12 More Ways to Be Efficient

Monday, May 14, 2012

12 More Ways to Be Efficient

1. 30 days. Identify a new habit you’d like to form, and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days. A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one

2. Cross-pollination. Sign up for something a bit out of your comfort zone. Go to a martial arts, start a blog, or join an improv group. You’ll often encounter ideas in one field that can boost your performance in another.

3. Delegate. Convince someone else to do it for you.

4. Early bird. Get up early in the morning, like at 5am, and go straight to work on your most important task. You can often get more done before 8am than most people do in a day.

5. Glittering prizes. Give yourself frequent rewards for achievement. See a movie, book a professional massage, or spend a day at an amusement park.

6. Intuition. Go with your gut. It’s probably right.

7. Pareto. The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t over engineer the non-critical 80%.

8. Punctuality. Whatever it takes, show up on time. Arrive early.

9. Randomize. Pick a totally random piece of a larger project, and complete it. Pay one random bill. Make one phone call. Write one page of a book.

10. Relaxify. Reduce stress by cultivating a relaxing, clutter-free workspace.

11. Tempo. Deliberately pick up the pace, and try to move a little faster than usual. Speak faster. Walk faster. Type faster. Read faster. Go home sooner.

12. Timeboxing. Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task. Don’t worry about how far you get. Just put in the time.

Adapted from stevepavlina.com