Today I’ve run through my Efficiency Study Life Experiment. Reading through the study provided me with insight in terms of common sticking points and recurring issues – something I was definitely looking forward to.

Why? Because now I can set some new habits in place to ensure that I manage my time and my life in ways that facilitate the experiences and achievements that I most want in my life. Fantastic.

Before recording a single day for this study, I determined that when I finished it, I would implement 10 changes into my life that would deal with the biggest issues I encountered.

Here they are in all their glory:

(You’ll notice the first 3 have to do with a sense of urgency and getting my life honed hard towards priorities [a big theme for me right now], while the last 7 are more in the category of general “best practice” for efficiency.)

1. Oscillate between periods of Achievement and Exploration: I noticed that most weeks I will work on some Achievement-oriented stuff like building presentations and making phone calls to set up meetings and writing material for coaching and making flyers, while other times I am involved in more Exploration-oriented stuff like reading, taking notes on audio programs, writing inquiries on topics in self-development, etc… I want to make a firm distinction between these two and keep them separated – this is the most important new habit I am going to implement! I will designate the last week of any given month to do the more Exploratory work, while I want to cram the rest of my life with activities that are bringing me towards concrete ends in Time Management Consulting, my Jiu Jitsu academy, making money, making and booking presentations, getting referrals, etc… Don’t get me wrong, the Exploration stuff is great, thats where I innovate new content and thats important to me BIG TIME. However, I want to get things done and focus most of my time on those activities that will get things done. If I have little slices of time I might do a little exploration here and there, but I know where I want most of my resources. I might change up the way I separate these two facets of my work, but I will definitely keep them separated.
2. Set firm weekly goals tied into my highest monthly / annual / life goals: I have been doing this for all of August, and I think it has kept me on track in a fantastic manner. Having concrete weekly goals makes it much harder to flounder time away, and it orients my resources towards my bigger life goals which seem abstract without the middle-man of a weekly goal list. This helps to bring urgency into the picture as well.
3. Purge my potential creative writing and Life Experiment list monthly: Each week, I come up with new ideas for Life Experiments and articles and inquiries. It is always the case that I come up with more ideas than I finish. Soooo many more ideas than I have time to tackle. This is a great thing, but it tends to backfire when I see huge lists of potential creative work. Some of it I’m not interested in anymore, some I have forgotten about. Now on the first of each month I will delete the potential writing that I’m no longer interested in working on.
4. Set time caps on potentially time consuming creative tasks: For instance, I could get stuck for 2 hours finding the best template and font to use for a flyer, or I could spend 20 minutes deciding which color to use for a border. Both of these seem way too long, and with little tasks like that, I think its best to just set a short timer and make a decision. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. This is what I do for research – I only allot a specific amount of time because I know I could spend all day doing research. Now I’ll apply it to small creative tasks that have the same potential to rob time.
5. Stack chores and do them before / after away from computer tasks: Here I want to take advantage of doing like activities with other like activities. For instance, instead of interrupting my creative work or my research a few times during the day to run laundry and clean my car and go to make copies at staples, I can stack these activities on top of one another. In doing so, I can get into “physical work” mode for a specific amount of time, and then go back to “mind work” mode fully. In addition, all of this physical work time gives me long stretches to listen to audio programs, instead of listening to 5-minute snippets while I do little tasks intermittently throughout the day. I must beware of “feeling productive” while listening to audio programs – I will keep a fast tempo and do all the chores swiftly so I can return to the other cool things I can do (see my good friends, go out at night, work on material I want to use in consulting, etc…).
6. Have a list of mindless physical tasks established: Sometimes I am too excited to be creative, my mind and body are alert and positive but in more of a bouncy, pumped-up way – and doing creative work doesn’t make much sense in these situations. So, I will have a log in my project list for random physical tasks that I can do when I have a lot of energy to release.
7. Designating times for the phone, especially in car: Barring some kind of impending emergency or big event on the horizon, I can avoid even noticing that my phone exists while I work on the important things in my life. So, while working on creative material, I can set my phone on silent and put it face down. Then when I break for lunch or I am getting ready to go out, I can make the calls / texts I want to make and the return calls I want to make. I can also save these calls and texts for when I’m in the car (going to a friend’s house, to a meeting, to class, etc…). Even if I’m waiting for a call, I can keep the volume down and only pick up if its a priority call.
8. Keeping track of wallet, phone, keys… : I can’t keep forgetting these things in random places, seriously. I’ve decided that when I’m out, I’ll have my wallet and keys in my left pocket and my phone in my right pocket. That way I keep a routine and nothing gets lost in the mix, its all habits. Also, when I am at home I only have specific, designate spaces where I allow myself to put my phone / wallet / keys down. So when I’m looking for them in my house they can really only be in one of a few counter tops or tables.
9. Check email and facebook every two or three days: I used to check this stuff daily, but honestly most of the time I don’t have a need to do so. Unless I have a pressing project or some very important contacts to make, I only need to look at it once every 2-3 days. If I look sooner, I will just check for the things I need to see and look at the rest on my designated “email and facebook” days.
10. Only relax while working for long enough to rest my neck and spine: When I sit and read / write for 6-8 hours strait, I end up having little pains in my neck and back that are alleviated by laying down or leaning far back. This is fine to do, but I notice that when I do this my body goes into sleep mode because I don’t sleep much. My answer is to only relax while working for long enough to get rid of the pain, get comfortable, and sit right back up to get alert and working. I will also permit no “long blinks” when I’m relaxing, they tend to want to turn into naps.

I know I’m going to have fun implementing these new habits, and I’m sure that’ll bring me to make even more distinctions in this area. 

Stay tuned.

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