Follow Rachel Barnard

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Toiling Tuesdays: How I am So Productive

I don't just make to do lists, I make a plan of attack. A plan of attack may look like a to do list but it differs in a very significant way: activities are broken up like so...

Sample Plan of Attack:

2 sections of internal audit procedure
test one bag of switches
add 4 vendors to list
finalize vendor selection and approval criteria, send for release
organize emails
pay credit card
finish xyz board edits
2 sections of internal audit procedure
test one bag of switches
...

You'll notice that most of these pertain to working (with a personal errand thrown in). I like to intersperse all the work activities with short isolated personal items so that I will psychologically think I got 'everything' I needed to get done finished and not just harping on work the entire time. Doing a plan of attack this way, I tend to work from when I wake up in the morning (a bit before 8 AM) to before I have to leave for a night time activity or start my exercises or break for dinner (between 4:30 P.M. and 6 P.M.) Additionally, sometimes my work plan of attack merges into my night-time personal plan of attack with very few, if any, work activities thrown in.

The key to a plan of attack is to create shorter and manageable activities and break up the long slog of writing a procedure or testing 500 boards. You will remain alert, excited, and productive. The key is to know the amount of one activity to put in your plan of attack. Sometimes I organize the plan by time slots but most of the time it's by amount I want to accomplish.

The plan of attack is a constantly changing plan, don't feel obligated to stick to it completely, you can move around things or add on to each part of the activity. Sometimes when I'm on a roll I'll just continue with one thing until I'm sick of doing it.

My other important tip for staying so productive: If you find yourself procrastinating on a project because you don't want to do it, find something harder that you want to do even less than the first project and voile that first project won't seem so bad and you'll get it done (in lieu of the harder project)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking time to leave a comment! A word a day keeps insanity away.