The blindingly obvious way to improve your productivity

Don’t look into the light!

Sometimes it feels like your day controls you instead of the other way around. With most people checking their email before they get dressed, it’s easy to get buried under a list of to-dos before you even have your pants on, let alone coffee in your bloodstream. This early onslaught creates a firefighter mentality — you’re putting out hot spots on the ground before you understand the broader forces at play. Sorry for the fire analogy, I’m in California, I can’t help it. So by the end of the day you wind up feeling spent without making meaningful progress on your highest priorities. Work gets in the way of work. So, what can you do about it?

1. Keep quiet

Nobody is important enough to receive a response from you while you’re still in bed unless that person is already in bed with you. Clear? The real goal here is to not check your phone until you have your clothes on but having seen The Social Dilemma I know how hard that is. Yes, there’s the temptation to get some easy items cleared from your inbox. Resist the temptation — you can do it. If you can get your clothes on and put a little food in your mouth before diving into your inbox you’re nothing short of a modern day demigod.

2. Survey the terrain

Once dressed and hopefully fed, spend 3–5 minutes looking at your calendar, inbox, and Slack or whichever workplace communications tool you might be using. Again, don’t respond to anyone. They can wait. Remember, it’s still early — we’re talking pre-work hours here. Do not set people up to expect responses from you before work begins. The idea is to get a general sense for what will be required of you today. Just have a look on your phone or computer without getting sucked into the vortex. Don’t you dare get sucked in.

3. Have a think

Here’s where the magic happens. Grab a pen and paper and find a comfortable place to sit down. I prefer to do this outside if possible because research shows that morning sunlight exposure makes it easier to go to sleep and stay asleep at night. But if it’s February in Manitoba, just sit somewhere comfortable. Now you’re going to spend 15 whole minutes meditating on your day without your devices. What do I mean “meditating on your day”? I mean putting focused energy into thinking about what you have to do that day. What are your priorities? Who do you need to speak with? What are good short-term goals for your bigger projects? If you think of something you need your computer for just write it down and look when you’re done. I’ll be the first to admit this is harder than it looks. The mind tends to wander. This is OK. If you catch your mind in a distant galaxy, just bring it back to the simple task at hand without critiquing your thoughts. If this is really difficult for you, try five or ten minutes first. If you set a timer on your phone, don’t look at the time passing and keep your phone out of reach. Write down everything useful that comes to mind.

Move on with your life

When your 15 minutes are up, return to your computer and see how you can make your priorities a reality. Schedule the most important things first and deal with the rest when you can. This way you’re approaching your day with your priorities front and center — avoiding the step where you get caught in the details before you have a chance to see the big picture.** I have also found bullet journaling to be a helpful tool/approach for organizing my days and weeks on paper. I talk about it in more depth here.

I started doing all this when I realized looking at my phone too early in the morning was causing me a lot of unnecessary stress. Your inbox at 7am is an unprioritized scrap heap filled with urgent requests, in progress conversations, flash sales, and political fear mongering. Social media is probably even more of a mess but that’s a conversation for another day. It’s hard not to jump right in and attempt to bring order to chaos. Phones are great at stealing little bits of our attention and not letting us use our brains to put uninterrupted thought into the challenges we face. I wanted a simple way to approach my work days more intentionally and this has worked really well so far. Once I know what I’m trying to accomplish it’s easier for me to wade into email and Slack with a sense for what’s worth my attention and what isn’t. It’s also much easier to know when work is done.

This is 20 minutes right at the beginning of your day that will consistently pay dividends in the form of time, focus, and productivity. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes. If you’re looking for a next step, the black belt move is to plan your weeks before they begin. This means getting your priorities onto your calendar before anyone else has a chance to swoop in and gobble up that time.

** While I’m sure lots of people have talked about this idea, I borrowed it from the personal finance concept “Pay yourself first.”