Time and Space: The Final Frontier For Productivity
Typically, I am not a big fan of making “to-do” lists to accomplish tasks. The reason for that is that often, creating lists aren’t effective enough for ensuring all tasks that we set out to accomplish get done. The effective way to make sure that you accomplish tasks is to create time and space with which to work for every task that needs to be complete.
To be truly productive, creating a specific time to get something done is critical. Every task that needs to be completed should have a specific time scheduled to get that task done. Having that time scheduled makes the task to be completed more real in your mind and ensures that something else wont come up.
Creating the space is the time with which the task will take. I also think of this as the mental space that the task occupies in our mind. If you have a marketing piece you are writing, how long will it take you to write it? Once you have identified that time that it will take shorten a little. For instance if you think something will take you an hour, try shortening it to 45 minutes. It stands to reason that most tasks that you may allot an hour to really can be completed in 45 minutes. The greatest benefit to creating space is that you can be present during that task as you have dedicated the time to it, physically and mentally. (We will talk more about this in my next post.)
Creating a specific time for each task and assigning it a time value will ensure that you don’t run out of time to complete your tasks for that day and that you don’t have any running tasks that are hanging over your head. Time is allotted more realistically when you see how it does or does not fit into your schedule. Ultimately you are more productive and realistic with your time than you are when you just make a “to-do” list.
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Thanks for the post Brandon. So what does it mean if I usually take much more time to accomplish my tasks than I’ve given myself? Eternally optimistic? Slovenly?
Or perhaps a better question would be, any advice for me since this is the case? Thanks for the great post.
Twitter: b160allen
says:
Wes,
It’s a great question. It could be a matter of being too optimistic if you aren’t making the same mistakes over and over again. I would say that the issue may be with not being realistic with time. It also could a problem with trying to multi-task activities. Accountability is the cure for not getting things done in the allotted time. We are often too quick to compromise on accomplishment and we let things slide. Don’t. Take an inventory and right down how long things take you, assess how many distractions you had while you were doing it and then use that to forecast these activities for next time. That’s the shortest answer I could give to what could a more complex problem. Thanks for commenting.
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