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‍Stop Feeling Overloaded: 15 Powerful Habits to Maximize Productivity and Reclaim Your Time

October 5, 2024
Ahmadou DIALLO

Discover practical strategies to streamline your workday, eliminate distractions, and finally get things done efficiently.

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." 

– Stephen Covey

Give me five minutes, and I will save you 20 hours a week. That is an offer you cannot refuse, can you? 

I have always been faithful to outcomes in my life. I have always thought that I could control things if I worked hard. 

The truth is that I was bathing in my own illusions, leading to the cliffs of disillusion. I cannot control the outcomes. I have limited mental capacity and energy every day.

The only way to kill dead time in life is to rely on systems and not be driven by outcomes. The outcome is not in your control. You control your system through daily actions now. 

Here are 15 habits that will give you back 20 hours of alive time:

- Unsubscribe From Unnecessary Emails And Ghost Your Inbox

- Delegate Tasks When They Are Lower Than Your Hourly Rate

- Create A To-Do-List Of Only 3 Items Today For Tomorrow

- If You Think Of Doing Something (Not Stupid), Just Do It

- Starve Your Wardrobe Or Wear A Uniform Every Day

- If A Task Takes More Than 5 Minutes, Schedule It

- Automate Anything And Everything If Possible

- Create Standard Operating Practices (SOP)

- If It Takes Less Than 2 Minutes, Just Do It

- Befriend App Blockers In Your Phone

- Declutter Physically And Digitally

- Live By Constraints If You Can

- Do Nightly Chores Before Bed

- Do Batch Cooking If You Can

- Build A Second Brain

Let’s see more details. 

1. Unsubscribe From Unnecessary Emails And Ghost Your Inbox

#EmailEnigma

Checking and responding to emails constantly wastes time and is a great source of dissatisfaction.

You are always (turned) “on” and logged in to work. Notifications are killing your concentration. Like Siri, Alexa, or Ok Google, you are triggered by notifications and are unproductive. 

Check your emails twice a day: at the end of the morning and in the middle of the afternoon. Be a slave of “Do not disturb” to be free of notifications. Welcome deep work without distractions. 

2. Delegate Tasks When They Are Lower Than Your Hourly Rate

#DelegationDynamo

You think you have to do it all because you can do it all. Think again. You can do it all, but not all at once. 

You feel like you always have to do it because you are the best one for that job. You do all tasks, no matter their impact on your life. You feel overloaded and burned out. 

Calculate your hourly rate. Assess how long it will take you to accomplish that task. Screen each task as high- or low-level work. Delegate tasks below your hourly rate to colleagues or virtual assistants. 

You do less. You do more in your area of expertise. You do it well because it is your core strength. 

3. Create A To-Do-List Of Only 3 Items Today For Tomorrow

#PrioritizationProblem

Your to-do list has more bricks than the Great Wall of China. Your mind is a monkey, juùmping from one unfinished task to the next one. You are scattered everywhere and accomplished nowhere. 

You are overwhelmed by all those bricks before your eyes. You never lay one brick entirely. The wall is weak and incomplete. 

The last task of your day must be to create a to-do list with only three items for the following day. Call those items your all MIT (Most Important Tasks) and worship them the following morning. Eat that damn frog first thing first and enjoy the rest of the day, started by a victory. 

4. If You Think Of Doing Something (Not Stupid), Just Do It

#ActionAdcvocate

You spend more time philosophizing. You spend less time practicing what you preach yourself. You are a victim of analysis paralysis. 

You love theory. You have practice. You are both the rock and the hard place. 

If you have an important task in mind, don’t overthink it. Just do it. Too much preparation, planning, or perfectionism is just pure procrastination. 

Take action now. Learn as you do. Adjust your course iteratively. 

5. Starve Your Wardrobe Or Wear A Uniform Every Day

#WardrobeWarLord

You Wake up. You shower in five minutes. You spend fifty minutes trying to decide what to wear. 

You are indecisive and stressed about outfit choices. Each morning, you deliberate with your wardrobe. The overweight wardrobe is the true war-lord. 

Limit your choices of clothes. Make sure that they are easily mixable and interchangeable. Maybe you can plan your weekly outfits on that dreadful Sunday evening, removing the relentless guesswork every morning. 

6. If A Task Takes More Than 5 Minutes, Schedule It

#TaskTamer

The bricks of your to-do-bricks China wall are beating the hell out of you. Time-consuming tasks steal your most precious resource in life. You cannot differentiate between complex and simple tasks. 

You are facing a wall of your own creation. You are drawing in the sorrows of a river of tasks. The cold of your inactions freezes you. 

Schedule time for thanks above 5 minutes. Break down those beasts into tiny, cute little tasks. Block some time in your calendar to discuss them with those cuties.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. Forget the destination.  Focus on the journey. 

7. Automate Anything And Everything If Possible

#AutomationAdvantage

Repetitive tasks eat away at your valuable time. You are on that hamster wheel and not on that helicopter view. You are living Groundhog Day on steroids. 

Mundane tasks bog you down. You dread repetitive work, which kills your motivation and creativity. Boring repetition drains your energy, and you are more prone to errors. 

If you have to perform a task more than thrice a day, explore automation opportunities. Use automation tools and software features to schedule emails, data entries, or social media posting. Automate the repetitive tasks so that you can focus your energy on the higher-level work. 

8. Create Standard Operating Practices (SOP)

#SOPSuperhero

You are doing one task in one thousand different ways. That task is dead simple. Each time, you execute differently, adding complexity while avoiding simplicity.

You have no default response to basic common questions. You reinvent the wheel every time. You waste your time and energy trying to come up with different solutions. 

Create Standard Operating Practices or SOPs for every simple task or decision you encounter frequently. For your tasks, create simple documents and flowcharts that detail the steps to complete the task. For simple decisions, build an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) answers to revert by default. 

You will create reference points, save time, and ensure consistency in your work and your life. 

9. If It Takes Less Than 2 Minutes, Just Do It

#SmallTaskSavior

Not all tasks haunting your monkey mind are born equal. You feel like they all inflict the same pain. Before your eyes, they all look like giant a-holes. 

That is because you have been procrastinating on small tasks. You let them outgrow you. You have been a victim of your own snowball effect.

If a task takes less than 2 minutes, do it now. You can expand on that “just do it” mentality for tasks taking less than 5 minutes. You will thank me later.

Kill those small seeds before they become baobabs in your mind. 

10. Befriend App Blockers In Your Phone

#ThePhoneFixation

Social media and the many apps on your phone are the true thieves of your life. They are the new dealers in town: they make you addicted, steal your time, and make you miserable. 

Your phone has put you on a leash. Doom Scroll is your new master on social media platforms. You feel guilty and unproductive for using your phone. 

Before going to bed, deactivate mobile data on your phone. Then, put your phone on airplane mode to get things done. 

If you are still addicted to your phone, use app blockers for specific “phone-free moments” in your day. Put your phone in another room and turn off the Bluetooth on your smartwatch. Embrace Saturday’s phone fast on weekends: dumb down your phone to just receive phone calls. 

Now you are the new master in town, not the other way around; put your phone back on a leash like the old days. 

11. Declutter Physically And Digitally

#TheClutterChaos

“Phygital” (Physical + Digital) clutter breeds mental clutter and hinders your ability to be focused, productive, or even feel present. 

You are like an archeologist in your own space: always looking for things to get things done. You are accumulating stuff just in case you might need some day. Your “phygital” environment is like a canvas painted by Monet and Picasso together: beautiful distractions everywhere. 

Declutter your “phygital” space. Delete, unsubscribe, and organize items in your digital space. Use the “1 in, 1 out” methodology in your physical life. 

Put things in a box or a folder. If you don’t know what is there after six months, you must get rid of it. Tide up your space and your place, one location at a time. 

12. Live By Constraints If You Can

#StrengthByConstraint

You are always running away from any constraint in your life. You don’t want to be in any relationship that could limit your freedom as you are. You just want it easy without any friction. 

You have difficulties facing uncertainty. You are always looking for hacks in every aspect of your life. You want the light without the shadow. 

Sorry to break it to you: where there is light, there is always shadow. Create deadlines to finish your projects. Use time-boxed activities. 

Constraints create friction. Friction forces you to action. Action leads to the outcomes you are looking for. 

Freedom and constraint are two sides of the same coin. Remove one, and you immediately lose the other. Constraint is the path to freedom. 

13. Do Nightly Chores Before Bed

#TheNightlyRoutine

You hate doing chores before bed. You like to procrastinate even more before going to bed. You will always do it tomorrow morning. 

You rush in the morning, trying to accomplish thousands of things before starting work. Because of those looming household tasks, you feel rushed, flustered, and frustrated. You wake up earlier to complete evening chores.

Never sacrifice a good night's sleep for a chore. Everyone is talking about their morning routines. Be a contrarian: Develop a nightly chore routine to minimize the number of chores or decisions for the morning after. 

Before bed, ensure that the sink is empty of dishes. Prepare your clothes for the day after. Prepare your breakfast ingredients and set the table for a calmer morning. 

Your morning is your golden hour. Minimize the number of decisions you take in the morning to maximize your energy and impact for the rest of your day. 

Behind every great morning routine is an even greater nightly chore routine at its core. 

14. Do Batch Cooking If You Can

#TheMealPrepMaestro

You always wonder what to eat at the last minute. You are a fan of processed food. You spend a lot of time at the grocery store, wasting your time, energy, and money. 

You are the maestro of indecision when it comes to meals. You use more energy to think about what you should prepare than you get from your meal. You are a master meal improvisator and a chef procrastinator. 

Prep your meals in advance. Dedicate two hours on your weekend to batch cooking for the next week. At least create a menu for the week, buy all the ingredients you need once, and get them ready in your fridge. 

Don’t Uber Eat your way out to processed food diseases. It’s costly, not always healthy, and not worthy of proper energy-rich nutrients. 

15. Build A Second Brain

#TheIdeaIncubator

You think you are a genius. You are always having great ideas that you never execute. You always think you know it all because you have read it all. 

You are an internet philosopher. You have a superficial opinion on everything. You are haunted by unsolved problems. 

Your brain is made for creating ideas, not holding them. Build a second brain. Have different ways to capture ideas wherever you are. Use Post-It and carry notebooks everywhere. Use digital means to capture your ideas the moment they arise. 

Building a second brain is the surest way never to lose an idea for a creative project or a solution to a work problem.

You will become less of a philosopher. You will become more of a practitioner. Your second brain is your secret weapon to leapfrogging your path to success.          

Final Thoughts

The secret to success in life is building systems, focusing on the process, and consistency.

Here are 15 habits that you can develop today to be successful today:

- Build A Second Brain

- Do Batch Cooking If You Can

- Do Nightly Chores Before Bed

- Live By Constraints If You Can

- Declutter Physically And Digitally

- Befriend App Blockers In Your Phone

- If It Takes Less Than 2 Minutes, Just Do It

- Create Standard Operating Practices (SOP)

- Automate Anything And Everything If Possible

- If A Task Takes More Than 5 Minutes, Schedule It

- Starve Your Wardrobe Or Wear A Uniform Every Day

- If You Think Of Doing Something (Not Stupid), Just Do It

- Create A To-Do-List Of Only 3 Items Today For Tomorrow

- Delegate Tasks When They Are Lower Than Your Hourly Rate

- Unsubscribe From Unnecessary Emails And Ghost Your Inbox

Common people improvise their way of life. Uncommon people build routines and enjoy the ride by trusting their process. Common people are energy vampires, while others ride the wave of life with the optimum energy.

If you find this newsletter valuable, please like it, subscribe, and share it with one person to pay it forward.

#Dare2Care #Dare2Share

#BIOS #BringInyourOwnSoul #LeadHeartship #Leadership 

Photo by Kid Circus on Unsplash

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