Recently my good friend Tim Jordan, a 7 Figure Ecommerce Entrepreneur, asked “What habits do you employ to be more effective, efficient, and generally higher performing?”
Tim raised a great question. With so much noise these days from social media, emails, coworkers, friends, and family, not to mention your phone, you can get lost and do “busy work” all day long and not get anywhere.
Here’s my top 5 habits to be more Effective, Efficient, and Higher Performing.
1) The Pomodoro Technique – Remember the old school tomato timer you had in your kitchen?
Enter the Pomodoro Technique. By setting aside focused blocks of time in 25-minute intervals where you focus on only ONE TASK this helps me focus tremendously on the ONE thing and block out the noise from emails, FB, etc…
After 25 minutes, you rest for 5 minutes and then go back to work for another 25 minutes. Rinse and repeat.
2) The one-touch rule for emails – once I open an email I have to take action on it. This saves me a ton of time from putting it off and reopening it later.
This has a bonus side effect as others will appreciate your fast replies.
My friend Jason Vander Griendt who runs a one person million dollar business also implements this technique to stay ahead of his competitors.
3) Getting Things Done Method by David Allen – the GTD method helps me keep things organized in folders (I use Evernote) and free up my mind to focus on important decisions, tasks, etc.
David Allen argues that the mind is for thinking, creating, and making decisions… NOT for remembering. That’s why everything is downloaded into notes and folders.
From shopping lists to that article you stumbled upon but didn’t have time to read – GTD helps me not forget anything and work more efficiently.
4) Productivity Planner – Every week I plan out the 15 most important tasks in my productivity planner. They are ranked into 3 categories: Top 5 most important tasks of the week, the secondary 5 most important tasks, and other tasks. I have to complete the top 5 before moving onto to the next group.
The night before, I plan out the next days’ tasks in my productivity planner in the order of importance. Again I have to finish one task before moving on to the other.
Then I budget the amount of time it will take each task to be completed in blocks of 25 minute pomodoro’s.
This simple method has a huge impact on my productivity.
5) The Miracle Morning Routine – Serial Entrepreneur Hal Elrod wrote an excellent book that helped me craft a strong morning routine so I start the day more effectively.
Many of the most successful people in the world from Steve Jobs, to Tim Ferriss, to Benjamin Franklin have a common thread – their morning routines. Hal Elrod synthesized the morning routines of dozens of successful people and crafted a master morning routine which can be abbreviated as S.A.V.E.R.S.
- Silence
- Affirmations
- Visualization
- Exercise
- Reading
- Scribing/Journaling
I highly recommend you check it out if you haven’t read it yet.
What’s your #1 strategy to be more organized and efficient? Comment below and let me know!
Gary
