This is a transcript from the Calm Cash Podcast Episode: 8 Ways To Simplify Your Day
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Hi and welcome to Calm Cash. I’m your host Ben Jackson. I hit a wall the other day. Just really feeling overwhelmed with the collision or intersection of work and life and the total blurred lines between where those two things start and stop. Here is a little context to paint the picture. It is almost 5 months of working from home now and I’ve been working some really, really long hours. My company announced a week ago that we would continue to work like this until the middle of next year…2021. Ugh! At that point it will be 15+ months of this atypical situation for me.
There are many people, probably many of you listening, who are used to working from home…maybe full time. But for me it has been a real change and I’ve been trying to just force my way through it but it finally just all hit me. So I’ve been looking for ways to simplify, set boundaries but also boost my productivity. This search took me back to one of my favorite books and also some new resources I’ve discovered that I want to share. So today let’s talk about 8 ways to simplify your day and hopefully make you happier AND get more done. Let’s get started.
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If you are looking for a great book on structuring your day to be as productive as possible and to facilitate your best work, I highly recommend Cal Newport’s Deep Work. The subtitle on the book is “Rules for focused success in a distracted world”. This book came out in 2016, way before the pandemic but when I re-read parts of the book you would think Cal wrote it a week ago. It just holds up and is applicable to our current environment. Distractions and the frantic world around us are the new normal and his tips and frameworks are more relevant than ever.
On the heels of the success of Deep Work, others have picked up the productivity and planning topic to add research and strategies to the space. These 8 tips are the best advice I found and am using in my own life to understand how I’m spending my time and reclaim the balance and productivity I seem to have lost. My goal? Do great work and generate more time in my personal life to spend with family and explore my interests. Here are 8 strategies I’m using to achieve this goal.
First, I had to know where my time was going. That may sound super obvious and you may know exactly how you are spending your time, but as my work days grew longer and seemingly the days started running together, I started losing track of where my own time was going. And I’m not just talking about at work, this was bleeding over into my personal time as screen time on my phone started to dominate more of my free time when I wasn’t working. If you need help understanding how you are spending your time like I did, I recommend a time audit.
Time audits are the simple action or activity of tracking how you are spending your work and free time. The easiest way to do this is with a 24 hour time log. I setup my time log by dividing my day into 6 blocks of time that are 4 hours long. I usually sleep 8 hours and keep a pretty set schedule of going to bed and waking up so that took up 2 of the 6 blocks. For the other 16 hours or 4 blocks, I tracked all the activities in my work and life that I completed. After doing this for a few days, you will see the items that are essential or said differently, the non-negotiables. These are sleeping, eating, self care like showering and brushing your teeth and then for me there are things for my family like bedtime routines and things like that. Knowing your non-negotiables and when they happen help you immediately set boundaries and plan for how much time is left over. A typical day for me has about 12 hours of non-negotiables. So that leaves 12 to allocate!
Another important part of my time audit was using the technology on my phone to help me track how much time each day and what apps I was using to pass my non-work free time. The Screen Time tracking on my iPhone shows me how long I’m on my phone and compares it to my averages over time. As things got more hectic, I was spending way too much time on Twitter in the evenings during non-work time and losing sight of essential activities that help me relax and be my best self like reading, exercising and connecting with my wife. Use technology to your advantage by letting the data help you see where that screen time is going and adjust accordingly.
Second, determine your MIT’s. What is an MIT? That stands for Most Important Tasks. We all have a million things we COULD do in a day but understanding the real priorities in our work and personal lives will ultimately make us more successful and create a greater sense of satisfaction once we knock out these key activities or deliverables. An MIT list is very different than a To-Do list. I used to be a huge proponent of the To-Do list. In fact, there were times that I completed something but it wasn’t on my list and I would write it down just so I could put a line through it. That is totally weird isn’t it?
But I love that feeling of crossing something off my list. It feels like a small victory but what you have to be wary of is getting focused too much on task completion and not spending time on the really important stuff in your work and personal life. That is what was happening to me so I’ve stopped doing “To-Do” lists and instead have an MIT list of 3 to 5 things each day. Since my work and home life are now basically the same, there is no point to keep separate MIT lists for these 2 aspects of my life. All my day’s critical, must-complete items make the same list whether that is a presentation for work or a thank you note to a friend.
When you identify what’s important to complete in your day, you can also assess what meetings, commitments, actions and activities you need to execute to complete these important tasks. Understanding how you get to the destination can you help you structure your calendar to set you up for success. So for example, if you have to finish a presentation for your boss tomorrow, you may need to schedule meetings with others to collect data and block working time to compile the PowerPoint. That might be 3 hours of work right there so now you can structure your time to make sure you are successful.
I compile my MIT list in the evening after work so I can hit the ground running the next day on these key tasks. It also helps me prepare for my next tip on the list.
Third, visualize your success and how to have a great day. You may have heard about athletes visualizing their success to perform their best but this same practice can be done for all aspects of our life. Researches have observed that our thoughts produce the same mental instructions in our brains as actions. Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain including motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. It’s been found that mental practices can enhance motivation, increase confidence and self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for success, and increase states of flow—all relevant to achieving your best life and crushing your MIT list. So after you know your key tasks for tomorrow, spend 5 minutes visualizing your success and how you want your day to play out to make you as successful as possible. Picture your presentation going exceptionally well or you working calmly and focused at your computer making great progress. If your MITs are personal items, visualize successful outcomes and happy family members to spend time with.
Ok, you know what you have to do and you’ve visualized your success, now let’s get to work.
The fourth tip is to learn to say no. For some people, this is really hard to do. For all of us this may be challenging if a more senior person like a boss has a new project or a friend is asking for a favor. Before signing up for another commitment, you have to understand this new responsibility in the context of your MITs. Is something going to fall off your list? Are you going to work an extra 2 hours tonight? If so, what are the implications in other aspects of your work and personal life? Half of the battle to guarding our time is knowing what is most important…and having a Most Important Task list each day will help you understand how to rank and prioritize your time and actions. If you are struggling to say no to a boss, show her your own MIT list and work together on the best ways to spend your time. For new requests of your time and effort that don’t outrank your current MIT list, these are the ones to turn down or delegate to someone else to get completed.
Fifth, drop the multi-tasking. I’m not talking about folding the laundry and listening to a podcast at the same time. That stuff is totally fine. What I’m talking about is trying to work on your report while checking Instagram and listening to a conference call. We used to celebrate the multi-taskers of the world and talk about how much they got accomplished. Well it turns out, we didn’t quite get that right. If your concentration is being constantly broken and redirected to different tasks, this costs more energy, and ultimately more time to complete tasks. Single tasking is far more productive and healthier for your brain because you don’t have to endure the mental stress caused by perpetually stopping and starting tasks.
To do your best work and also complete your MIT’s in an efficient way, mindfully single-tasking is the way to go. The key is one task at a time with your full focus and attention paid to this activity that you’ve prioritized. Be fully present in this time so close out your email, put your phone away and truly focus. Your day will be simpler, your time more enjoyable and your efficiency greater once you get into the habit of working in the moment.
Sixth, do your hardest tasks at the right time. We all have challenging things we have to get accomplished. Sometimes these are things we just dread doing so we put them off. The problem with that strategy is doing the most challenging work when we are tired or lacking energy can create frustration and prolong the amount of time to get things done. So, first you have to understand when you are most productive. For most people, that will be earlier in the day when there is more energy and focus in the tank. However, if you aren’t a morning person, your peak productivity time may come later in the day.
Keep track of when you feel like you have the most energy in your day and prioritize this time for your most important or most difficult MITs. Leveraging this energy and focus to accomplish hard tasks can give you a boost of accomplishment that can propel you through the rest of your MIT list and keep your great day rolling.
Seventh, build in breaks. Jumping from one task or meeting to another may seem like a good use of your time but it actually can have the opposite effect. Our brains need a break. We are programmed that way. The human brain can focus for about 90 minutes tops at a time. Without taking breaks, it is more difficult to stay focused and motivated. So to combat the brain-drain, schedule some breaks. Calendar holds are helpful as is scheduling meetings for 45 minutes instead of 1 hour and using those free 15 minutes to take a quick walk, do some box breathing or meditation exercises and stay hydrated and fed. Remember we need proper fuel to continue operating efficiently so these breaks should be part of your plan to stay productive. Breaks help you re-focus and re-charge so don’t ever let someone make you think that small downtime is a waste.
The eighth and final tip is to celebrate the wins. Life is complicated and accomplishing your MIT’s can be really challenging so it is totally appropriate to celebrate the big and little wins. It’s important to reward yourself as soon as you complete a key task or objective. Why? By rewarding yourself in the moment, your brain elicits positive emotions, leading to the realization that your efforts result in a positive reward. By doing this continuously, your brain will start to link pleasure to accomplishing the task or objective and move towards it in the future.
Maybe you give yourself some self-praise by saying out loud “I’m killing it today” or during your next break you call your mom to brag about how well that meeting went. She’s your mom and she will always be proud of you after all. For bigger milestones or tasks knocked out, a glass of wine or night of binge-watching your favorite show may be a great treat for a job well done. And if you are working alongside others to complete your MITs, celebrating with your teammates by thanking and congratulating them is always good for morale. Everyone loves a shout-out so remember to include others in reflecting on the successes.
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These are 8 simple but effective strategies to make the most of your time, prioritize your Most Important Tasks and get more done in your work and personal life. Whatever strategies you use, I hope your days are full of success, simplification, celebration and most of all happiness. Thanks for supporting Calm Cash and if you like the podcast, please tell a friend or two about what we are doing. The more the merrier! Stay safe and see you next week.