Double Your Productivity - 4 easy steps
The first step to better managing your time is to find out how you're currently
spending your time. Using JournalLive to keep a time log of all your computer activity
is a very effective way to do this, and after trying it for just one day, you'll
immediately gain tremendous insight into where your time is actually going. The
very act of measuring is often enough to raise your unconscious habits into your
consciousness, where you then have a chance to scrutinize and change them.
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You may be surprised to discover you're spending only a small fraction of your working
time doing what you'd consider to be actual work. Studies have shown that the average
office worker does only 1.5 hours of actual work per day. The rest of the time is
spent socializing, taking coffee breaks, eating, engaging in non-business communication,
shuffling papers, and doing lots of other non-work tasks. The average full-time
office worker doesn't even start doing real work until 11:00am and begins to wind
down around 3:30pm.
Calculate your 'Personal Efficiency Ratio' (PER) - i.e. The amount of time you spend
on actual work divided by the total amount of time you spend in your office.
Reduce the number of hours you spend in the office. Once your brain realizes that
working time is scarce, you suddenly become a lot more efficient because you have
to be. When you have tight time constraints, you will usually find a way to get
your work done. But when you have all the time in the world, it's too easy to be
inefficient.
Over a period of a few weeks, gradually increase your weekly office time while maintaining
your Personal Efficiency Ratio. You can expect to double or even treble your productivity!
It might seem counter-intuitive, but reducing the number of hours you spend at work
can be the first step in increasing the amount of work you get done!