No matter what part of the world you live in and who you work for, you have an important limitation: there are only 24 hours in a day, and this must be taken into account. Success depends on what you manage to do during this time. These strategies will help you maximize your own productivity.
1. Parkinson's Law
"Work fills all the time allotted for it. But if you wait until the last minute, you will do it in a minute" – Cyril Northcote Parkinson spoke. Everyone at least once empirically tested the operation of this law, struggling with some project for several months and magically suddenly ending everything on the last night before the surrender. Or when your untidy apartment for weeks turned into a sample of order within two hours before the arrival of an important guest. This law demonstrates an excellent tool for maximizing the efficiency of organizing your working time: set shorter deadlines for completing tasks and schedule delivery earlier. Find a happy medium: a tense rush can be a good counterbalance to a slow, sluggish activity.
2. Stick to your "flow"
Athletes call it "being in the load zone" – when you are so focused that you cannot be distracted. It's a state we can all see in writers, musicians, and entrepreneurs. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states that the state in which our activity is most effective is achieved in the zone of balance of challenge and skill. If a task is too difficult and beyond our skill to solve, we become restless and frustrated. Problems that aren't hard enough make us bored. Pull, but don't tear. Bend, but don't break. Our activity is optimal if we set difficult but feasible tasks.
3. Work according to circadian rhythms
The nerve cells in our brains are controlled by circadian rhythms that regulate sleep and wake patterns, hormone production, emotionality and our energy levels. Constant work in the context of circadian rhythms (as, for example, in international flight pilots) causes severe fatigue. The secret of efficiency lies in the synchronization of the specifics of work with biological time peaks of activity.
Okrot Steve Kay states that the first two hours after waking up are best for analytical work, as the rise in morning temperature promotes blood flow to the brain. Our vigilance drops sharply after dinner, as the process of digestion takes energy. This time is not suitable for analytics, but it is great for creative thinking, according to Professor Merik Wies. And Dr. Gerard Kennedy noticed that most Olympic records are set in the afternoon. During this period – between 4 pm and 6 pm – muscle strength, lung power, motor coordination and joint flexibility reach their peak. So, the three best periods for maximizing your efforts in different directions: morning hours – peak of analytical work; afternoon – for creative tasks; from 16-00 to 18-00 – for physical activities.
4. Apply reverse engineering
This strategy is most often used in industrial engineering and software, but it can be quite successfully adapted in a variety of areas, for any products and strategies. Its meaning – is to disassemble and analyze the components that make up a whole. This allows not only to see how the parts interact, but also makes it possible to work with various failed objects. Tim Ferris notes that he quickly learned to dance tango due to the fact that he divided the dance into parts – male and female – and learned the female part separately along with the male part. Linguistic experts do the same, breaking up speech patterns and "anatomizing" common grammatical structures.
5. Review course
A good warning from Eric Rice: "Building the wrong product is really efficient – it's like driving a car off a cliff and showing off your amazing speed." This strategy consists in the calculation and awareness of our efforts, in the flexibility of planning goals and processes for achieving them. Be productive – means to be ready to turn on a new path according to changed circumstances, rather than rushing at full speed towards a fixed goal, no matter how valuable it is given all the data.
6. Take "power poses"
It would be absurd to think that just changing the position of the body can affect performance… if it weren't true! Professor Amy Cuddy highlights the psychosomatic and neurological responses caused by changes in our posture. Poses of high power – open positions with a flat back, deployed shoulders, raised chin – contribute to an increase in the production of testosterone in the body (self-confidence, assertiveness, energy) and a decrease in cortisol levels (stress, anxiety, nervousness). Our brain reacts to physical changes – for example, even a forced smile can trigger a surge of endorphins. Pulling yourself out of a creative block begins with pulling yourself in a literal, physical sense.
The practical application of these recommendations, unfortunately, will not add a couple of extra hours to your day. But it will definitely make the time at your disposal as productive as possible, and you, accordingly, more successful.
Source estet-portal.com
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