Despite our best intentions to work on the right things, we don’t, for countless reasons. All these reasons involve either how you spend your time, attention, or energy.
Normally, you don’t have as much time, energy, or attention as you would like. When you take the time to observe how your energy fluctuates over the course of the day, you can work on your highest-impact tasks during your prime time—when you are able to bring the most energy and focus to them.
THE PRODUCTIVITY PROJECT’S main takeaways, include: The art of doing one thing at a time and other “attention muscle” challenges. Among the many counterintuitive insights the author discovered, the following had the biggest impact on productivity: shrinking or eliminating the unimportant; slowing down to work more deliberately; the rule of three; striving for imperfection; scheduling less time for important tasks; the 20 second rule to distract yourself from distractions; and the concept of productive procrastination.
You are encouraged to chart your own course to productivity beginning with baseline style assessments and coming up with an accurate picture of your natural energy peaks and dips throughout the course of the day. By realizing our own energy flow, we can time our toughest tasks to our highest-energy moments, and push our low-impact work to our more energy deprived periods.
Source: Chris Bailey: The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy
More Self-Coaching Guides for Career Women:
Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. (ebook and paperback editions)
Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions)
When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41)
Improving the Quality of Your Life By Author M.B. Tosi on April 1, 2013
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Do is to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
