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Everyone at least once dreamed of an extra hour in a day. It turns out that you can manage to do everything that is planned if you unload your brain and focus on the most important. How to do it?
In one interview, Barack Obama admitted: “I only wear gray or blue suits. I don’t want to think about what I eat or wear. I have too many more important things to do.” Life optimization is a skill that helps successful people cope with a huge number of tasks. Here are a few steps to help clear your life of “garbage” and free your hands for business.
Optimize everything you can
Clear the horizon. It is difficult to find the desired file on the desktop of the computer if the entire screen is littered with icons of programs and documents. The same applies to the space in the house, notepads and notebooks. Make sure that the necessary items and records are always in the same place.
Get rid of the excess and regularly review the workspace: what you really need and what you can throw away. Try the KonMari Organizing Method to clean up your environment.
Set aside time for evaluation and planning. So you get rid of unnecessary thoughts in the process
Use visual cues. In many religions, a rosary or its equivalent is used to count the prescribed prayers. The same method can be applied to your daily routine. If you need to perform a certain number of actions (for example, 20 calls), shift pieces of paper from one pile to another. So you will not only know how much you have already done and how much is left, but also fix the ritual. Made a call – shifted a piece of paper.
Make a decision once and don’t go back to it again. There is one trick that sociologists and marketers have long noticed. If we need to regularly make a conscious choice in favor of something unpleasant (for example, renewing a paid subscription), it is easier for us to change our minds or forget. But if we opt-in by default (the subscription renews automatically unless we opt-out), it’s harder for us to jump off. The presumption of consent means that we make a decision once – and then we no longer need to worry about it.
Create morning and evening rituals
Go to bed and get up at the same time. Productivity depends on how ready the body is to work. If you make a daily routine and stick to it, the body will know what to expect from you. It will anticipate your actions and tune in to them. Conversely, a chaotic regime will create stress for the body, and it will get tired faster.
Summarize and plan the next day in the evening. It is important to set aside some time for evaluation and planning. Make a habit at the end of each time period – a month, a week, a day – to take stock and make plans for the next such period. So you get rid of unnecessary thoughts and doubts in the process.
Organize your workspace so that temptations do not catch your eye
Relax. Set aside time free from the flow of information, business and urgent thoughts. Let it belong only to you. Meditate, meditate, write down the thoughts that come. If you need to be collected and concentrated most of the time, you need to be able to unload your head.
Think over the decision-making system
We make many choices throughout the day, most of which we are not even aware of. Some decisions require willpower, which can be undermined by fatigue, stress, and irritation. In this state, it is easy to drop everything and say: “This is already too much.”
Consider options for action in case of severe stress or overload. Create a reward system for yourself, such as a reward for going to the gym in the form of a favorite meal for dinner or a good movie.
Organize your workspace so that temptations do not catch your eye. Break up tasks into smaller ones: this way you will be less tempted to put something off until later.
Think over the information processing system. For example, use the Getting Things Done methodology, which offers five steps for dealing with new information:
1. Collection – collect everything that attracts attention.
2. Processing – determine what it means to you.
3. Organization – put everything in its place, assign each task a category, time and method of execution, an executor.
4. Overview — regular checking and evaluation of the system condition.
5. Execution planned actions.
You may have other algorithms. The main thing is to choose what works for you. Take the time to analyze your life and understand which regimen is right for you. If it takes a lot of time to optimize life, debug all schemes and techniques, it doesn’t matter. But as a result, you will get a working system that will give you the freedom to grow and achieve big goals.