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June 6 - November 19, 2020
Lots of people really dislike necessity—they hate feeling any sort of pressure.
One of the worst feelings in the world is to be incredibly busy but feel that you’re not making any progress.
learn the difference between just getting things done and reaching high performance productivity.
high performers are more productive and yet also happier, less stressed, and more rewarded over the long term.
fundamentals of becoming more productive are setting goals and maintaining energy and focus.
Productivity starts with goals. When you have clear and challenging goals, you tend to be more focused and engaged, which leads to a greater sense of flow and enjoyment in what you’re doing.
Groups that have clear and challenging goals almost always outperform those without explicit goals.
Good sleep, nutrition, and exercise are huge enhancers of productivity.
happier people are more productive.
if you’re going to be productive, you’ve got to maintain focus.
Information overwhelm, distractions, and interruptions cause dire consequences in both our health and our productivity. Information overload causes demoralization and lower work quality.10 Dealing with an endless stream of inputs, or having to spend a large chunk of our day poring over data or searching for it makes us miserable.
never check your e-mail first thing in the morning.
Distraction is another downer.
When people multitask, they cannot focus fully on the task at hand because their brain is still processing their last unfinished task.14
The final big culprit is interruptions.
What we are capable of is remarkable, and what we will attempt is constrained only by our beliefs.
The great mistake most people make is to think of balance in terms of evenly distributed hours.
in the always-connected culture we live in today, where a response is expected at all hours of the day and night, it can feel as though balance is gone.
Instead of trying to balance hours, try to balance happiness or progress in your major life arenas.
A simple weekly review of what we’re after in the major areas of our life helps us rebalance or at least plan for more balance.
only from measuring something in the first place can we determine whether it’s in “balance”?
Sometimes, just having a look at the larger picture can help us feel more in control, adjust course as needed, and, yes, find more balance.
It’s not about the hours you spend but about the harmony you feel.
You’ll always feel out of balance if you’re doing work that you don’t find engaging and meaningful.
Burnout in one area of life easily scorches others.
TAKE A—GASP!—BREAK
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” —Alan Cohen
for optimal productivity, you should not only take longer breaks—claim your vacation time!—but also give yourself intermittent breaks throughout the day.19
Working straight through the day with no breaks makes people unhappy and less productive.
If you want to feel more energized, creative, and effective at work—and still leave work with enough oomph for the “life” part—the ideal breakpoint is to stop your work and give your mind and body a break every forty-five to sixty minutes.
A break of just two to five minutes every hour can help you feel much more mentally alert and energized for your work and life overall.
For example, if you’re going to work on e-mail or a presentation for two hours, I recommend you get up from your chair at fifty minutes in, then take a fast stroll around the office, grab some water, come back to your chair, and do a sixty-second transition meditation. As a reminder from the chapter on energy, a transition meditation means you simply close your eyes, focus on deep breathing, repeat to yourself a mantra such as “release,” and then set an intention for the next activity. If you want extra credit, also ask the desk trigger question from the previous chapter (on necessity): “Who
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By slowing down or taking a break once in a while, you work faster, leaving more time for other areas of life.
gauge your work-life balance every week by rating yourself in the ten arenas of your life and having goals in each. Then take a two-to-three-minute break every forty-five to sixty minutes of your day.
If you want to become extraordinary, you need to figure out the productive outputs that matter in your field or industry.
High performers have mastered the art of prolific quality output (PQO). They produce more high-quality output than their peers over the long term, and that is how they become more effective, better known, more remembered. They aim their attention and consistent efforts toward PQO and minimize any distractions (including opportunities) that would steal them away from their craft.
(Yes, sorry, your elaborate e-mail folders aren’t helping you. A 2011 study of 85,000 actions by 345 e-mail users found that people who create complex folders are less efficient in finding what they need than those who simply use search or threading.)31
Figuring out what you are supposed to produce, and learning the priorities in the creation, quality, and frequency of that output, is one of the greatest breakthroughs you can have in your career.
We all have activities that have to get done that don’t make us feel like legends.
power of intention.
reorient their entire work schedule toward that endeavor. As quickly as possible, I want them spending 60 percent or more of their workweek oriented to PQO.
the other 40 percent ends up in such buckets as strategy, team management, and the everyday tasks of work or running a business.
Let’s remember what’s most important, let’s focus, let’s produce real things that we’re proud of. Let’s be prolific and change the world.
But when they start making a lot of things happen with no unifying trajectory, they begin losing their power.
Then they lose their passion. Then they’re achieving a lot of little things but no big, meaningful things.
“If there were only five major moves to make that goal happen, what would they be?” Think of each major move as a big bucket of activities, a project. These big five projects that move you toward achieving your dream can then be broken down into deliverables, deadlines, and activities. Once you’re clear on these things, put them into your calendar, scheduling the bulk of your time in protected blocks during which you do nothing but make progress toward the activity that the specific block is dedicated to.
Know the big five moves that will take you to your goal, break those moves down into tasks and deadlines, then put them in a calendar.
It doesn’t matter whether you know how to achieve your Five Moves at first. The important thing is that for every major goal you have, you figure out the Five Moves. If you don’t know the moves, you lose.
Decide what you want. Determine the Five Major Moves that will help you leap toward that goal. Do deep work on each of the major five moves—at least 60 percent of your workweek going to these efforts—until they are complete. Designate all else as distraction, tasks to delegate, or things to do in blocks of time you’ve allocated in the remaining 40 percent of your time.
More influence really does equal a better life. When you have more influence, your kids listen to you more. You resolve conflicts faster. You get the projects you ask or fight for. You can get more buy-in on your ideas. You make more sales. You lead better. You’re more likely to become a CEO, senior executive, or successfully self-employed.4 Your self-confidence goes up and so does your performance.
