Get Home Early Today – a Productivity Boost

Hate to say it but most people are ineffective.  They often don’t get the job done on time AND they don’t get home on time.  No one wins.

Effective habits don’t come naturally to us.  Our default setting is ‘ineffective’.  And ‘effectiveness’ was never a subject at school.  It would be ironic in my opinion if it was.  In fact, the very ineffective approach to the way school works ingrains some bad habits in to us that we carry through in to later life. However, effectiveness is learnable.  And over time, the habits can give you a sense of liberation from your work.

Want to get home on time today?  Try this:

You’ve possibly heard Pareto’s Law.  One application is that 80% of our results at work get done in 20% of our working time; that amazing 20% when we’re focused and in flow, getting the job done well.

If you could extract that magic 20%, and only do that, then theoretically you’d get 80% of your work done.  That’s within 2 hours of a 10 hour work day.  Then you could use the rest of the time how you like.

How can we get to the magic 20%?

One way is to use forced efficiency which I write about in a previous article here.  Ask yourself, ‘if I only had 1 hour at work today and then had to rush off, what would I get done in that 1 hour, and how would I do it?’

You’d  probably start by politely telling your colleague next to you to shut up about what was on TV last night.

You’d devote your attention to scan over all that needs to be done, and you’d instantly start recognising the key priorities. You’ll soon pick out the few actions that will have the most impact or consequences to your work.

You’d think about who you could delegate to, what you could defer, what you could just scrap doing altogether.  You’d find existing work that you could re-use to save re-inventing the wheel.  You’d instantaneously be a lot smarter as you consider how to achieve your desired result.  You’d probably write a quick neat list of what needs to be done in that 1 hour.

Then you’d just get on with it with urgency.  And often this way, you quickly get in to that state of flow.

You’ll be surprised by your progress if you start the day like this.  Never mind the exact figures in the theory, they don’t matter.  It’s just probabilistic.  It increases the chances heavily that you’ll not only get your important work done, but also get home on time, or earlier.

Just do it and see what it does for you.  And let me know how you go below.

You might also like these:

1. Learn Productivity From Airlines
2. How to Get What You’re Lacking
3. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out
4. How to Make Decisions for Better Returns
5. Big Decisions: Taking Risks