The First Rule of Productivity: One Thing at a Time
Time management, in and of itself, will not really help you be more productive.
I’m talking about time management in the classic sense of the word. Getting through your “to do” list faster. It’s a complete waste of time.
What you really need to do is to look at everything that you have on your list, and pick the single most important thing. Then work on it, uninterrupted, until it’s completed.
The uninterrupted part is the toughest, by far. It’s SO easy and tempting to check your email, answer the phone, respond to an instant message, or click over to a website.
But if you can master this ability, you’ll boost your productivity significantly, and you’ll be able to work the same, or even fewer, hours.
This is possible because you’re assuring two things. First, that you’re working on the single most important task at hand. Not the most urgent task, or the easiest one – but the most important one. So often, we plow down our “to do” lists, with our heads down, without seriously questioning whether it makes a difference if we even do most of the items on it.
And the sad truth is – it doesn’t. The 80/20 principle tells us that 80% of our results will come from 20% of our inputs. By picking the single most important task to work on, we’re making sure that it falls within the critical 20%.
And secondly, by focusing 100% of our energies on this item, we’ll accomplish it much faster than we would have if we’d allowed ourselves to be distracted by interruptions, or worse, tried to multi-task and complete two or three items at once.
Interruptions are the real killer. It’s amazing how fast you can get something done, if that’s all you do.
I hadn’t realized this until I started using our time management software to measure the amount of active working time I was spending on work items. Sadly, items would often sit on my “to do” list all week, where’d I’d get to them on the weekend.
And with the benefit of no incoming interruptions (because the rest of the world was out having a life), I was able to focus, and get the thing done.
The real surprise came when I checked my elapsed time spent on the task after the fact – I realized that I could get A LOT done under an hour. Like, basically anything on my “to do” list would be accomplished in an hour or less — provided I just sat down and did the work.
So try this exercise tomorrow — pick one thing, and work on it until it’s done. No distractions, and no excuses. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
image by Ingorrr
About the author
Brett Owens is CEO and Co-Founder of Chrometa, a small software company based in Sacramento, Calif. that provides "no hassle" time tracking software for freelancers, consultants, attorneys, and other professionals who need to closely track their time for billing and/or project tracking purposesYou can reach Brett via email at brett@chrometa.com.
Great Article, I need to remember that one thing at a time. So that’s why my workload get cluttered up so fast, now it all makes sense. LOL. I just go invisible on skype which helps with the interruptions.
Hi Geoffrey – thanks for the comment and kind words, and I’ve found that to be exactly the case. Skype is a real “problem child” for me, as is email – though not as bad since I switched to Gmail from Outlook. But getting rid of the interruptions is definitely huge, though it’s a constant battle too!
This is a good read. I have the bad habit of always trying to multi task to save time, even though I know focusing on one thing without distractions will save even more time.
Thanks Jamal, I hear ya on that! It’s pretty ironic that we do multi-task in an effort to save time…a case of the tortoise vs the hare!
Thanks for this. Let me try that exercise –doing most important things first, instead of those urgent or on top of the list; and let me check how much time I’ll spend completing all the tasks. I am using a web crm (http://www.worketc.com) which has this functionality of tracking the number of hours I spend on a particular task. I use the desktop timer widget so I can quickly enter time without having to log into a separate web site, and this is helpful for this exercise. Actually, what I usually do in task management is the typical process –first things first, so this one you just mentioned is a total new approach, perhaps worth trying.
Good post.
I’d like to add that you should 1. know where you spent your time. 2. know your energy level fluctuation in a day. You will be amazed to see how much your productivity can be increased when you match the energy need for a task with your natural energy level.
Check out my site for an iPhone app that just help you do that…:)
just reading this at the right time. I am a little bit stressed at this time because i have so many things to do. What i really like is the fact that the most importaant thing should be done and not the most urgent.