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May 4 - May 8, 2020
Repeatedly checking your email harms your productivity in three ways.
First, it interrupts your workflow.
Second, email leaves a mental footprint.
The third way checking email over and over hurts your productivity is that it’s easy to get sucked into it.
Action Steps
1. Set specific times of the day to check your email.
2. Keep your email software closed while you work.
3. Turn off email notifications on your phone.
4. Refrain from sending unimportant emails.
5. Tell others you only check email twice a day.
6. Identify the triggers that prompt you to compulsively check email.
7. Create obstacles that make it more difficult to satisfy the triggers.
8. Develop alternative behaviors to replace the compulsion to check email.
Perfectionism undermines your productivity in four ways.
First, it prevents you from getting things done.
Second, it elevates your stress level.
Third, it encourages procrastination. It’s easier to continue working on a current task than to start a new one, especially if the new one requires stepping outside your comfort zone.
Action Steps
1. Shift your focus from perfecting your work to finishing it.
2. Ask yourself whether the time and effort you plan to invest will help you to achieve a specific goal.
3. Create obstacles that “short-circuit” your habit for perfectionism.
4. Embrace your mistakes. Instead of criticizing yourself, use mistakes as learning opportunities.
5. Identify the worst possible outcome that can occur if you make a mistake.
If you regularly create to-do lists that are less than half completed at the end of each day, you’re being too ambitious.
Overly-ambitious to-do lists erode your productivity in three ways.
First, they set the stage for frustration and disappointment.
Second, having a long list of uncompleted tasks that you’re forced to carry over to the following day increases your stress.
Third, if you’re routinely carrying over unfinished items from day to day, you won’t be able to accurately track your daily time usage.
Action Steps
1. Get used to telling yourself (and others) “no.”
2. Identify a compelling reason to work on every task that appears on your list.
3. Assign a priority to every item on your to-do list.
4. Set a limit to the number of tasks you’ll allow on your list.
5. Start with the “biggest rock” on your list.
6. Set a reasonable time limit for each task on your list.
7. Use 2 lists. Limit the first list to organize your to-do items for the day. Use the second list to capture everything else that comes to mind.
Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
Applying overly-lenient time limits to tasks - or refusing to set time limits at all - makes you less productive in six ways.
First, you end up getting fewer things done.
Second, there’s an increased risk of neglecting important tasks.
Third, you’ll run the risk of having to carry forward unfinished items.
Fourth, your workflow will lack structure.
Fifth, there’s no sense of urgency.
Sixth, because we’re getting less done, we end up working longer hours.
Action Steps
1. Select a task from your to-do list and set a challenging time limit for it.
2. Use a kitchen timer.
3. Use the Pomodoro Technique.
4. Ignore email, social media, texts and phone calls.
minute breaks to address them. 5. Commit to ending your workday at 5:00 p.m.
