Tip: 5 things you can do to be productive

Photo by Meanest Indian, Flickr Creative Commons

Some days at the office are really frustrating, you return exhausted with the feeling that nothing important was accomplished. That's when you know it is time to hack your life.

Over at Lifehack.org they have many good articles with strategies to help you improve your life - but sometimes all the good advice can get overwhelming. Yesterday, after a frustrating day at the office I decided to get back on track, weed out the weaknesses and review my planning system. After sifting through some lifehack material... this is my solution and the top 5 suggestions that I would like to share:

1. Everything depends on your to-do list, I use a task management program for Mac called Things. It's not that the software will make all the difference, it's just the thought that some things calls for several actions - and that makes it into a project. Projects can then be grouped into life areas. Of course you can do the same thing with papers and files, or on the computer with almost any program. Whatever suits your style will work, just get at it.


2. Projects take up mental bandwidth, which is limited. Many cars fit on a high-way, but when more that 60% of the space is occupied, average speed falls drastically, and at higher loads traffic stops altogether. The next important step is to choose which four or five projects to handle in a day, if you take on too high a number, you will be overwhelmed and your capacity drops.


3. Choose the 20% of the projects that will get you 80% of the way. The Italian mathematician Pareto, the man behind the 80/20 rule, found that 20% of the population controlled 80% of the wealth - the same is true for your to-do list. With a bit of exercise you will learn to distinguish the Pareto tasks, and when you do, you will be on a roll.


4. You need some type of  capture system when you're away from the computer, some way of taking notes, or recording your thoughts. Personally I tend to carry about a Moleskine notebook, sometimes I fold a book out of an A4 page, and sometimes I use Evernote on my iPad.


5. And finally, the most important of all - The Weekly Review! This is what makes all the difference, every manager has done to-do lists which spiral out of hand and the system brakes down after a couple of weeks. What makes the difference is to set aside an hour or two every week, look through all your projects and actions, ask yourself the question: Is this still important to me? If not, throw it away, don't think more about it. Go through all your notes, look in your note book and computer, even do a "brain scan" to get your mind calm as the surface of a pond on a night without wind. When the moon reflection in the surface is still as a mirror - then you are ready to take on new challenges, the challenges of a new week.

So why was I so frustrated yesterday... well, I had been sloppy with my weekly review, not thorough enough, my mind to full of things, my bandwidth consumed. But regrets belong to the past, I have done my weekly review and can now concentrate on the present.