Do you have chores at home and you’re staying late at work? You got a doctor appointment, an oil change to due and an inspection sticker that is three months overdue? These things can pile up real quick the longer you let them go. I understand that there are sometimes some coincidences and things line up that are little bit out of your control. A lot of times however this is due to a lack of productivity when you are overburdened with just too many little things all at one time.
“And then she said, no it doesn’t make SENSE… and it isn’t worth peanuts! And we just laaauuughhed…”
I understand this. Troubled times call for unproductive measures – it’s human nature. We all get bogged down a little bit. I’ve got some ideas here to help you make the most use of your time and take back control of your life today.
Number One – Delete As Much As You Can
Whether this is items that are on your to do list that you know you’ll never get to and aren’t really important anyway. Delete them. Maybe this is e-mail from people that you don’t even talk to anymore or aren’t interested in keeping up to date with. Delete it. This could also be big piles of paper and stuff that you have laying around your house that’s just taking up space and mental attention. Delete it. Get rid of these things and free up your mental processing power in that way.
Number Two – Delegate What You Can
At work this is much easier, especially if you have people that help you or are under you. But you can do this outside of work to and that’s to delegate things that you’re either not really good at or you have no business doing.
If you are not good at building the new bookshelf for your kid, maybe you should do some math and figure out that hey it’s probably better just to spend the 40 bucks or to get someone else to make it. Maybe the same thing is true for your taxes. Sure it might cost you 100 or 200 bucks but if it ends up saving you 300 400 or 500 in the long run you would have been better off going with an expert to delegate that task to.
Number Three – Do The Quick Stuff ASAP
If you know for a fact from previous experience that you can get whatever it is in front of you done in somewhere between two and five minutes, just stop what you’re doing and do it right then and there. Assuming you don’t have some gigantic list of these things, handling the onesie to twosies as they come is a sure fire way to keep your list small and manageable.
Number Four – Scheduled The Rest
If it’s big, cumbersome and requires too much of your resources then you just need to schedule it for some other time. This is not the time for you to do it and to give it too much of your attention. Set it aside and set up the rest of what you have available to more properly work on this when it makes the most sense.
More Work, More Chances to Grow
Getting depressed and overwhelmed by your work is not the right way to live your life, troubled times or not. You can always up your productivity when you keep these four tips in mind. Deleting as much as you can. Delegating what you can. Doing the super quick stuff and scheduling the rest. Take back your life and own up to some great productivity.