Eyes of an Entrepreneur

Ok, so I've noticed lately it's been hard to be very productive. Between work and school, keeping on top of everything, before it happens is getting to be overwhelming. Over the next week I'm going to do some research on how to be more productive (not just at work, but in all aspects of life).

Earlier in the month, my partners brought to my attention a book called Getting Things Done. Like most things on this blog, this book teaches you just what it seems, how to get things done. One of the pillars of this system is using lists. Now, I know what you're all thinking and making to do lists isone thing, but these lists are more detailed than that.

So, why lists?

Well, the author notes that remembering things that you need to do each day, or each weeks takes up a big chunk of your short term memory. Consider a computer, you can only run so many programs at once before you overload the processor and your computer crashes. Well, your brain is very similar, you only have a certain amount of space in your short term memory and thus need to constantly move and replace things to remember them. This isn't very efficient and actually creates a lot of stress.

Now, how do you do it?

Like I said, these lists are meant to be more than just that. Each task also has a priority level associated with it. You can use a number scale or colors to prioritize, whatever is easiest to remember (a key would save some of that short term memory that I was talking about before, but I digress). In order to categorize these tasks, you must assign an importance to them. Things that must be done now (1-5 minutes), things that need to be done short term (that you need to block off time for), and things that you will put off (these can be considered the things that you want to do, but are not crucial). Things that can be done in a matter of minutes should be done immediately, so you can maximize your daily output. For longer tasks, you are going to want to block off time to do them and avoid any and all interruptions. If a task has multiple steps, you want to identify what steps are necessary and the order they need to be performed in.

Another tip when creating a list is to do the least interesting tasks first. If you put these off, you will probably never get to them.

Once you have created the list, you have freed your mind from the stress of remember all of the things you need to do, and can now concentrate on what is the most important.

Well, that's it for today, but check back soon for another productivity tip.

Agbi