Weekly Round-Up #58: You're Using Your Time Wrong, Sort Your Mornings Out and Stop Multi-Tasking!
Wonder how experts manage their mornings? Or maybe what tools they use? Or perhaps you need to know how to end your work day? Read this post to know more – and also why you shouldn’t multi-itask
Welcome to this week’s round-up, I hope you’ve had a fun week. Mine’s been a bit quiet on the “proper job” (as my Father calls it) front but busy on my “personal job” front.
I’ve slowly started re-organising the downloads section as the coding doesn’t work well on all browsers. I’m also moving over to a “subscribe to download” model. I know some people won’t be too happy with this but I do put a lot of effort into the downloads I create so feel I should perhaps get something out of it. There are newsletter subscriber specials too so please sign-up to my free newsletter to get access to great free downloads like my February planner (with March’s to be released soon) but I’ll still add free downloads too if you don’t want to sign up.
I’m also getting ready to launch a new website (oooh!). Trying to work on several projects at once has made me think about task management again so keep an eye out over the next few weeks for some posts about task and to-do management techniques, if you have any tips please feel free to Contact Me, I’d love to hear hzow you manage your to-do lists and what apps or systems you use.
Anyway, have a great weekend and I hope you enjoy the links I’ve put together for your this week!
The Morning Routine Experts Recommend for Peak Productivity – Time
I’ve been seeing the “pick your 3 most important tasks” technique a lot recently and this post is no different. It does however add to this with some interesting techniques such as “Magic Hours” and “Positive Procrastination” which were new techniques to me so this post’s well worth a read.
You Don’t Need More Time, You Just Need to Spend It Doing What Matters – Lifehacker
Following on from picking your 3 most important tasks and choosing a magic hour, you’ll need to be happy with when your doing these tasks.
According to a study referenced in this Lifehacker article if you’re able to set your own schedule you’ll work an average of 54 hours per week, opposed the the 37 hours a week worked by the shackled 9-5 worker. So, the take-away is you get 17 hours extra a week from a person by letting them start earlier, finish later or come in at weekends.
The last company I worked for (which is no longer in existence surprisingly) was so rigid in its time-keeping culture that even if you had to stay until 11pm to deal with a problem or international client they’d still expect you to be in at 9a.m the following morning…excuse me??!
If you’re in a similar situation, forward the article to your boss – hopefully it’ll help a bit!
How Different Seasons Affect The Way Your Brain Works – HuffPost Science
During the winter we apparently need less brain activity to accomplish a task than we do in the summer. Is that because we’re struggling to get things to work in the cold weather or just being slow and methodical so we don’t waste energy…
106 Easy Ways To Save Money – Don’t Waste The Crumbs
There are some obvious tips in this article – like “Eat Leftovers” – but also links to printables so you know what’s in season so you don’t pay over-the-odds, using cloth napkins and how to make your own toothpaste – I’ve not tried this so don’t hold me responsible!
Hat Tip Homestead and Survival
10 Things You Should Do At The End Of Your Work Day – Career Girl Daily
Any article that mentions candles as a way to end your day is okay by me! There’s some other great tips as well – and they’re not just for girls!
Multitasking Is Killing Your Brain – Observer Business & Tech
I’ve written in the past about The Myth Of Multi-Tasking and how multi-tasking “sucks you into a dead zone of productivity” if you’re not careful. If you think you’re still a multi-tasking champion then give this article a read.
Proper Planning and Organization Sets the Table for Productivity – Medium
You have a deadline so should you work towards it or from it? This article suggests that you should take your deadline and then work backwards which is an interesting concept I haven’t seen before
Hat Tip: Lifehacker
5 Steps To Create A Better To-Do List – Boho Berry
I like the idea of the “master list”, it’s sort of reminiscent of David Allen’s brain dump in GTD – in this method though you don’t shift all the brain-dumped items to their own project/context list, you can work directly from your master list.
I include this here as it’s an interesting take on the “to-do list” concept – and something I’ll be covering in my newsletter that comes out shortly – plus the author’s notebook layout looks awesome!
15 Productivity Tools Successful People Use to Work Less – Employee Scheduling Pro
There are some old favourites on this list such as Evernote but also some products I’ve not heard of before like “Humin” which purports to keep track of “how you know that guy from the thing will all the freebies”! It also mentions “Slack” which I’ve been wanting to look at but it seems more of a team collaboration tool than an individual tool – know different? Let me Know!
Anyway, check out this great post with 15 great tools to make you more productive.
Level up your webmaster skills – First Site Guide
When I first started blogging many, many moons ago there weren’t many articles or advice columns available on how to run a blog – something I figured out about 2 years too late!. If you’re thinking of starting a blog and don’t know how to start, how to focus or what platform to use then check this article out as it’ll cover a few of the pitfalls I wasn’t aware of when I started blogging ahem all those years ago!
How To Focus – 99 Smart Ideas
Talk about leaving the best until last!
Check out this fantastic article about how to focus on tasks from Camilla at 99 Smart Ideas.
Why is it so fantastic? Well, not only do yo get advice on how you should focus on your tasks from no less than 37 experts, I’ve been included as one of them!
Yeay me! And thanks to you for supporting me so I could be considered for this list!
Over To You
How’s your to-do list looking? What tools do you use to manage it or make your more productive? Let us know in the comments or shoot me an email
Have a great weekend, don’t forget to to sign up to my newsletter or follow me on Twitter and comment on this or let me know what you want to see on the blog.
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