Fifty ways to boost your productivity

Nicholas Bate shares his 50 ways to boost productivity…

1. Don’t hold stuff in your head.
2. Keep your head clear and use your head for thinking: decisive, critical, imaginative.
3. Use paper/screen for ‘holding’ your list of what needs attention.
4. Our greatest asset is where we place our attention.  Bear in mind we live in an exciting world where our attention is constantly ‘pulled’ to another place.
5. To be productive is to maintain attention on what is important in the face of continuous distraction.
6. And what needs attention is not just urgent, but what is important and thus often apparently not urgent e.g. health.
7. Thus: ask what is important?
8. Firstly by referencing the compass points of your life….
9. Thus: your business/career
10. Thus: your health
11. Thus: your relationships
12. Thus: your finances
13. Capture these on you attention list.
14. Secondly by stretching your planning horizon…
15. Every day, ask what’s important tomorrow?
16. Every week, ask what’s important next week?
17. Every month, ask what’s important next month?
18. Every quarter, ask what’s important next quarter?
19. Every year, ask what’s important next year?
20. Capture these to on your attention list.
21. And finally anything which is burning and urgent; add these to your list.
22. But the more you do 8 and 14 above…
23. The fewer will be generated by  21.
24. Every end-of-the-working-day review your list and decide what does need attention: create your daily list.
25. Don’t try and do everything…

via Fifty Ways To Boost Your Productivity – Nicholas Bate.

Follow the ‘via’ link above if you’d like the remaining 25 ways. Before you go, however, I’d like to call your attention to a post and a couple of screencasts I’ve done on a tool called Evernote that I use in conjunction with a ‘philosophy’ called Getting Things Done [GTD] to help implement Nicholas’ first 6 ways…

http://youtu.be/_vaGNnCuc4s
http://youtu.be/Py-X0GIlRrU
http://youtu.be/e4ySRRUB_8I