The Productivity Plan
If you’re anything like me your biggest problem with productivity isn’t motivation; the biggest reason I don’t get anything done is because I’m either overloaded, distracted, unfocused or all 3.
Besides battling constantly to try and put a dent in my endless lists of unfinished work and generally struggling with prioritization and time management (see GTD article) I am regularly fighting with personal distractions and a lack of focus. After researching for the last few weeks and doing a little experimentation I think I’ve found a pretty awesome list of resources to make myself the ass kicking, work crushing, productivity ninja I know I should be.
My plan consists of 4 parts: ‘Getting My Ass Out of Bed,’ ‘Automating to Execute,’ ‘Outsourcing the Little Stuff,’ ‘Focusing on Functionality’ and going on an ‘Info Diet.’
Step 1: Get My Ass Out of Bed
Let’s not kid ourselves, mornings suck. There’s a very good reason most of us set 3 consecutive alarms and still hit snooze on all of them at least once or twice. Being torn out of a warm comfortable sleep is terrible and knowing you have the choice between staying in bed a little longer and getting up to fight with a chaotic day is most often a pretty easy choice to make.
The obvious drawback to sleeping-in every morning though is that your mind and body go right from a state of calm relaxation straight into a hectic stressful race to a busy and (hopefully) productive day. You get little time to wake up and almost no time to prepare for your day.
Ask yourself what you would do if you actually dragged you ass out of bed every day at 6am? What would your mornings look like? What would you do with all of that extra time?”
Would you sit comfortably and appreciate a cup of coffee with your spouse? What about going out for a walk or run to improve your health? How about taking 10 minutes to just sit, relax and turn off all of the noise that has been rushing through your mind?
How much value could that bring to your life?
For me getting up early has become a necessity. Trying to keep up with the blog, the challenges, my full time job, my relationship, my friends and my community and personal commitments has been overwhelming to say the least. The only reason I can keep it all together has been because of my mornings.
Finding Time That I Didn’t Know Was There
Instead of snoozing my alarm repeatedly until I was barely able to get to work on time (often not accomplishing even that) and then scrambling later to try and fit in all of work I’ve instead turned my mornings into my ‘work crushing window.’ I get up, make myself a coffee and then sit down to map out my day. Before even brushing my teeth I know exactly what I want to accomplish and often I already have a decent amount of it completed.
This extra time has taken so much stress out of my day; I’m no longer scrambling to get my work done or struggling to know what I’m supposed to be working on next. This month my mornings have been especially valuable as I’ve been taking 10 extra minutes of meditation each day. This simple task has helped me become more refreshed, focused and up beat throughout my entire day.
3 Weeks of Pain for a Lifetime of Productivity
They say it takes 3 weeks to form a habit. That’s 3 full weeks of dragging your body out of bed at an ungodly hour.
Just like anything worth striving for this is not easy. Having to resist the urge to roll back over for ‘5 more minutes’ is torturous and challenging and your very core will fight you at every turn. But I am here to tell you that in the end it’s totally worth it. If you can concur mornings for just 3 weeks then everything else will start to just fall into place and the positive effect it will have on your life will be 10x the pain you have to endure.
