Are you selective about your projects?
The simple act of being selective about the work that you do can make all the difference in the world!
The difference between busy and productive people is that busy people want to do all of the things, all of the projects, and fill all of their time working on whatever they can get their hands on. Productive people are able to accomplish much more in less time and feel more fulfilled at the end of their work days.
Be selective, know your own schedule and your capacity for tasks. This is how you become productive.
How does it make you feel to see the end of the work? The way you feel is one factor in finding out the difference between busy and productive work.
What if I told you that you were done all the work that you needed to accomplish today and that you were free to go and do something for yourself?
Completing your daily tasks is meant to feel good, to give you a feeling of relief and a good sense of self-worth.
If you are stuck in a busy loop this idea of “being done” may bring up fear or make you feel uncomfortable.
If you would rather feel relief and have a good sense of self-worth at the end of your day then read on.
What is the difference between urgent and important?
I learned this concept many years ago in my first corporate job.
The company that I was working with at the time believed that we needed to communicate with similar verbiage so that it would make communicating easy and effective.
They chose to train us all on Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
I loved the training and the book and I adopted the methodology immediately.
The concept of what is urgent and what is important comes from the training I received all these years ago.
The way he described it was in four separate quadrants.
- Q1 – Important and Urgent
- Crises
- Your house is on fire.
- Q2 – Important but not Urgent
- Goals and Planning
- Self-care.
- Q3 – Not important but urgent
- Notifications from social media or email
- Q4 – Not important and not Urgent
- Distractions
- Netflixing a season of your favourite TV show.
When you apply this concept to your daily tasks it makes it easier to see what you are spending your time doing.
To be productive the bulk of your time needs to be spent in Q2. This is where you are working on tasks that are directly attached to your overall goals and where you are going to get the most value for your time spent.
How do you know where you are spending the bulk of your time?
All my clients start out with a time audit to show them the difference between busy and productive time in their day.
I bet you think that you don’t have time for that. I would argue that if you don’t take the time to do this, you will never have the time to do anything!
The easiest and quickest way to find out where you are spending your time is to look at everything that you do in your day and sort out how much time you spend in which quadrant.
When you understand how each of these four quadrants shows up in your life and business, you will then have the power to decide how much time you are willing to give each of them each day.
There is nothing wrong with spending a day in quadrant four if you plan it.
Busy work will distract you
Going back to the quadrant system, where do you think all of those notifications from your phone and your computer belong?
If you said Q3 you would be correct!
The ways we use our phones and our computers today are huge distractions.
You don’t have to be like everyone else!
You have the power to change the way you use your phone and your computer. Turn off your notifications, set your phone to mute, or silent while you are doing focused work, and while you are with your family or your friends.
Your time is valuable and so is everyone else’s around you.
The best gift that you can give yourself and those around you is to be fully present with them.
When you are working on focused work and your phone is constantly binging and your computer is showing you pop-ups of all the things you are “missing” it is keeping you from accomplishing the things in Q2 which as you know from before are the things that will help you to get to your goals.
There are apps for your phone that can help you to mitigate the noise and vibrations to limit the distractions.
My phone is set to do not disturb all the time.
I chose when I pick it up and check it, and it only makes noise when specific people contact me.
You can do similar things with your computer as well. There are programs and settings that allow you to choose how you want to be notified.
I encourage you to be mindful of when you are choosing to allow something to alert you to what they feel are important for you to know about. This will help you to chose between busy and productive time.
Multitasking actually slows you down
I used to think that the more things that I could work on at a time the more productive I was.
That was a huge lie!
Once I realized that working on one thing at a time actually allowed me to accomplish so much more I was amazed!
The best way to describe this phenomenon was when I heard it explained by Todd Herman of the 90 day year.
He references a study done by Gerald Weinberg where he showed that every time you switch from one task to another you lose 20% of your time.
If you add up all the 20% time losses during the course of your day as you switch between tasks, it becomes very clear very fast that multitasking is robbing you of your productive Q2 time.
If you still think you are a multitasking machine, and that I am full of shit, then I encourage you to spend one day where you focus solely on one Q2 task at a time and see how your day feels compared to every other day you have lived previously.
It is also important to make time for breaks in your day. In the above quadrant, description self-care is also in the Q2 space.
Your brain can’t work efficiently 24/7
Setting boundaries in your life and business aren’t just about making sure other people treat you the way you want to be treated.
Boundaries are great ways to learn how you want to treat yourself as well.
I encourage you to start by choosing the hours in which you want to work in your business. There are actually two distinctly different ways that we work as business owners.
- In our business
- On our business
Setting your boundaries in your calendar to make room for each of these two important types of work is imperative to your success.
The next piece to this puzzle is to honour the time boundaries that you have set.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but more often than not we want to make exceptions for people and things that move our boundaries.
When you begin to honour your boundaries, the people in your life will also honour them.
This gives you the freedom to be 100% present in all aspects of your life.
When you are at work you are fully present and working on your Q2 tasks, accomplishing more than you ever thought possible before.
Then when it is time to be away from your business, for yourself, your family or friends, you have the confidence that you can be fully present knowing that you had a fantastic and accomplished day at work and now you can focus on where you are and who you are with.
Creating a peaceful life
Creating a peaceful life begins with honouring what you want, and surrounding yourself with like-minded people who will support you on your journey.
I invite you to join us in our Facebook group where you can feel comfortable being uncomfortable as you begin your journey of creating your very own peaceful life.
