Page 36 - Planning And Prioritizing Time Management Manual

Saving Time

We all wish we had more time. More time to relax, more time to get in shape, more time
for our friends and family, and more time for ourselves. There are hundreds of ways
to save time throughout your day. Invest a few minutes checking out the tips and
advice collected here and start saving time today!

1. Decide what’s important because in 5 years, 80% of what you do today will not
turn into anything. It’s just busywork, no useful outcome.

2. Sleep, food and exercise can help you triple your outcome, because they
increase focus, motivation and energy levels.

3. The 2-minute rule: if you can do something (like replying to an email, or a
house chore) in 2 minutes, do it now. Planning it for later, remembering it,

doing it in the future will take 5 minutes or more.

4. The 5-minute rule: the biggest cure against procrastination is to set your goal
not to finish a scary big hairy task, but to just work 5 minutes on it. You’ll find
out that most times it continues well beyond the 5 minutes, as you enter a flow

state.

5. Seinfeld’s productivity chain: if you want to be good at something, do it every
day. Including on Christmas, Easter and Judgement Day. No exceptions.

6. Tiny habits, highly linked with the 5-minute rule, helps you create good habits
quickly. It works, I tested it.

7. Your memory sucks. Get everything out of your head, even if you’re a genius.

Write it down in a notebook, put it in your todo-list app, on your phone, talk to
Siri, I don’t care.

8. As few tools as possible. I’ve tested most of the todo managers and finally
stayed with Cultured Code’s Things app and Google Calendar (iCal is ok, but
Google Calendar integrates well with Gmail, my default client). It doesn’t

matter what you use (pen & paper are fine) if you understand the next rule.

9. Routine beats tools. You need discipline, and this means for me two things: I
plan my day first thing in the morning, and I write a short daily log every day.
This helps me stay sane, prioritize well, scrap useless tasks, and do what
matters. This saves me hours.

10. Timeboxing — for 30 minutes do only the task at hand. Nothing else: no
phones, email, talking to people, Facebook, running out of the building in

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