James Cannam

Do you ever find yourself wondering where all your time goes? The days go by in a blur, you never seem to get to the end of your to-do list, and you haven’t had five minutes to get onto that one thing you really wanted to do. Before we go any further with this line of inquiry let’s take a quick look at the numbers. Each week has over 160 hours in it, 168 to be precise. Everybody needs to sleep, so subtract a solid 8 hours of sleep from each day of the week. This leaves 112. Work puts a reasonable dent in this number, if we assume 40 hours of work and 10 hours for commuting. If you’re keeping up you will notice you still have a full 62 hours left. So even after all of your work, commuting and sleeping you still have a 62 hours of pure and unadulterated time.  This is free time which you can spend in any way you wish. The problem therefore seems not to be the amount of time we have, but simply how we choose to spend it.

Hours in each week

Now that we know how much time we have available each week, let’s take a closer look at what we are spending our time doing. Think back over the last week or so, and ask yourself the following questions:

• How many days of the week did you watch at least an hour of television?
• How many times did you check social media websites, and how much time did you spend commenting on posts and status updates?
• How many times did you tweet, and how much time did you spend reading other peoples tweets?
• How many photos did you post on Instagram?

The answers to the above may help you realise where a lot of your free time is going. In today’s information rich society it’s hard to switch off as we are constantly being bombarded with information streaming in on a daily basis. It comes from many directions, with social media being one of the worst culprits in recent times. If you want to find more time in your week to do other activities, but regularly watch TV or indulge in social media there are a few options available to you.

First let’s consider television. It’s so easy to flick on the TV when you get home from work. Just for five minutes whilst you sit down and take a break. But the next thing you know you’ve watched a couple of shows, and the evening is gone. Whilst I enjoy watching TV as much as the next man I prefer to watch specific shows a couple of times a week, rather than turning it on every day. If you spend a lot of your time watching TV try going for one week without television and you’ll be amazed at how much free time you have.

Next social media. There are no rights or wrongs when it comes to deciding how to spend your free time, and if you truly enjoy being connected to the world through social media then there is no harm in that. But ask yourself one simple question: Does it make you happy?  Often it can be the opposite. Checking social media on a daily basis can make people unhappy. Not only does a large tract of time disappear reading posts, but reading about things that other people are doing can make you feel like you’re missing out. Think carefully, do you actually get enjoyment from checking social media so often? Do you enjoy reading about what other people have been doing, or would you prefer to be doing more exciting things yourself?

Now we know how much free time we have available, we can adjust how we spend it to find more time to do the things that we want to do.  Try turning off, tuning in and dropping out.

Turn off, the TV. Don’t resort to the TV on a daily basis. Instead consider using TV as a reward when you have completed something else you wanted to get done. An alternative is to set times to watch specific shows you like, but turn off the TV afterwards. If you have a TV in your bedroom, consider getting rid of it.

Tune in, to what you want to do. Think about whatever it is that you want to do each week. Set aside some time to do it, and reward yourself with something fun when you get it done.

Drop out, of the constant social media updates. Try and reduce the amount of time spent checking social media. Avoid checking first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Move social media apps away from your home screen, simply hiding them in folders can reduce the temptation to check so often.

Multi-tasking might sound like a good idea, but the simple reality is that it’s slowing you down and lowering the quality of what you do.  In our busy lives we have to contend with multiple information streams, projects, deadlines and all the other stuff you need to get done.  It can often feel like we need to be tackling multiple tasks simultaneously to get anywhere. Common examples of multitasking are instant messaging with colleagues or friends whilst writing a report or  stopping your current task every time a new email notification pops up to check the email before switching back to what you’re doing. If you’re used to this approach then you may feel that it doesn’t affect your work, but conclusive research shows that using this method causes not only our productivity to suffer but also the quality of our work. Our brain isn’t wired for multi-tasking, and instead it prefers to direct its full focus on one task at a time.

To understand why our productivity suffers when multi-tasking is used let’s take a closer look at what we are actually doing when we multi-task. Surprisingly the majority of the time we aren’t actually doing tasks simultaneously, but switching back and forth between tasks. When we switch between tasks we have to stop, refresh our short-term memory of where we got to, then continue. Depending on the complexity of the task the switching process can take longer, so that the more we switch between tasks the more time we spend trying to figure out where we where. The switching disrupts our focus by clogging up our short-term memory, and also means that part of our brain is listening out for the next disruption rather than focussing our full and undivided attention on the task at hand. The result of all of this is that tasks completed in this way can take longer than necessary, and suffer from reduced quality. There are some specific cases where we can multi-task, simple tasks such as folding laundry whilst talking on the phone. This is possible because very little brainpower is required to fold laundry, which we have learned to do through repetition without requiring any thinking. As soon as two tasks require brainpower it becomes impossible to do them simultaneously without loss of time or quality.

So now that we understand what multi-tasking is, and how it can affect us, we can look into an alternative way of working. Mono-tasking is when you take one task and give it your full and undivided attention. All distractions are removed and time is no object.  You can now direct your focus with laser sharp precision on a single task and complete it to the best of your ability. The chances are you will have done this before, can you remember the last time you were so engrossed in something that lunchtime crept up on you unexpectedly? I bet it felt good to be in full flow without any distractions. That is what mono-tasking can feel like. Our full attention and focus are targeted at completing a task to the best of our ability.  The result is that we get so caught up in the task that progress comes quickly and easily.

In a modern office there are obstacles that stand in the way of us trying to mono-task. These distractions may include instant messaging, email notifications, colleagues, phone calls.  You get the idea. Whilst you may not be able to solve or eliminate all of these distractions they can be dealt with in various ways. When you need to focus simply close down instant messaging, turn off email notifications and consider letting phone calls go through to voicemail.  Don’t worry you can pick them up during your next break. Depending on your job role and commitments you will need to develop your own way of dealing with common office distractions.  Another way of dealing with these issues is to find a quiet place to work when you need to focus, this could be working from home when you need to write a long report, or popping down to a coffee shop for a couple of hours to work distraction free with no internet connection.

Now you are armed with the knowledge and benefits of switching to mono-tasking  try to think about how you can test it out. If you have become accustomed to using instant messages, and email notifications then at first it will be very hard to move away from this approach. Be proactive and start small, try a doing a few tasks by mono-tasking and you should start to notice the difference. Set yourself a goal of mono-tasking for the next week, and see what impact it has on your life. If you’re still in doubt that this approach really works check out the research for yourself, there is plenty out there.

Further reading on the web:

Stanford – Multitask research study

Lifehacker – What multitasking does to our brains

Published papers:

Borst J.P. & Taatgen N.A. The costs of multitasking in threaded cognition. ICCM 2007.

Cutrell E.B, Czerwinski M, Horvitz E. Effects of instant messaging interruptions on computing tasks. CHI 2000.

Shamsi T. Iqbal, Horvitz E. Disruption and recovery of computing tasks: Field study, analysis and directions. CHI 2007.

Salvucci D.D & Taatgen N.A. The Multitasking Mind. Oxford University Press 2010.

‘Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.’― Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

To be at your most productive by day you need to be well rested at night. A good nights sleep gives your brain a chance to switch off, process stuff we experienced the day before and energise ready for a new day. Not getting enough sleep leaves us tired and cranky, which can impact productivity.  To ensure you get blissful sleep every night there are a few key things that can make all the difference. Firstly you need the right bedroom conditions to allow peaceful undisturbed sleep.  Secondly a good bedtime routine gets your body ready for sleep.  Finally how you spend your day can also influence your sleep, but you cannot always control this so we’ll focus on getting the other two right first.

The ideal bedroom conditions are cool, dark and quiet.  Your body temperature lowers slightly as you fall asleep, and a cool bedroom can help this process.  Aim to be comfortably cool, and if you live in a hot climate you may find a fan helps with this.  If you’re looking for a fan try to find one that’s quiet and doesn’t have any lights on the control panel.  The body clock uses darkness as an indicator that it’s time to sleep, so it’s important to ensure your bedroom is suitably dark.  A good set of thick curtains or blinds will help achieve this.  If for some reason this is not possible then a sleeping mask can help.  To help you fall asleep, and stay asleep, peace and quiet prevents external noises from causing disruption.  If you live near a busy road or in a noisy area you can try either thick sound absorbing curtains or earplugs.  If you use earplugs ensure your alarm is loud enough to wake you, but it’s usually not a problem.

On top of the right conditions a good bedtime routine can get your body ready for sleep.  Your body runs to a rhythm, known as the circadian rhythm, and a good routine developed in tune with this will help you fall asleep easily, and wake refreshed.  The amount of sleep adults need varies but is typically between 7-9 hours, through experience you should know roughly how much sleep you need, and after deciding what time you would like to wake subtract this number to find your ideal bedtime.  I like to wake at 6am, and need around 7.5 hours sleep so I go to bed around 10.30pm.  Know you know your bedtime you can build a routine around it.

How you spend your day can influence how easily sleep will come.  The best quality sleep will come after a fulfilling day.  If your day has been productive, creative, dynamic and included some form of physical exercise then chances are your sleep will be blissful.  We cannot always control how we spend our days though, so exercising in the morning can be the best way to ensure nothing disrupts our exercise routine.  By the evening any number of factors could require that we change our plans, so it’s best to get in early with any routines we don’t want disrupted.  If time is tight you can incorporate your daily exercise into your commute, by either walking, running or cycling to work.

‘If you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?’ ~ Steve Maraboli

Early in the new year is the perfect time to set goals for the year ahead. The new year is a refreshing and inspirational time where twelve whole months are laid out clear in front of you, and anything can happen. From this point on, there are two possible courses to take over the next year. You can choose to drift and go with the flow, set no goals and see where life takes you. Or you can set a clear direction of the course you want your life to take over the next twelve months. There is no right or wrong answer, but to help me get where I want to be I choose the latter. Annual goals are set rather than new years resolutions, which are often forgotten by mid-January. The goals need to be clearly defined, attainable, inspirational and most important of all written down and reviewed.

If you have decided that you would like to set annual goals, then what should your next steps be? You need to carefully select your goals, write them down, decide on appropriate rewards for achieving them, and finally start working towards them and review progress.

Step 1. Choose your goals

If you are currently exactly where you want to be in life, and completely content then your only goal could be to remain that way. If there is more you want to achieve, then select goals that will help you move towards where you want to be. The number of goals you pick will depend on a number of factors including the size of each, and your passion for pursuing them. You could pick one large goal, or a range of smaller ones. I find that between 5 to 10 medium-sized goals is ideal for me.

Now to decide on what type of goals to set. They could be related to any number of subjects: personal, career, financial, health, fitness, travel or other. I like to select a mix of subjects to keep balance. It is also important to make your goals easy to measure. So rather than setting a goal of ‘saving more money’, which is vague and hard to track, you would say ‘save X amount in 2013’. That way there is a definite target to aim for. Take the time to dream and set inspirational goals, is there something you’ve always wanted to do?

You may also want to create lists of longer and shorter term goals. They should complement each other, so that the short-term goals lead into the longer step by step. If you wanted to save for a house deposit in three years the goal for each year would be to save a third of the total sum.

Step 2. Write them down

The action of writing down what you want to achieve and creating a record gives direction. You subconsciously take ownership of them, and start to look for ways to implement them when the opportunity arises. It’s not all subconscious though, and you will need to make an effort to review your list at regular intervals to see what progress you are making. Record your goals in your preferred method, whether it is in a notepad, letter, or a text file on your computer.

Step 3. Set rewards

Decide what you would like to do when you attain your goals, although for some of them achieving the goal may be the reward in itself. For example if you manage to reach your savings target, you could reward yourself with a break from saving and treat yourself to a holiday.

Step 4. Work towards your goals and review

Now your goals are set, it is down to you to make them happen. If you put them in a drawer and forget about them, it’s likely they will still be unfulfilled when the next new year rolls around. Setting quarterly reminders in your calendar can help you review them regularly, and the best time to do this is now.

It is important not to start trying to achieve all your goals in one go, take small steps and focus on one at a time. Starting them all at once takes too much energy and will likely result in failure, instead build slowly over the year. Let’s take a closer look at an example. If one of your goals was to swim three times a week, the best way is to focus on that goal alone for the first month until it becomes ingrained in your weekly routine. Start small, and make each swim short enough to leave you will plenty of energy. If you had never been taught to swim properly you may want to book a few swimming lessons to get you started, and give you something to work on. To help you could join a club and spend time with other swimmers which would heighten your enjoyment of swimming. Think about how you could apply this example to your goals.

Finally, Rinse and repeat. You can review, re-use and improve this process every year to help you steer your course through life in a direction of your choosing.

Conclusion

So now you know what needs to be done you are ready to get started. Grab a notebook and pen, or use a text file on your computer/smartphone and start your list. The most important part is to start, even if you are not sure on the best ideas jot some down anyway. It’s best to spend up to a week refining and adjusting your goals until you are happy with the final result. You will find if you make a draft one day after a good nights sleep overnight you will ready to refine and adjust with new ideas that popped into your head whilst you were sleeping. When they are finalised put them somewhere safe and set calendar reminders to review them. With your course set you are ready to take on the year ahead. Good luck and remember to celebrate each goal you achieve and take enjoyment from crossing them off your list.

Welcome to the new section of my blog on productivity. Over the coming months I want to share with you my insights into ways you can become more productive. If you’re like me, you like to get things done, and get them done well. The tips I’m going to share will help you get more done in less time. In my case the aim of this is simple, by being organised and efficient I can take the stress out of my life and leave more time to do what I want to do, rather than what I have to do. This could be spending more time relaxing, pursuing a hobby or even starting your own business. Whatever your motives are you can benefit in your own way by becoming more productive.

Before we delve any deeper into how we can improve productivity we should first take a look at what the word productivity means. In simple terms productivity is a measure of efficiency; it’s the ratio of the amount of work you put in against what you get in return. Let’s look at an example to see how this works in real life. Imagine you typically spent four hours each week sorting and responding to emails, but you were able to implement a new system that allowed you to accomplish this same task in only two hours. Your improved productivity has won you two hours each week, which you can now allocate to something else. If this principle was applied just as effectively to other tasks you could win yourself a lot more time.

So now that we know exactly what productivity is, and if we imagine for a minute that we could implement ways and means of improving our productivity, we should think carefully about how we would use this gift. There will always be more tasks that need doing, so unless we’re careful we’ll just keep adding more and more tasks until we reach the point that no further improvement in productivity can be made. So I would like to ask you a question, when you achieve this improvement in productivity what will you choose to do with it? This is an important question to ponder as having a goal will help you focus your energy. Let’s say you improved your productivity so much that you could finish all of your work in the first half of the year. What would you do with the rest of the year? In reality this doesn’t work out as we are often paid on the time spent at work, rather than the volume of work you do. Unless of course you are lucky enough to work for yourself. So you will have to be smart about how you use your improvement in productivity. Maybe it will allow you to complete your work and get home on time every day to see your family. Or maybe it will give you time to pursue other means.

How you choose to use the gift of productivity is a personal decision that only you can make, and this blog is aimed solely at providing the tools to allow you to become more productive. Over the coming weeks and months I look forward to sharing with you my own personal insights into improved productivity, and I hope they can help you as much as they have helped me.

James Cannam