Tony Schwartz is the author of the NYT and WSJ best-selling The way we’re working isn’t working. His basic argument is that “we’re undertaking more and more tasks every day, but they often add up to less and less real value.” And he writes this as someone who has 1307 messages in his inbox!
In this post he asks “what does it take to be productive and efficient in a world of infinitely rising demand, and endless potential distractions? By productive, I mean generating goods and services with lasting value. By efficient, I mean doing so with the least amount of unnecessary expenditure of time and energy.” He answers with six ways to supercharge our productivity:- Make sufficient sleep a top priority
- Create one to-do list that includes everything you want or need to do, on and off the job
- Do the most important thing first when you get to work each morning
- Live like a sprinter, not a marathoner
- Monitor your mood
- Schedule specific times for activities in your life that you deem important but not urgent
Read the whole post for a brief exposition of each of these helpful points.