Posted 7 months ago at 11:30 am. 2 comments
“Timeboxing” is one of the most useful personal development skills I have ever learned. In fact, if there’s one skill you should learn from reading this blog, it’s this skill.
Timeboxing is a pretty simple technique once you understand the basics:
- Choose a project to work on. Simple enough.
- Set aside a block of time to work on the project. 30 minutes should be your bare minimum, though you can choose anywhere from 1 minute to any amount of time you’d like.
- Try to finish that project in the allocated amount of time. Aim for completion of your project in the amount of time you gave yourself. Try not to go over your scheduled time, no matter what. It’s fine if you finish up sooner than you expected.
- For the entire amount of time, stick to the task. Try not to take breaks unless you are giving yourself over an hour to work. It’s best if you can get into the stage of “flow” so your work becomes easier and more enjoyable.
Need an example? Let’s say you’re itching to write a new blog post, but you have horrible perfectionistic tendencies. Blog posts that should take you 45 minutes to write end up taking 4 hours. Because of that problem, it’s hard for you to commit to blogging. What should you do? Use timeboxing to write that new post! Set aside a block of time to compose, edit, and post the post, doing as best of a job as you can during that time frame. In this case, you could set aside an hour and a half, perhaps from 9:00AM to 10:30AM, and tackle the task to completion.
Having used this technique for so long now, I found there are two extremely useful tips I like to use that I’d love to share with you!
Tip #1 - Use it to knock off small, numerous, mundane tasks.
Batch together multiple, annoying tasks that need to get done, and timebox an amount of time to get through them all. Do you have several desk drawers that need to be cleared out and purged? Instead of doing one drawer at a time, timeboxing 30 minutes per drawer and spreading the task over three days, timebox one hour to purge all of the drawers. You’ll work faster, get the task completed sooner, and feel more accomplished.
Think of it this way. Before you go to the grocery store, you generally make a comprehensive list of everything you need so multiple trips aren’t necessary. Why take five separate trips for breads, fruits, vegetables, meats, and desserts when you can take one trip and buy everything you need in one swoop? Timebox multiple, similiar tasks for the same reasons.
Tip #2 - Timebox a small amount of time just for perfectionism.
Okay, so I admit it! I’m a total perfectionist when it comes to writing my blog posts. I can’t help but sit around and edit my posts after they’ve been up for days, trying to find the “right” phrases to make my posts stand out and shine.
However, I can’t let perfectionism run my blog. (Otherwise I wouldn’t get around to posting or doing advertising work!) Instead of gleefully editing all posts at all hours of the night for kicks and giggles, I instead timebox a small amount of time right after I post my post to let my perfectionism run free. I allow myself to do all of the editing I can in that small amount of time, and then once the minutes are up, I’m completely done and will never touch that post again. Does it work? Fantastically well!
Just remember - perfectionism can absolutely destroy a meaningful, valuable work; but on the other hand, if perfectionism is used constructively, it can completely enhance and boost up a project you are editing to an entirely new level. Timebox a specific time for perfectionism, and try this trick out for yourself.
What other timeboxing uses can you think up?
Your homework for tonight? Apply timeboxing to your life and see what a difference it makes! And after trying timeboxing out for a while, see what improvements you can make on this simple technique. You’d be surprised how much more productive you’ll become after just a few days of timeboxing tasks.
Posted 7 months ago at 5:30 pm. 8 comments
There are a lot of articles on how to become a morning person on the web - particularly articles on how to get up at an obnoxiously early hour. Why so many articles on this topic? Because waking up early is such a useful skill! If you could get up at 5:00AM and get most of your work done by 10:00AM - eating breakfast included - imagine how productive you could become. Imagine how much free time you could have to spend with your family, engaging in hobbies you love, and everything else you enjoy.
I’ve been waking up at 5:00am for the longest time now, so I have a bit of background in this area. There are three main tips that I’ve found useful for getting myself up so early on a consistent basis:
- Use multiple alarm clocks;
- Have some compelling reasons to get up so early;
- No strange foods or practices before bedtime.
1. Use multiple alarm clocks.
Most people set only one alarm clock; they keep it across the room, and when it buzzes in the morning they shuffle over, turn it off (or smash it on the ground…) and slink back into bed. Obviously that’s probably not the reaction they’re going for! But what if those people were to use three different alarm clocks, all spaced out around their room? As soon as they turn off one, they realize there’s two more to shut off. So they turn off the second and third clock, and what do you know? Those people feel wide awake and are ready for their morning cup of coffee!
I’ve used this method with a pretty good success rate. For me, getting up and moving around is a pivotal component of being able to successfully get out of bed at an early hour. If I trudge around to shut off one alarm clock, that’s not a lot of movement. But if I have to stomp around my room in a foggy daze to shut off three different alarm clocks, that gets me moving and my blood flowing. Try it out!
2. Have some compelling reasons to get up so early!
Let’s be honest here. If you have no real reasons to be getting up so early in the morning, then you’re better of sleeping in bed until 10:30am like the rest of the population.
Most early risers - including myself - generally get up so early because we’re more productive in the morning. By 11:00AM, I can knock out a good portion of my projects and get more accomplished than most people do in three days. I’m focused, I have goals, and those goals motivate me to get up. If you can’t give yourself two good reasons for waking up so early, why bother? You’d just be hitting your head against the wall over and over again when what little motivation you have runs dry.
3. No strange foods or practices before bedtime!
Some people can drink massive amounts of coffee before bed and be absolutely fine when trying to get to sleep. For other people, drinking one weak cup of coffee six hours before bedtime is enough to keep them up half of the night. Some people can exercise vigorously before hitting the sack; for others, that’s enough for them to be tossing and turning the entire night.
Your body is unique; your physiology is completely your own. What works for you might not work for anybody else, and what works for 99% of the population might have no effect on you.
The best thing you can do is cut out all strange foods and substances (alcohol, caffeine, spicy foods, gorging on ice cream) about two hours before you go to bed. Yeah, yeah, that’s a long time! But your body will totally thank you for it. Along those same lines, skip out on doing your Richard Simmons “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” exercise routine if you plan on going to bed immediately afterwords; that might cause nightmares when you finally do get to sleep. ;]
Test, get feedback, then test some more.
What works for you? In all honesty, no amount of blog articles, posts, tips, tricks, or advice can tell you the exact strategy that works best for you. Your best bet is to read all you can on getting up early, test out some of the tips you come across, and if what you tried doesn’t work, ditch it and try another tip. The worst thing that can happen? You have a night where you don’t get a wink of sleep.
But the best thing that can happen? You finally are able to get up constantly at 5:00AM, awake, alert, and ready to tackle all of your projects and goals for the day. Who’d want to pass up that kind of opportunity? Just imagine how productive your mornings will become.