Lately I have decided to revisit the chapter of time management in The Four Hour Work Week. Author Tim Ferriss offers great advice on how to be extreme efficient and tips and tricks on helping you avoid wasting time on tasks or things that you “think” are keeping you productive.
Over the years I have refined Tim’s methods.
Here are a handful of modifications I have made over the years.
1. Have 2 or even 3 MUST finish tasks for the day, and 3 or 5 others you can finish up after the MUST finish list.
2. If you can finish up 5 little tasks, make that one of your big tasks of MUST finish for the day. (this helps knock down on your to do lists)
3. If you aren’t feeling it for a task or job and it just isn’t flowing. (this happens quite a bit in the creative field), switch gears and start up another task that seems to be flowing better, and come back to the other task at a later time in that day. If you find it still isn’t flowing follow up on your other MUST finish tasks for the day and then knock out some of the smaller task.
4. When you are in the zone, put in some extra hours or time to get the most of your creative zone.
5. Lump your phone calls or client meetings together in similar time slots, in the same day. This lets you block out times for working without interruptions.