On being productiveBeing productive has a goal in itself; making sure that you, after a not too long day of work feel you

really have accomplished something. These guidelines will help you with getting that feeling.

Apart from that, 56,3% of all helpful advice on Linkedin can be summarized with: “If you

experience issues with X, you will find out that if you spend more time on solutions for X, the issues will

go away” Duhuh! The problem for most of us is not that we don’t know what we need to do, but that we don’t know how to

find the time to do it. Therefore these 7 helpful pages.

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Have a couple of big goals

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• In order to know what is important and what is less so, make sure you have a couple of big goals

• Stuff that helps you achieve those big goals is important, stuff that doesn’t isn’t. It really is that simple

• Big goals do not by definition have to be business goals

Small steps• To have a feeling of accomplishment, you need to have

small action-focussed-steps you can do in one day.

• Actions on your list should start with a verb. Like: • start your action list with verbs. Feel the difference?

• Have one ‘system’; paper folder, application, anything will do, where you jot down the things you should do somewhere in the future • minimize doing tasks ‘right now’. First they go in your

system, there they get sorted and then they get done

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Distractions• Avoid distractions, avoid news, avoid e-mail. Avoid all ‘reports’

that start with a number (“5 ways to etc. etc.)

• Say again?! Avoid e-mail? Yup, that’s right. Do not start your day with e-mail, do not start your day with Twitter, do not start your day with LinkedIN, do not start your day with a newspaper, even if it is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

• You start your day with a plan and a small list. That list is either from a system (like Omnifocus), or it is written down on a paper.

• See how quickly you where inclined to click on one of the links? Even on the German one while you don’t speak German at all? Being behind a screen is dangerous because distraction is just one click away. Therefore we turn to….paper!

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How to create a paper TTD list

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1. Take a Post-it size of a Quarter page (5.25”W X 2,25”H) 2. Place it in a vertical position in front of you 3. Write down the first thing that fits one of the big plans in the middle 4. The next thing that pops in mind (or you pick from a bigger ‘Things-To-

Do system’) is written above this first action if: •it is boring •it is more urgent •it was on the list yesterday

5. Likewise, put the next task under the middle task if: •you like doing it •it is less urgent •you need to do it, but doesn’t fit in your big plans

6. Not less than 4 items, not more than 9

There you go! You have just created the excellent Things-To-Do list for your day.

Further tips

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• Don’t do anything else apart from what is in your TTD list. So, when you are done, you are done for the day and that’s good. How else are you ever going to experience spare time? • Don’t multi-task (only 3 out of 1.000 women really can and

men can’t anyway) • Quit applications you are not using, so they can’t bug you • Switch off your Wifi connection at least one hour per work-

day in total…communicating cannot be your only job • Perfection doesn’t equal excellence

• Very, very often good is good enough

• And remember; people are excellent in creating the right list for achieving their goals, even their big goals. Unfortunately they are even more excellent in diverting from that list…

Who is writing?

• paul.harts@visionpartners.ae

• https://ae.linkedin.com/paulharts