How to be the most productive employee in the office and still go home at 5:30 pm

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Sometimes the to-do list seems endless to us. Just by looking at it, we already feel exhausted by hard work. All of us are tormented by the question of how to be productive, to have time to cope with all work tasks, but at the same time not to spend days and nights at work. In this article we will try to answer it.

This is Cal Newport. And he can be called truly productive, as he:

• a professor at the university, who spends there full time and, in addition to couples, organizes various activities for students;
• writes six (or even more) articles per year for scientific journals;
• author of four excellent books and is currently working on a fifth;
• caring husband and father;
• maintains a blog about productivity and efficiency, which is regularly updated with new entries.

Despite all of the above, he finishes work at 5:30 pm and rarely does business on weekends.

No, he's not a superhero and doesn't have a team of 15 helpers. Let's stop being jealous of such organization and efficiency for a minute and think about how Cal manages to do everything.

Below you will find tips that will help you learn how to effectively manage your time, stop being lazy, just start doing more and leave the office for home at 17:30. So, let's begin.

1. To-do lists are evil. Schedule yourself

To-do lists are useless on their own. They are just your first step. You must create a clear schedule for yourself. What for? This will help you plan what you can actually do. This will allow you to complete a specific task exactly when you can accomplish it most efficiently, and not just because it is number four on the list.

As long as you don't have a specific date and time on your list for each task, you're just wishful thinking.

Cal Newport

Planning encourages you to confront reality. You have a limited amount of time and a specific number of tasks. But you cannot determine exactly how long each task will take for you. When you have a look at the entire scope of work, you will be able to spend every working hour productively, squeeze more out of it and work where and when and where it is more convenient for you.

Experts agree that if you do not calculate the specific time it will take to complete tasks, then you doom yourself to failure in advance.

Surely many of you now think that most tasks appear suddenly and cannot be foreseen and planned. Yes, of course, such sudden tasks are very difficult to include in your schedule. But for this you do not need to be seven inches in the forehead. Everything can change at any moment. Even so, you have to have a plan, otherwise you will be wasting your own time.

Want to stop being a procrastinator? The schedule will help you.

Cal Newport

The realization that you have a clearly planned scope of work already reduces the desire to procrastinate with doing things. You don't think about whether or not you should work now - the decision has already been made.

Does this sound overly orderly and not too much fun to you? Think wrong.

Research proves that scheduling not only work time but also leisure time is a good idea. So you will improve the quality of your life: the standard of living of people who clearly plan even their free time is much higher than that of those who do not.

Okay, we dumped the to-do list and put together a specific schedule. Now let's learn how to prioritize, because you can't work 24 hours seven days a week, right?

2. Assume that you are going to go home at 5:30 pm, and then plan out the things that you will have time to do before that time

The work will take up all the time you give it. Give her 24 hours, seven days a week, and rest assured, the work will consume all of those 168 hours.

You have to set boundaries if you want to balance work and personal life. Time constraints will contribute to your efficiency.

Set a deadline for yourself: you leave work at 5:30 pm. And then plan the amount of tasks that you can master by this time.

Cal calls this tight schedule performance.

You can also go the other way: create yourself the ideal work schedule for a bum, and then do the exact opposite. Work hard and hard without feeling sorry for yourself. Trust me, when you work hard, smart and useful solutions will find you on their own.

But do not forget that you need to protect yourself from overwork. You should feel like you are in control of your schedule. The more you feel in control of the situation, the less stress you will experience.

Okay, you imagine the perfect day for a bum and do the opposite. This will help you to efficiently cope with your current tasks. What about long-term projects?

3. Make a plan for the current week

I think you will agree that short-term plans are not cool anymore. If you only think about today, you will never be ahead.

Do you want to write books, be involved in various activities, do research and be a good parent at the same time? You need a specific plan for the week.

Cal Newport

People do not like to look at long-term plans, but they forget how much benefit they can bring them. I know what I do every hour, day, week, month of my life. Do you think this is difficult? Easier than you think. It takes one hour on Monday morning. Only.

Monday morning I make a plan for the week. I go through my mail, think about the tasks I need to get done, check my calendar and think about how to plan my time like this. Once I have a plan, I email it to myself, now I will always see it in my inbox. Here I can observe him every day, and also I can always return to him many times a day if I suddenly forget about my priorities.

And Cal is right. You spend your time more efficiently when you follow a plan.

Perhaps you think that it is enough just to think through all the upcoming tasks for the week in your head, and you do not need to write them down. No, it’s not like that.

If you write a plan of affairs, then the more likely you will stick to it: you will have something tangible, not ideal, it will remind you of your priorities.

So, you now have a clear schedule and a weekly plan. But you feel that something else is missing. And you think correctly.

4. Do fewer tasks, but do it with passion

You’re probably thinking something like, “I just have too much to do. I will never be able to cope with them in the allotted period of time."

And Cal admits that you might be right. But you shouldn't give up or work in panic until 22:00.

You should have less to do than you have now. Remember that not all of your affairs are as important as they might seem. You say yes more often than you should. Ask yourself, "What is really valuable to me in life?" And then cut off as much unnecessary as possible.

Cal Newport

We are always appreciated for what we do best. So, if you want to be successful, don't be sprayed, let you do fewer tasks, but you will have the opportunity to perform them better. People say yes too often. I say no to many and many. I mercilessly avoid tasks that relax me if I feel that they do not matter much to me.

You feel like you have no time at all, but John Robinson, a time management specialist, disagrees with you and believes that today we can have a lot more free time than ever.

He insists that modern people do not work harder than their predecessors (although most of us think otherwise). Research shows that over the past 40 years, people have spent much less time completing work tasks and are much more likely to engage in unproductive distractions. Everyone, according to John, has time to rest.

What is the conclusion from this? You feel like you don't have time because it is torn apart into annoying little tasks that drain your life and you.

So, do less. But do it "less" with passion and excitement.

Your plans are structured and they fit perfectly into your schedule. But one question still remains open: what tasks should you perform?

5. Pay less attention to small tasks - focus on what is of higher priority

At work, we do various things. Little things like parsing e-mail, current and, if you think about, not always necessary meetings and eavesdropping on the next office gossip do not require any special mental effort from us. You don't use your talents here. If you are engaged in any important business, then it requires the activation of all your abilities and skills. This leads to quality results.

What's the problem with small tasks? We are drowning in "shallow water".

People who often work weekends and nights feel like they are doing a lot less than those who say goodbye to work at five in the evening. This happens because they work a lot, but the significance of the tasks they perform is small.

It is unlikely that anyone became CEO just because they answered all emails or attended one unnecessary minor meeting. Yes, scrupulous execution of even small tasks will save you from being fired, but you will be able to develop only when large-scale tasks become your main priority.

Have time to devote exclusively to priority tasks. How to start this difficult business?

The main thing is to stop checking your email first thing in the morning.

Tim Ferris Bestselling author of How to Work 4 Hours a Week

Try not to check your email in the first two hours after waking up. It is even difficult for some people to imagine it, they will surely have questions like: “How can I do this? I definitely need to check my mail, otherwise I won't be able to get to work. You will be surprised to know that in most cases this is not the case at all.

Yes, maybe you really should go into your email and glean information that will allow you to complete the task 100%. But you can first complete it by 80 or 90%, and only then crawl into your letters for additional information. So you will save yourself in the morning from unnecessary and extraneous information, to which your attention will definitely switch, and you will be able to devote yourself exclusively to work.

So how do we tie all of the above together? Oddly enough, just to summarize.

Cal gave us five good tips:

1. To-do lists are evil. Make a schedule for yourself.
2. Assume that you are going to go home at 5:30 pm, and then plan out the things to do before that time.
3. Make a plan for the current week.
4. Do fewer tasks, but do it with passion.
5. Pay less attention to small tasks - focus on higher priority.

Now the words "schedule" and "plans" sound cold to you, and you do not understand the specific benefits that they will bring you. But once you make them a part of your life, you realize that you have free time for family and friends. Plus, you will do things that you can be proud of.

Cal Newport

Intellectual work is actually masterful work. But it is not as difficult as it seems: you are not doing wood carving, but working with information. You develop ideas. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff and sometimes create ideas from the raw material. If you start to look at this process from the standpoint of a master, you will become happier, satisfied with your work and, of course, more successful in your professional life.

Choose who you want to be: an office recluse or a successful creator?