by admin on September 20, 2009
In late 2006 I found an old 1920’s course on Efficiency (claimed to be the world’s first ever) from the Emerson Institute of Efficiency.
I then realized getting organized is impossible in today’s modern lifestyles…
That what we’re all really after is to be efficient.
See the free ebook What It Really Takes To Get Organized.
Then in 2007 I re-read the story of Ivy Lee and his 1930′s time management technique of prioritizing… and that made me realize how time management training is 80 years out of date!
See the free ebook on the 3 Obsolete Time Management Techniques (and what to do about it)
In 2008 I learned a little more about Albert Einstein’s ideas from the 1940’s, who offered the following idea about time:
“The train does not arrive at the station at 7:00 p.m. The train arrives at the station at the same moment the hand on the clock reaches seven p.m.”
“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.”
by admin on September 14, 2009
When you get up in the morning, go through your regular routine and finally sit down to work…how effective and productive are you for that first half hour or so?
Do you dive directly into high-value, profitable work?
Or do you fumble around, figuring out what needs to be done first, checking through some papers on your desk and then finally getting started on something?
For most of us, the true answer usually falls somewhere in between these two extremes.
We don’t dive directly into a state of maximum productivity. But nor are we a complete mess.
But most of us could do better.
And we could all benefit significantly from being able to jump into top gear within a few minutes of sitting down each day.
In fact, if you think about it carefully, you could increase your income dramatically simply by shortening the time it takes to get into that top gear each day.
How can you do it?
Here are two things you can do that will help.
First, be sure to update your schedule and to-do list at the END of each day. In other words, before you finish work for the day, get everything ready and prepared for the next day.
This means that when you first sit down to work, you’ll be ready to get started immediately.
Second, do a quick audit of the ways in which you waste time at the beginning of the day. How much time do you spend reading emails that are just not important or of value to you? How much time do you spend on news sites? How many blogs and feeds do you follow?
Ask yourself which of these activities are a good use of your time, and which of them waste your time.
You’ll find a lot more on how to make the most productive use of your time in Writing Rituals. But these two tips alone will help you wake up productive and increase the value of the time you spend at your desk each day.
For more information on how to increase your productivity, find out about the Writing Rituals method…
(this applies just as much to copywriters as it does to managers or business owners that need to get effective things done efficiently.)
