Category Archives: Productivity

How to get the most value out of your time

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8 tips to help you achieve more by improving your mental focus

Image credit: solar22 | shutterstock.com

Ever get distracted by an email at the very moment you were settling down to concentrate on an important task? Ever lose focus on your husband/wife/partner precisely when they needed you most? Ever feel overwhelmed and lacking ability to direct your attention purposefully at one thing at a time?

Join the club. Achieving consistent mental focus is a battle I have been fighting for years. And I have helped hundreds of clients win this battle too.

Read on for 8 tips to get you started.

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The forest man

This guest post tells the moving and inspiring story of Jadav Payeng, the “Forest Man”. Brian Draper  – my good friend and author on spiritual intelligence – wrote this post, which forms part of his current Lent 40 reflective email series. Enjoy!

Forest man

Life can seem so overwhelming – as if there’s so much to do, or to change – that we end up doing nothing. So here’s a wonderful source of inspiration from a man called Jadav Payeng, who’s also known as ‘the forest man of India’.

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Master time management and make the most of every minute (part 3 of 3)

3 steps to success

become a master of time management

Image credit: shutterstock.com | Max Griboedov

The previous posts in this series contained the first two steps that will help you make the most of every minute, whether at work, home or elsewhere. Those steps were:

1) List the 4-6 most important things you need to get done the next day, and allocate timings to the tasks 

2) Plan and prioritise the day itself

The final step is the most practical of them all:

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Master time management and make the most of every minute (part 2 of 3)

3 steps to success

Gordon MacDonald , “Not everything that cries the loudest is the most urgent thing.  Just because an email comes in asking again for a meeting next week, doesn’t mean you have to answer it now.”

In the first post in this series, I shared step number one in making the most of every minute: List the six most important things you need to get done the next day, and allocate timings to them.

This step was revolutionary in turning my productivity around. But on its own, it is not enough. That’s where step 2 comes in:

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Master time management and make the most of every minute (part 1 of 3)

3 steps to success

Master your time management and transform your performance

“What would happen if 80% of your effort was focused on high-results-producing activities? … All it takes is pigheaded discipline and determination.” — Chet Holmes

There are two types of people: those who write lists, and those who don’t write lists.

Two years ago, I smugly thought that I managed my time very effectively because I wrote lists. Very long lists. And that was my problem — my lists were so long that each time I had a few minutes spare I would cherry pick tasks that were quick, easy, or cried the loudest.

But as Gordon MacDonald puts it, “Not everything that cries the loudest is the most urgent thing.  Just because an email comes in asking again for a meeting next week, doesn’t mean you have to answer it now.”

I was regularly falling foul of this. How can we attend to what is truly important, on a daily basis?

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How to use your beliefs to fuel productivity

beliefs fuel productivity

Image credit: Pretty Vectors / shutterstock.com

“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.” – Robert Oxton Bolton

Ever felt that your negative view of someone else was holding you back from succeeding?

I was once coaching someone (let’s call him Larry) who hated his colleague (let’s call him Peter). This was not a case of mild dislike or professional distance; Larry couldn’t find anything positive to say about Peter. He genuinely believed that Peter’s every action towards him was intentionally malicious and this was affecting Larry’s focus at work, especially his performance in team meetings alongside Peter.  Not just that, Larry’s sleep quality, sleep quantity and mood had nose-dived. Larry was wasting time and energy fretting about what to do about Peter.

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Wearables and the productivity revolution

Join the productivity revolution

image credit: Tyler Olson / shutterstock.com

2015 will be remembered as the year wearables crossed into the mainstream.

Of course, last year’s wearables weren’t the first. But the Apple Watch, and much improved Android devices, have meant they’ve broken out of the tech community and into popular culture in a big way for the first time.

Reactions have been broadly positive – these devices look better and have far better battery life than their predecessors. But one question hangs over all of the reviews – why do we need them?

  • Less time staring at smartphone screens?
  • Better health?
  • Quicker communications?

Perhaps.

I have a different idea, and it goes against a lot of what’s been written about the new wave of wearables so far. Reviews of the Apple Watch earlier this year suggested that the constant stream of notifications on your wrist was distracting, taking you out of the moment to attend to the buzzing on your wrist, rather than focusing on the task or conversation at hand and ignoring the phone in your pocket.

Perhaps these reviewers had a point, but they’re missing the wood for the trees. They’re overlooking the huge potential these devices offer — rather than distracting us, I believe wearables have the potential to usher in a productivity revolution.

Imagine if ten years ago someone said you’d be able to have something on your wrist that could track your personal data e.g. your health stats, where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. That would have seemed revolutionary then but now it is reality.

As technology improves and user numbers grow, the potential of these devices increases.
The data wouldn’t just be useful to prompt you in the moment – it could be securely collected and analysed. And then off the back of that, you could use that data to see where you could improve your productivity, using it to make positive changes in your life.  To get specific about this, check out my productivity-focussed reviews of wearables, starting with the Apple Watch and FitBit (more coming soon).

The technology is here but the productivity revolution is only just beginning.

What next?

Are you a proud owner of a new wave wearable and already found ways to use it to improve your productivity? I’d love to hear your stories; add them in the comments below or join the discussion on Facebook.

And, if you’ve already got your hands on one of these devices and want to find out how to collect its data with minimum fuss, sign-up below and I will send you my quick guide on IFTTT to learn how to make the internet of things complete tasks for you automatically.