I recently read the productivity project by Chris Bailey author Chris Bailey dedicated a year to being the most productive person he could be he tested every productivity hack he could find online and conducted productivity experiments that included working 90 hours one week and 20 hours the next waking up every day at 5 30 am working in isolation for 10 days and meditating for 35 hours a week to see what impact it had on his work during the year he realized that the difference between his productive and non-productive days came down to how well he used
his time energy and attention time energy and attention are the three ingredients of personal productivity determine if you are optimizing these ingredients by asking yourself am I spending my time on the right things am I doing my most important work when my energy is highest and am I giving my undivided attention to one thing at a time how much you accomplish in the next three months will depend on how you answer those three questions when I consider my response to am I spending my time on the right things I imagine being handed 32 darts to
throw at three dart boards each day Every dart represents a 30 minute block of time in my 16 waking hours during the day I throw the darts intentionally or unintentionally at either the deep personal values board highest impact workboard or other board when I throw a dart at the deep personal values board I've just spent time on an activity that's meaningful to me outside of work this includes time with my wife and son working out cooking meals at home and practicing a sport I love when I throw a dart at the highest impact workboard I've
just spent time on one of three work functions that matter most to my professional success right now my three highest impact work functions are reading books creating content writing recording and animating and working on my business time spent on these activities directly correlates to my success as an entrepreneur during his year productivity Bailey's three highest impact work activities writing articles for his blog conducting productivity experiments and researching productivity your highest impact work activities will vary depending on what work phase you are in if you like your job you're in the promotion phase and will find
your three highest impact work activities by completing the sentence I will exceed my boss's expectations and secure a promotion in 12 months by focusing on if you were looking for a new role or career you were in the transition phase and will find your three highest impact work activities by completing the sentence I will ensure a successful transition to a new role in 12 months if I spend time on and if you're starting or running a business you're in the entrepreneurial phase and will find your three highest impact work activities by completing the sentence I
will significantly increase my business Revenue if I spend more time on after completing the appropriate sentence and generating a list of work activities Circle the three that will get you to your professional goals the quickest we love to think in threes gold silver bronze beginning middle end the good the bad the ugly three is neither too little nor too much it's just right you can keep your three highest impact work activities in the back of your mind throughout the workday another way to consider your three highest impact work activities is to consider how much you'd
pay yourself to complete your work responsibilities throughout the week some of the things you do are worth a few dollars an hour and others are worth a few hundred dollars an hour the final dartboard in this time management analogy is the other dartboard darts on this board represent time spent on low impact low return activities like most emails and meetings other activities include maintenance tasks and Mindless entertainment if you spent all your time doing other activities your life would be no better a year from now if I looked at your three dart boards at the
end of the day when most of your 32 darts hit the deep personal values and highest impact boards instead of trying to guess track your time for a week and tell me pin a note to the top of your note app on your phone with the title time log then when you transition from one activity to the next during the day take out your phone and write what you just did with the current time next to it only write out the activities that you consider to be a part of your deep personal values and highest
impact work categories and write other for everything else here's what part of my day looked like recently 6 14 am read the productivity project 806 am other 8 20 am with my son 9 13 am this included making a breakfast and dropping them off at school other 9 49 am worked out 10 58 am other 11 23 am drafted the productivity project summary 2 32 pm after a week of full day time logs I noticed three things one by day seven I'd cut my procrastination in half because tracking my time made me feel more accountable
and therefore less willing to waste time two other activities consumed way more of my time than I thought and three time spent on my highest impact work activities was less productive than I thought for example after adding up my writing hours I expected to have more work to show for my time I realized that my lower than expected output was due to poor energy and attention management when you manage your energy and attention well you throw your darts closer to the bullseye of your highest impact workboard and score more points hitting the bullseye means you
went deep on a task got into a flow State and accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time of the many strategies that will optimize your energy and attention one strategy will make the largest difference and that's finding your biological Prime times and doing your most important work during those time windows energy and attention naturally ebb and flow during the day most people try to ignore or resist this fact that continuously pushing themselves and consuming large amounts of caffeine but while keeping your energy and attention artificially elevated throughout the day might feel productive
doesn't actually make you that productive because it reduces your ability to focus deeply the best thing you can do for your productivity is to get in tune with the times that your mind naturally wants to focus and go deep on your highest impact work activities Billy says the most productive people rearrange their day around when they have the most energy to work smarter instead of harder choosing the smartest time to work on high and low impact tasks can make a huge difference in your productivity take the following challenge to determine your biological Prime Times the
time during the day when you naturally have abundant energy and focus for one week eliminate stimulants like coffee eat small but frequent meals so your energy is not impacted by your meal times and go to bed early enough to wake up without an alarm to ensure your body gets the sleep it needs then schedule an alarm on your phone to go off every waking hour when the alarm sounds imagine it's time to go someplace quiet and work on the one demanding task you enjoy most could be writing programming project planning rate your willingness to do
that task on a scale of one to ten this is a good proxy for how much mental energy and attention you have record that number in a new note on your phone at the end of the week create a chart of your hourly energy and attention for each day compare your daily charts and find two windows lasting between one and three hours when your energy and attention are consistently High frother Chris Bailey it was 10 a.m to noon and 5 PM to 8 pm mine are 6 a.m to 9am and noon to 2PM once you
find your biological Prime times do what you can to redesign your work schedule around those two windows suggest meeting times that are outside of your biological Prime Times don't take your lunch break at noon if your biological prime time is at noon and tell friends and family you need time in the morning or in the evening to take advantage of your best working time by working in your Prime Time window you can work less and get more done which means you'll have more time to spend with the people you love in the end the ingredients
of productivity are time energy and attention the best way to optimize your time energy and attention is to track them spend one week tracking your time to see how many hours you spend on activities related to your deep personal values and highest impact work activities when you become aware of how you spend your time you start using your time more intelligently then spend another week finding your two biological Prime Time windows once you find them schedule your highest impact work activities during those times to get more out of your time remember productivity is measured by
what you accomplish not by how busy you are be more deliberate with your time energy and attention and you'll be pleasantly surprised what you accomplish in three months that was the core message that I gather from the productivity project by Chris Bailey this book is a great personal productivity starting guide I highly recommend it if you would like a one-page PDF summary of insights that I gather from this book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game email newsletter this PDF
is sitting in your inbox if you like this video hit that like button and share it with a friend and as always thanks for watching and have yourself a productive week
