What can you do in 1 year? What if you subtract weekends and holidays? What if the time is limited to 8:30-5:30 every day? Time management is something that each of us has to face, and this article is not just about the big truth, there are many vivid examples here, you can learn a lot of practical tips.
You will also find that the successful people you think are "already great" actually have a "messy" schedule. So, they can, why don't we?
I recently did a simple experiment: I recorded the timestamps of 50 emails that I sent out recently. These timestamps can see how I sent and received emails during the week (Thursday, October 22 – Thursday, October 29).
My interest is in counting what time of day I spend on email. Here's what I found: during the week, I only sent 1 letter between 6-7 o'clock and 0 after 7 o'clock. This is a good explanation: I finish the day at about 5:30 every day. This means that after 5:30, the network is disconnected, the computer is shut down, and there are no to-dos. Whenever I finish my day at work, it's time to relax.
I must emphasize that I am not some kind of idle entrepreneur, the company is already on track, so just lie in the hammock on the Caribbean island of Aruba to supervise and supervise. I have a normal job (I'm a postdoc) and there's a lot of stuff to do.
For example, this past summer, I earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While writing my doctoral dissertation, I finished the manuscript of my third book. The manuscript was submitted to Random House a month after my phD thesis defense was concluded and will be published in the summer of 2010. Over the past year, I've also run my blog, Study Hacks, which generates 50,000 unique monthly visits, and has successfully published more than half a dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.
In other words: I'm not a slacker. With very few exceptions, I do all of this between 8:30 and 5:30 on weekdays. (My daily workout time and 1 hour of walking the dog are also scheduled during this time period.) I really like the free time after 5:30 every day, complete freedom. ）
I call this method fixed-scheduled productivity, and I've been using and recommending it to you since early 2008.
The idea is simple: make a work schedule that you think is the most ideal, and then adjust it through the actual work situation, so that this table really suits you - when using this method, you have to be cold, take on the choice of what responsibilities to understand, can't be polite when you should reject others, don't let others do what you want, and get rid of tasks that are not very useful.
This approach will have a profound and beneficial impact on your control, stress levels, and the amount of important work done.
SCI and SSCI publish guidance
When you put tight timelines on schedules, cut out unnecessary work, and colleagues and clients re-adjust to when to expect something from you, they find two amazing effects of a fixed schedule.
What's necessary: Whether it's telemarketing or focusing on the core research work done to create a new book, it's the things that really matter;
And unnecessary things: Whether it's emailing at every turn, or always adjusting the template of the blog like an obsessive-compulsive disorder, it's more innocuous than many people think.
Get more attention because you focus on what's necessary rather than everything. These "paradoxical" facts, like Collins' best-selling books, and sanders and Simmons' companies are growing fast—show that you can reap more results.
Sci\ssci published guidance
The steps of the fixed schedule efficiency method are simple and straightforward:
Choose a work schedule that you think will achieve the most ideal balance between work and leisure;
Make every effort to avoid undermining the schedule.
It sounds very simple, but, of course, it's not simple. Meeting the second item is not an easy task. If you can't let go of your current projects, responsibilities, or work habits, you're likely to fall far short of this ideal timeline.
When you start to want to be more efficient by fixing a schedule, there's a simple fact you have to face: Sticking to that ideal timeline requires bigger drastic action.
For example, you might have to: slim down the number of to-dos. Make up your mind to remove inefficient habits from your daily schedule. In exchange for a lot of free time, take the risk of accidentally annoying or disappointing others. Stop procrastinating.
In theory, these are hard indicators and very difficult to achieve. But when you focus on a specific goal – "I refuse to work after 5:30 on weekdays!" You'll be amazed to find that the above requirements become less simple.
As a graduate student, what is our ultimate goal?
Engage in excellent research that can answer important questions. Nothing else really matters at this stage.
But the answer to this metaphysical question from some of my peers is: "Prove that you belong here with long hours of work." It's like these future decision-makers who are going to flip through their time cards in the future and claim that they've done what they're supposed to do very efficiently.
Nonsense! All I wanted to do was write a few good papers in a year, and anything that would get in the way of me getting there would be scrutiny with skepticism. This results-oriented trait makes me more able to prevent chores from popping into my schedule.
I'm particularly aware of when I'll be able to produce results, and results don't always come that fast.
If someone throws me something else, I'll be honest about evaluating and telling when it's going to come first on my to-do list. Then we will communicate about this date.
I'll start when I'm done. If — if this is important — you do inform someone of this definite date, you can avoid having them expect results, expect results, expect results for a long time to come.
When you're clinging to an immature, "only start near deadlines" attitude, long lead times can also help you bypass the pile of things that ruin your fixed schedule.
refuse. If my schedule is too full to complete this new project on time, I will refuse.
Termination, Withdrawal. If a project gets out of hand and starts taking up too much time for me to complete other things on the timeline, or deviates from my results-oriented requirements: I will terminate the project.
If something obviously more important happens that conflicts with something else I have planned, I will give up on something less important.
Here's a secret: No one really cares what little tweaks you make or what you give up.
In the end, the result is the basis for others to judge you. If something is preventing you from achieving significant results in your field, you have to ask yourself why you keep doing it.
I'm not in the service area. I used to stay in the middle of the school library or work in the corner of my apartment. I only send and receive emails two or three times a day, and I don't touch my email again in the evening or on weekends, so people have to wait a while to get a response from me.
Finding me is usually not an easy task, and if someone sends me an urgent email on a Friday night that needs to be dealt with by Saturday morning, they will be disappointed.
But eventually, they all adapt to my work habits. Just as importantly, I didn't mean to do it. I've never set up those fake autoresponders for my mailbox. I just do myself and then people get used to the real me.
Batch processing, form habits. Any routine work slowly becomes a habit — a habit that we always do at that time of day. For example, I always blog after lunch and jot down the first thing that happens in the morning.
When I go to class, I think back to how I allocated the week to completing my homework. Following your own habits when making a schedule for your regular work will make it easier to deal with unconventional work as well. At the same time, it can also prevent all kinds of trivialities from ruining the entire plan.
Start early. Sometimes, it's going to be really early. I can't accept that there is any delay in dealing with important things. I don't like to drag. If I had to start doing something 2-3 weeks in advance to make sure the plan was on demand, I would do it.
I don't ask for permission. I think it's absolutely wrong to think that you automatically follow a schedule that you like.
However, you can fight for this is the most valuable reward. And the effect is money, and you have to pay a price to get it. As long as I can make sure I accomplish the main tasks that others have paid for, it will be more comfortable for me to wake up on my own terms. If I can't produce good results, then people have the right to ask for more involvement.
You can fill in any time limit whenever you feel it can improve the efficiency of your work. Whether it's email, browsing important websites, or dealing with to-do lists, by the time You Reach David Allen's age, this list will catch up with the length of the Bible.
But despite this, there will always be a time when you have to stop and say: I know I have an endless job, and now I have to accept this fact first.
If you don't go, you'll be spoilt for the job. It can trap you in exhausting, inefficient schedules, leaving you feeling more stressed and unable to make more progress.
Make a schedule according to your own wishes. Then make everything else work for your needs. Be flexible. Efficiency points. If you can't get things to work for you: it's time to change jobs.
But ultimately, don't compromise.