Welcome the final part of my productivity-boosting series: “Inspire Yourself and Fulfill Your Potential in Graduate School.” In the first three parts, I showed you how to discover your true purpose, set up long-term goals, and increase your focus. To optimize your time-management skills, today I will share with you one of the top efficiency-enhancing strategies.
It has happened to all of us. We go to work committed to get a really big project done. We might get some of it done, but before we know it we get distracted by emails, text messages, coworkers or our own internal worries. It is not possible to eliminate all distractions or to stop random thoughts from popping into your head. But you can maintain such a high level of focus that you will be able to function at top efficiency in spite of continuous interruptions.
I have read many time-management books and a common theme I have observed among them is that motivation comes with doing. In other words, you have to start to do something before the real motivation comes. This is why it is so important to devote time to your long-term project every day even if it is just 5 minutes on Thanksgiving Day, for example. When you commit time to your goal every day you will build up momentum and focus and produce high quality work. There is more to the story, however.
One of my favorite productivity enhancing tools comes from the book “Eat that Frog,” by best-selling author Brian Tracy. According to an old proverb, if you begin your day by eating a live frog, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that that’s the worst thing that can happen to you all day. To apply the metaphor to a work day, your frog is the action that will have the most impact on your results, one that perhaps you have been procrastinating. Examples include learning a new software, getting your workspace organized or writing a manuscript. Think about which frog you would need to eat to make the biggest leap in reaching your goals.
If you want to jump-start your productivity, try the following strategy every day for the next week. At the end of the day, spend a minute or two writing down what you have accomplished that day, no matter how small. Then, write down 3 realistic outcomes for the next day. Decide which one is your frog and commit time to work on first thing in the morning. If you have trouble deciding what to work on first, pick the most that seems the most intimidating, the one that you are most likely to put off unless you get it out of the way. The next day (here is the important part), begin working on your frog before you check your email, text messages or anything else that can distract you. Work for 30-60 minutes (until you have made measurable progress) before checking your email.
This strategy will guarantee that you will have a sense of accomplishment before you burden your mind with emails, text messages etc. At the end of the day write down what you have accomplished, what your 3 desired outcomes are for the following day, and pick the toughest one to be your frog the next morning. As you will discover, there will always be frogs, challenging tasks that you would rather put off until later. But the more frogs you eat, the better (and faster) you will become at it. Soon, you will surprise yourself and others around you by becoming truly focused turning assignments much around faster.