Sir yes sir. Sir no sir. Sir permission to speak sir.
I remembered that was how we answered our officers back in high school when I was a model cadet. No frills. No beating around the bush. My school Don Bosco Makati is still one of the best cadet competing units in the country. We won in four major cup competitions during my senior year despite having both academic and technical subjects in school.
We had to increase our productivity in every minute we spend to accomplish our tasks and leave nothing hanging.
Cut the chase. Straight to the point. If you want to produce results in lesser amount of time then get to business right away.
Realize the value of time and treat it as important as money by monitoring, budgeting and analyzing where it goes everyday. You will be surprised how much time have actually been spent on productive tasks and how much went to garbage.
Below is a list of common sense productivity guidelines that will help us get that first step.
Jot down — Spend at least 3 minutes a day jotting in a spreadsheet the number of tasks and hours you spend in a day. Do this for say two weeks and analyze where you have been. Results might even blow you off only three days after.
Analyze results and make adjustments.
Just do it — Don’t spend a lot of time mulling on things but just do it and get your ass to work.
Manage your time — It’s like money. Just too many off-budgeted expenses happen. This are called disturbances in time value. Plan and manage your time well to mitigate surprises.
Calendarize It! — Don’t waste time tiring your brain out on memorization of tasks to do. Writing it down will simplify retrieval and cut the amount of time.
Priorities — Don’t be a superman. Think of the most important things you need to accomplish and rank them based on priority. You can never do things all at the same time.
Scheduled Meetings — Have you ever worked with a boss that grabs you any day and anytime for a meeting? That is so ridiculous. I have worked with someone like that and had to do something about it.
Stick them for Good — I had the habit of writing sticky notes before. In this digital age I call them notepad. They are littered all over my desktop. Avoid this and have either a spiral notebook or use Ms OneNote. If you could afford a PDA then by all means do so. This simplified everything by being able to jot down notes while on the go and while at still.
Speed Reading Course — This is so cool. There is a Bookstore in our location that allows people to read free of charge. By being able to read fast I was able to read almost every book out there in half the time required. This works well in our daily information feeding.
Chess moves — Chess players try to think of the next or so moves. Do the same. You will always find the results of a very good plan.
The short list of reminders should give you considerable amount of productivity on a daily basis. If you are already doing these things; it still helps to remind you whether you could take them to the next level.
Time Management from the Inside Out
