The Perfect Day: How To Organize Your Day and Get More Out of Your Time — Part 2
Creating your perfect day is an iterative process with many elements. In a recent post, we covered three initial steps. Here we will add another three. Apply any or all of them to feel increased productivity and balance. And perhaps a small taste of peace.
After understanding your natural rhythms, your specific needs and how to start and stop the day, now it's time to get into the nitty gritty of what makes a perfect day.
Step 4: The Perfect Day — Pulsing
The 8-hour workday is a myth. We cannot work for that long. In fact, research clearly shows that we work best for short periods of time, followed by breaks to restore energy, focus and motivation.
One of the very best ways to get the most out of your day is to take breaks. There are many possibilities. Experiment with them and watch your productivity explode. Here are some possibilities:
Pomodoro technique. This consists of 25 minutes of focus time on a single task followed by a short complete break. After four rounds, give yourself a 20 to 30-minute break to reset cortisol levels.
The 52-17 rule. Work deeply for 52 minutes and rest for 17. When you break, do something completely different in different scenery. Learn more about this technique here.
The 1000 second timer—that's 16minutes and 40 seconds. I got this idea from Heroic's Brian Johnson. When the timer goes off, I do 10 squats (or push-ups, or some other repetitions), and by the end of the day, I've done a lot of reps!
Any length of break between tasks, meetings and everything else. Call them micro-breaks or just transitioning. The idea is to fully stop what you were doing before, create a small "airlock" between it and the next thing. And then go fully into the next task. This enables you to do one thing at a time, which is what we are designed for <link to post>. Doing so will reduce attention residue (the attention still focused on the past task) and you will recuperate the energy your brain was expending trying to manage two things at once.
Here's what you could do on breaks:
Spend at least 20 seconds looking at something at least 20 feet away. Your eyes benefit greatly from different focal lengths.
Hydrate. Don't let your brain shrink because it's thirsty.
Stand up, stretch, move. Our bodies are made to move. Even micro movements help regulate a whole collection of body functions <link to post>.
Be social. Social connection is positively associated with health and productivity. Better yet, schedule a walk with someone else.
Meditate or do breathwork, both being great ways to relax and reset.
Step 5: The Perfect Day — What To Do
Now to the heart of the matter. Getting more out of your day, and overcoming overwhelm, is as much about prioritization as it is about finding balance. Stephen Covey wrote, "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). Please reread that sentence.
We often wear busyness as a badge of honor, when in fact it's a symptom of:
Lack of focus. Clarify your most important goals. Covey wrote, "Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important." Goals help us focus our mind - use them. Figure out what is most important and then radically eliminate everything else. Schedule time for emergencies, and the rest for goals.
Lack of clarity. Know what to do: what actually needs to get done (not nice to haves, wanna dos, shoulds, but what job truly needs to get done). Then, figure out what's important NOW and, finally, what can truly get done. "Do first things first. Second things never. One step at a time." What are you doing right now that is a "nice to have" rather than a real priority? That extra hour spent making the presentation look beautiful might go to something else, like playing with your kids.
Todolistitis. We tend to focus on having to complete a list that is too long (and often not all that pertinent), and then chastise ourselves over and over again when it's not done. I'm a fan of decoupling as many tasks as possible from lists and from the calendar. Organize them as projects, prioritize the tasks in the project (in time if necessary), and then block time to work on the project (not the list of tasks), starting with what's important now. Then when your scheduled time is complete, celebrate that you did what you said you would do—you put in your time.
The myth of indispensability. Delegation is an art. Learn how to do it. Someone else may not do it exactly like you would. That is okay. Get over yourself.
Avoidance of discomfort. In his book, The 4-hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss wrote, "Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions." You don't need to know why you're uncomfortable, you just need to decide that you are the kind of person who does uncomfortable things—and, better yet, does them first. It helps to shift your mindset from obligation to choice.
Step 6: The Perfect Day — Ground Rules
And then there are some basic rules:
Always schedule in margins — room for life to happen.
Single task: Many people claim to be good at multitasking, but that's a myth. Multitasking reduces productivity by 40 percent.
Turn off notifications and hide your phone when you want to focus. Schedule time for to scroll and manage messages so you don't get distracted by FOMO. And do others a favor: do not interrupt or message for trivial things.
Get a handle on email. An average person checks email 36 times an hour, and loses 10 IQ points fielding email. So get yourself a system.
Reconsider meetings. Which meetings can be replaced by a call, an email, or a shared document? Then prepare the ones you keep so nobody wastes their time. Start with kindness and connection. Do the work and get out as fast as you can. End five to ten minutes before scheduled time and everyone will be grateful.
Clearly, time management is a vast topic. Implementing these steps will contribute to greater focus and concentration, and hopefully some small sense of control, balance and peace in the whirlpool of everyday.