Staying focused in a world that is so technology driven takes a lot of versatility, diligence, and fervor to accomplish things and get them done. Confucius the wise man himself actually once said, “he who chases two rabbits catches none.” As hard as it is to recognize the fact that working on more than one task at once will waste valuable time, “Life hacks” have been defined lightly as tools that make the “chaos of everyday life easier and more efficient.” When users trade these tools across the web and through other mediums, many entrepreneurs, busy folks like teachers, and medical professionals or students realize that there are many new (and old) ways to juggle their workload more efficiently and more than just survive, but thrive. We are going to haplessly claim that productivity life hacks ARE the new way of getting things done, as we dig a bit deeper.
The life hack that we found the quickest seemed simple enough: just to wake up before everyone else. As routine and run of the mill as that may seem, some of the most successful people in the world have told us that it is absolutely true. A wildly successful website owner told us that “the reason successful people wake up early isn’t to always work, it can be to waste time.” We were a bit shocked by that, but during an interview he told us that since there is such a large amount of work to be done, that the wee hours of the morning are best used for recreation. And for some CEO’s and tech gurus, that just means finding the time to glean news sources, trade journals, and the like. We believe that one of the best other life hacks we encountered was to “tackle topics you despise first.” But doesn’t that sound like it could lead to the opposite of being productive?
Much of the truly unpleasant work can be tasks in the financial realm like budgets, or customer complaint forms, especially if you are on the lower end of the current totem pole. The best truth behind this life hack is that once you get done with a few solid hours of the tasks that you enjoy least, your brain power will implode exponentially. And who doesn’t enjoy feeling like they just had a few Red Bull drinks as far as the checklist killer realm? Another of the life hacks that we found from multiple blog sources was about a topic that some love, but some dread: meetings. The mantra/life hack of “keeping meetings to a minimum” surprised us a bit, but we dug deeper to look for the silver lining.
In the days where budgets were never trimmed and people actually wanted their employees to have fun 24/7, meetings were thought of as productive, a way to have a bit of a roundtable and perhaps even bond. But as many different tasks loom and more than ever needs to be accomplished, the time spend handling the accounts could be much wiser than the time spent mulling over past notes. Either way, keeping meetings to a minimum has helped many of our cohorts. One who was an owner of a prominent shoe company in Los Angeles admitted that, “we realized much of what was accomplished was just as easy done over instant messenger, and as long as employees were praised and rewarded for good work, cutting them to a minimum was a great choice.” And hey, we know everyone likes a break, but the load in your inbox simply hasn’t shrunk the last hour, as much as you’d like it to!
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