Alex Shalman.comPractical Personal Development

When we use the internet, it is important to protect ourselves against the onslaught of people providing us with more information than we actually need. When it comes to productivity principles and really getting things done, all you really need to know are the fundamentals!

Simplicity is the key ingredient in productivity, and living a great life should be the main motivator for being productive. After all, if you can accomplish the same amount of work in less time, then you’re free to explore more of what interests you.

In order to make the idea of living a great life your motivator, it’s important for you to define what exactly you will be spending your free time on. For this reason, setting big goals, such as 5-10-20 year plans is absolutely critical.

Once you’re excited about the idea that anything is possible in your life, you can proceed to learn about the…

4 Simple Laws of Productivity

1. Outsource – I’m not focusing strictly on outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants, although that has the potential to be a very useful system. In essence, you want to delegate your work to someone that can either do it cheaper, more efficiently, or in a shorter amount of time. You can choose a virtual assistant like I mentioned, or simply use the resources you already have such as co-workers, family members, and friends, who are in a better position to come up with a solution to your problems.
2. Automatize – With the technology we have today, it’s very feasible to get things done without anyone actually doing them. This is shown through electronic bill reminders that are set on recurrent monthly payments, as well as monthly deliveries of essential supplies, without the trouble of having to reorder. The more things you can automatize, the more time you free up for other activities.
3. Withdraw – Not all tasks were created equally, and some aren’t even necessary. Your job is to define what’s necessary in your life. This might lead to you denying your services to your family, friends, or employers in order to concentrate on the actions that are more important to your personal goals. There is never a good excuse for not going for your most important goals. You can also trim back, instead of completely withdrawing from certain projects, so that you’re still connected, but not overwhelmed.
4. Focus – We previously defined simplicity as the key ingredient in productivity, which makes multitasking the antithesis of productivity. In order to get things done, and make serious progress on projects and tasks, it’s essential to stick to one project at a time and one task at a time. This is accomplished by tuning out all distractions and blocking off periods of time to work without phone/e-mail interruptions.

Starting last week I began to use a very effective, and simultaneously simple, productivity system known as Todoodlist. It combines some of the concepts above, along with with a paper based productivity system, which allowed me to back away from my technology and get some real work done (even though half the work had to do with writing, videos, and podcasts).

Here are some of the things I’ve been able to bang out just this weekend using the Toododlist productivity system.

1. Edited and reviewed half a dozen podcast interviews
2. Setup, scheduled, and prepared for dental school interview
3. Organized my e-mail, gmail filters/labels and contact groups
4. Cleared my desk, car, laundry, bookshelf, garbage and vacuumed my entire workspace
5. Wrote 4 articles, brainstormed a dozen others, made a video, and updated the resources section of the blog
6. Creatively planned Thanksgiving, 1 year anniversary, and New Years ideas.

This was done alongside working, interning, spending time with Marina, and doing yard work(raking leaves) around the house. The simple fact is that the more I put on my plate, the more I was able to get done, and the more free time I had to enjoy myself.

The best part is that even my free time became more fun because a) I felt like I deserved the free time for all the hard work I put in and b) because I was in such a great mindset for planning, I was able to make the best of the leisure time that I had.

Remember what I said, you don’t need to buy a system in order to be more productive, you merely need to know the fundamentals. When you have the fundamentals, you can take the time to create your own system. In my case, I decided to outsource the making of my system to the Todoodlist program, which enabled me to have one of the most productive weekends ever.

What are you waiting for? Go get your Todoodlist.

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