.

The war had ended three years earlier, but the entire healthcare system of the country had been crippled. Thousands of mothers and children were dying from preventable diseases.

The biggest problem was the scale of the issue. Dr. Ernst needed to reach a population of 107,000 citizens with a staff of just 19 people.

Ernst realized that it was impossible for his team to do it alone. Furthermore, he knew that if they were going to reduce the incidence of preventable disease for good, then significant behavior change would need to occur within the community. His team couldn’t stay in Mozambique forever. These changes had to happen in the homes and minds of the community.

Ernst came up with a plan.

Changing the Habits of 107,000 People

First, they found over 2,000 volunteers from the community. Then, each member of his 19-person staff was responsible for teaching groups of 10 to 15 volunteers from the surrounding community about the steps they could take to reduce the incidence of preventable diseases.

Then, each volunteer would visit 10 to 15 households and share what they had learned. The volunteers repeated households every two weeks and continued to spread the ideas.

But this was the part that made the plan brilliant: the support group for the volunteers was not the 19-person healthcare staff. It was the other 10 to 15 volunteers in their small group. Each group of volunteers talked among one another about what was working, what wasn’t working, and how to get people on board with the changes in their community.

What happened?

Not only did they reach the massive population, they also got the changes to take hold. The number of underweight children was cut by half. The mortality rate of children under five dropped. Pneumonia treatment was six times better than before the project began.

In a followup survey taken 20 months after the project had officially ended, the volunteer groups were still operating with 94% of the original volunteers and the health metrics continued to improve. [1]

The changes had stuck. For good.

The public health victory of Ernst’s team is impressive, but this isn’t just a feel-good story. There is a deeper lesson here that we can all apply to our own lives.

Here’s the deal.

The Identity of the Group

Most of our behaviors are driven by two things: our environment and our beliefs.

And environment is perhaps the most powerful of those two because in many cases your environment can shape your beliefs. This is especially true when you consider your environment to include the people who surround you.

I’ve written previously about identity-based habits — the power that your beliefs have to create better habits that actually stick over the long-term.

But it’s not just your identity that impacts your beliefs. It’s also the identity of the groups that you surround yourself with.

Consider the community in Mozambique. In the beginning, the community had a certain identity. After the war, many basic public health approaches simply weren’t part of daily life.

But as the volunteers began expanding their reach, working with each other, and sharing news of what techniques were working, the community began to develop a new identity. New behaviors began to be seen as normal behaviors. And when a new behavior becomes the norm for any particular group, the change sticks for good.

The lesson is simple: doing something is much easier when it’s the normal thing to do in your community.

What is the Identity of Your Group?

Every group has an identity.

  • Google employees have a set of actions and beliefs that are part of their cultural identity.
  • CrossFitters have a set of actions and beliefs that are part of their identity.
  • Investment bankers have a set of actions and beliefs that are part of their identity.

The question is, do the groups you belong to have the identity you want?

There were only 2,300 volunteers in the Mozambique project, but 107,000 people began to take on new habits and behaviors when the identity of the group changed.

This happens to all of us. We take on the behaviors of the groups in which we live and the communities to which we belong.

  • Want to workout more? Become part of a group where working out is normal. Not a goal. Not an event. Just part of the lifestyle.
  • Want to do better work? Surround yourself with people who make each day a work of art rather than seeing work as a reason to clock in and clock out.
  • Want to live a life of service? Step into a group where service is part of the day-to-day routine.

Lasting behavior change happens when it’s part of the cultural norm. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

 

Originally posted here

We don’t endorse everything written by this author

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