Personal productivity secrets unveiled
Learning from successful people who are in top form just makes sense. So I turned to leadership experts to learn some of their personal productivity secrets. Some of these tips are worth trying out.
12 productivity tips from incredibly busy people
From the Amex small business forum blog, we learn from many top leaders about their productivity secrets. Here’s the highlight from my favourites:
- Set a time limit on meetings. Gary E. McCullough, former U.S. army captain and now CEO of Career Education Corp., gives people half of the time they ask for a meeting or appointment. This forces them to be brief, clear and to the point. “By doing that, I am able to cram a number of things in the day and move people in and out more effectively and more efficiently,” McCullough says. People generally don’t need as much time as they ask for. Meetings are time vampires. Be ruthless in managing this endemic productivity drain so you can focus on high value tasks.
- Group your interruptions. This idea comes from restaurateur Danny Meyer. He has his assistant group all questions that come up during the day in one list so she doesn’t have to interrupt him repeatedly during office hours.
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11 expert tips to help you be more productive
Kathleen Davis, Fast Company Senior Editor asks productive people to share their best time-saving tips. These are two of them:
- Don’t get paralyzed by perfection says psychologist and author Art Markman. The best project is a completed project he says. “It’s easy to get paralyzed by perfection, but it’s better to get something out the door than to hold onto it for a long time hoping to remove every flaw.”
- Write an old-fashioned to-do list says Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, and author of Sidetracked: why our decisions get derailed and how we can stick to the plan. “Seeing the progress makes me feel good and, research says, more productive. It also helps me be a bit more realistic in understanding what I can accomplish every day, and which tasks are top priority,” she says.
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The single most effective productivity tip – from 22 experts
The Lonemind.com asks 22 experts for their single most effective productivity tip. This one is from James Clear, an entrepreneur, weightlifter and travel photographer who says: do the most important thing first each day. Sounds simple. No one does it.
Read more from the other experts that will change your day.