How To Split An Atom

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In any given week, most of us have about a thousand little projects that we need to wade our way through. Unfortunately, the immutable laws of physics only give us about 24 hours in any given day to get everything finished. Luckily, there are a few ways to reduce the amount of time you waste on redundancy and by and large increase your productivity. Let me start with the low tech and work my way up from there.

Create An Activity Log

Before you go out and by a dozen books on how to increase your productivity, take an inventory of how you are currently using your time.

For a week, make notes about how you spend your time. Do you wake up at 9AM and immediately finish up your work from the night before, or do you burn the midnight oil and do most of your best work in the hours before twilight?

For each block of time that you list, also note how you feel during this period. Do you start becoming tired during the afternoons? Are you full of energy everyday at around 6PM? Regardless, keep notes on these changes in your energy level and correlate them to the times of day in which they occur. Once that is done, it’s time to reschedule your life.

Schedule

Place all of your highest stress, highest workload projects during those times of day that your energy level is greatest. When you know that you tend to start dragging, take some time out to relax or eat something nutritious to boost your energy (fruit and nuts work well). If you find that you are always procrastinating after lunch at work, try to determine why you do it — maybe you need to remove some distractions or take some time out of the office to clear your mind. Either way, keep track of how much less time that you waste now that you have made these changes, and take another inventory if you feel there is still room for improvement.

Productivity Dash

43 Folders introduced this concept and I’ll expand upon it a bit. Generally, we are most productive if we give ourselves a mental “change of scenery” every so often. Thus, after a period of work you should take a small break and let your mind think about something else. It will help keep you fresh, and reduce the burnout that leads to procrastination.

• Start working for 20 minutes.
• Take a 5 minute break to do anything else but what you were working on.
• Return to work.
• Repeat

Some Software Tools

Even though this is a problem that could likely be solved with $5 and a speckled composition book, that’s not why you read a Web 2.0 blog. Let me introduce you to a few useful software solutions to this problem.

Ta-Da List

37 Signals provides this excellent tool to organize all the activities in your day. It’s elegant, simple and free. You can make To-Do lists, check off completed tasks, share your lists with the world and even receive alerts through RSS.

Consider it your organizational utility knife. Many times, the reason that people procrastinate is because they lack clear goals. Having a To-Do list in front of you can really help to focus your activity. Be sure to add only “actionable” items to the list. “I need to buy Eggs, Milk and Cheese from Albertsons” is substantially better than, “I need to go to the supermarket”.

Nozbe

If your goal is to hop right into GTD then Nozbe is the answer. It basically takes David Allen’s vision of folders and actionable lists of items and wraps it in AJAX. Almost everything is draggable, and the interface is really quite intuitive. Even if you know nothing about GTD, you can still gain some organizational benefits from this tool.

For a lot of people this might be overkill but if you really want to take organization to the next level, give Nozbe a try. You have nothing to lose.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Before you run out to start hacking your life, take a look at some practical, everyday solutions to procrastination. Keep abreast of all the latest happenings at How To Split An Atom if you need more guidance.

• Do not wait for the “mood” to be right to begin a task. Start working and let the mood come to you.
• You’re not perfect, be willing to make an imperfect decision.
• Fill your To-Do lists with high priority tasks, not just useless filler.
• Once you start a task devote time to it, don’t just get up and walk away.
• Eat right. Foods like fruits and nuts will give you a natural energy boost.
• Empty your To-Do list everyday.
• Reward yourself for a job well done.

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