Just Seven Things

Pierogi by Anna Moderska

Following my last post, I’ve been thinking about what the secrets of greatness mean for time management and the impact this has on personal productivity? 

I think that there is a scarily simple answer: just do it.

To explain: the core of the ‘secret’ of greatness was deliberate practice. Practice defined as being the focused attention at getting better at doing whatever it is that you’re doing.

Therefore, the only way you’ll get better at managing your time and productivity is ‘just do it’.  Just take the time and do the task. Don’t prevaricate or procrastinate. Just start and do what you can in the time. Lowest unit of time? Assuming everything is to hand (i.e. brain/ pen/ paper) then five minutes? Try and do this as many times in a twenty four hour period as possible.

So this gives you the ‘practice’. When it comes to the deliberate improvement activity:

1.    Try and get better at just starting and doing

2.    Try and maintain mindfulness on the best way of squeezing the task in hand, and the quality required, into the time you are so ruthlessly managing

3.    ….and repeat

There was a TV programme about a dumpling factory in China. The most productive dumpling maker was interviewed. When asked what she thought about all day when making dumplings, she replied ‘how to make them faster and better’

Dumplings or decisions: the deliberate practice is the same.