As we discussed before, there are certain steps to improve personal efficiency and it is a truly life-changing experience. Yes, it takes time and willpower. Moreover, you might have to spend some time getting used to a new to-do app. However, this is one of those investments that will be paying you back your entire life. If you make it a habit.
Why habits are useful
What is the point in making it a habit? Habits are cheap. The human brain is a true master of optimizing things. Things that you do every day almost do not affect the cognitive load of your brain. As an example, when was the last time you planned climbing up stairs or washing dishes? Habit is like an autopilot.
You can achieve the same low cognitive costs to become personally efficient efforts if you make it a habit. Some researchers like Dr. Phillippa Lally say you need around 66 days for a new behavior to become a habit.
Make efficiency a habit
Follow these four steps with exercises to make being efficient a habit. You can complete all exercises in 30 minutes.
- Value and track every minute of your life – every life is precious, and the only true currency of the world is time. Spend it wisely, the more time you have the more intense joy and happiness you can achieve. As my favorite Christian rock singer TobyMac sings, “today is the first day of the rest of your life”.
Exercise – rewind your life. Feel the things that you already accomplished and things that you may complete if you would have more time. The best part is that you have a whole life left, so start acting now. Install any time tracker similar to Toggl app to start tracking what you do to get insights on where you spend your time. You are ready to get to the next step! - Understand what matters to you and come up with goals – even if you got all the riches of the world, they do not make sense without a goal.
Strong legs are good for conquering mountains, powerful brains are good for chess. Similarly, the time that you have left is great for achieving your goals.
Exercise – what would you do if you no longer needed to work? What excites you? What are you going to do after you make all your money dreams come true? You want to open a woodworking studio? Teach orphans computer science and how to develop software? Maybe to fund research for extraterrestrial intelligence?
Some people call it dreaming, but I call it modeling your life. Yes, you might never become the richest person in the world. But after you realize that you, as an example, care about ecology and the future of the planet, nobody stops you from acting. As a result, it could be not just about recycling paper and glass – what if you buy a device for recycling tires into sport mats and even profit from it?
Another goal of such modeling is to understand where you are now. For example, “come up with options on how to earn more” sounds like a great item for your to-do-list to start increasing your wealth. - Clear your thoughts and stay focused – after you identify what you want to achieve, it is time to organize, plan, and execute. Repeat these steps over and over again till the end of your life. Break down your goals into actionable tasks, record and plan them, and free your head. As a result, stay focused on what really matters.
Exercise – install Todoist app or open your Google Calendar. Record things that you need or promised or wanted to do in the near future. Add tasks that are repetitive not to forget them. Add a reminder to check the list every morning to keep the list of tasks or calendar events up-to-date. - Make it a habit – by this moment you know your true priorities and you know how to track and control them. You know the “Why?” part and you already tried the “How?” part.
Exercise for the rest of your efficient life – look up at your to-do list every morning. Make it a recurring task with an annoying reminder (soon you will not need a reminder to do it). Get back to your goals often, it is your life and only you are responsible for making it great.
Focus, achieve, use the power of tools and motivation from within to master your life and bring personal efficiency to a whole new level!
My personal experience
This section is subjective and shares the actual tools that I use and rituals that I follow to keep my personal efficiency high. Sometimes I reschedule tasks or cancel Google Calendar meetings due to overlap, but in general these are the principles and practices I have been following for more than 10 years.
Value every minute of your life
My position on this is clear, but again, every minute of my life costs money. If it is me who is “buying” it, all those minutes are going to be spent the way I want it, not some third party influencing my life. Yes, I get into traffic jams, I get sick, and crazy stuff happens around. However, I have my reminders, I know where I want to be in 5 years and how and when I want to die. Life is beautiful in its unpredictability, but nobody said that you can not fight this unpredictability.
Understand what matters for you and come up with goals
Money, health, family, personal pleasures, and friends.
Personal pleasures involve consulting and mentoring that I have been doing for a long time, often free of charge just to help out young companies or student organisations. My goals are mostly materialistic, but the non-materialistic are about making a world the better place for all of us.
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Clear your thoughts and stay focused
Trello and Todoist apps for keeping long and short-term goals, Toggl tracker to make sure I do not spend more on work than I should, Google Calendar to keep work and personal events not colliding with each other.
Make it a habit
I can not imagine my life without this mindset and tooling. Every week I review my long-term goals and where I am right now. Every December I have a dedicated couple of days when I reflect on my goals and achievements for the past year and come up with goals for the next year.
My coworkers often mention that I am a pretty organized and accurate guy. Especially after I ping people in Slack in a couple of months since they promised me something and did not deliver it. My friends think that I forget nothing (in fact I just keep things in my to-do list and notes). People around me generally believe that if I promise something, I do it. If I can not do it, I let them know as soon as possible (kudos to to-do lists and the habit of checking “what awaits me tomorrow” every day).
Personal efficiency is necessary for fulfilling life
Personal efficiency is not a myth. It does change lives, you can improve your efficiency, I truly believe in it. If this series of articles on personal efficiency makes your life even a bit more organized and happy, then my goal is achieved! Please do not forget to share your story, I am very interested.
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