Workplace Popcorn: How to become Super-productive working for yourself

Colleagues, I present to you the translation of the article about Super-productivity , which strongly hooked me. I hope that the translation will be useful for you to organize your working time.

I met this idea somewhere on Hacker News a few weeks ago and adapted the concept for my own lifestyle, and it changed my approach to work.

Super productivity - how to start working more than ever

I will not talk about such important principles as:
-Pareto rule, 80/20
-Law Parkinson
-Tomore Technology
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Now these laws and strategies are known to everyone, but today I want to talk about the productivity technique that I used myself, and you can apply it right tomorrow.

This increased the number of weekly posts I posted three times and helped me find a way to do more than usual. I conditionally called this technique “workplace popcorn”.

A big problem
If you work for yourself or from home, then you are well acquainted with “Imitation of work” - a job where you are unrealistically doing something. If you work somewhere, and your boss forces you to do unnecessary work, then you definitely know what work is for work.

However, if you are an entrepreneur, then your business is even worse.

You spend hours at the computer, obediently “working”, but doing very little. You end every day with a sense of fear that you have not done anything today. You can be buried under a pile of cases from your to-do list. The fear of tomorrow and bringing even more work that you cannot do at all.

In the meantime, deep inside, you realize that you are not working with 100% efficiency. You know that you secretly spend time on Facebook and Reddit, respond to mail, and do things that are loosely connected with your business. You spend hours at the computer, but almost do not make any progress in the affairs in which they should, even if you work longer than usual.

How to solve this problem? How can you become more productive by focusing more and doing more tasks in less time?

My answer: workplace popcorn.

How it works

Workplace Popcorn

Create a to-do list for one day

A list of all you need to do today. Try to be more specific. Be sure that each entry in the list represents a specific action, not a vague idea.

At the end of the day, you can go back to the list and say: “Yes, I did it”, or “No, I did not do it”. If you are not ready to answer calmly Yes or No, then you have prepared an insufficiently specific list of cases.


Here is an example of tasks that you should not add to your to-do list:
Bad example
-To do several things
-Make progress in sports
-Start writing a blog post

All these tasks are wrong. You cannot say whether you made them or not.

Here is what you can plan in return:
Good example
-Write a post at least 800 words about my new productive technology and send it to Joanna
- Write instructions for creating an incredible list (no less than 2000 words) and send it to Joanna for editing.
-Write a mini-guide on the FPC Protocol

I can say “Yes” or “No” about completing each of these tasks by the end of the day.

A great tool for this piece of technology that I use is the Any.do service. Of course, you can just use a regular notebook. It also works well.

Break this to-do list into three equal parts.

The next thing to do is to split the to-do list into three equal parts. These parts should be equal depending on how much time you spend on them. If you are not sure of the time of the execution of a particular task, then just check it out. This is normal, so do not worry.

Group 1:
- Task 1 (1 hour)
-Task 2 (45 minutes)
-Task 3 (45 minutes)
Total time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Group 2:
- Task 1 (1 hour)
-Task 2 (30 minutes)
- Task 3 (1 hour)
Total time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Group 3:
- Task 1 (30 minutes)
-Task 2 (45 minutes)
-Task 3 (45 minutes)
Total time: 2 hours

Find three places where you will work.

Whenever I come to a new city, the first thing I do is look for new coffee houses.

Now I have a few loved ones in which I prefer to work. They meet the following criteria:
-Good coffee
-Place for work
-Stores and WiFi

Such places are easy to find.

Choose a time. Check out Yelp, Google Maps, and Urbanspoon or just walk around to find new places. Find three different places to work outside your home.

You can find more places later, but right now only three.

The note:
If you work at home, then choose a place where you will only work. Avoid the temptation to work in bed or on the couch. It is very comfortable and tempting, but your work there will tend to zero.

Do
Now you have done all this work, which was fairly simple. Here are the following two steps:

Step 1: Go to cafe number 1
Step 2: Start working there on cases from group 1

Important: Only focus on cases from the group №1. Try to forget all the other things on your sheet. Only these things, and nothing more.

As soon as you finish these things, get up and go. Close the laptop, pack up and go to the next place. If you can, walk or cycle to the next stop. Avoid cars if you can. Physical activity is very important.

Use time to practice your Zen, tear away from the computer, feel the pleasant moments in your day. Keep your phone in your pocket and move. Stay away from work for 30 minutes. Everything that you did, forget in the place where you just were.

Option: turn on your iPod while traveling to move 1.5 times faster.

When you come to the next cafe, start the next group of cases and repeat.

Do this until your to-do list ends.

When done in your sheet for the day, then finish the work. Relax and live life to the fullest. Do not take up work at home, because it does not help to do more - it only exhausts you.



My experience
Since I started working on this technique, I have increased my productivity.

Some intentional (and unintentional) consequences:

I work less hours
I do more in less time. Instead of working at home and always being available, I do more and finish my work earlier. I also do not bring my work home.

I do more
Of course, these are not unintentional consequences (this was the goal), but using this system, I write one or two posts a week and write other not-so-important posts in the amount of six pieces a week on my projects, which is a significant result for me.

I explore more places
When you look for three new places every day, you will soon recognize the whole city. This is not exactly work at home.

I sleep better
This is very strange, but I really began to sleep better. Before that, I often woke up at night, worried about things that I did not have time to do, planned the next day. The current strategy gives me a feeling of satisfaction and completeness at the end of each day, which allows me to relax. Whenever I start thinking about tasks, I understand that it will be tomorrow and I just write down ideas and remind myself that the time will come for work.

I do not waste time
With this crazy focusing on three things in one place, I'm not spinning like a squirrel in a wheel anymore. I force myself to sit down and get started, because I know what I have to do. When I finish my tasks, I get up and go. I'm not starting to check Facebook, watch news sites, or other time-wasting sites. When I work, I work.

Bonuses to work
Now I have to move around every two hours and I realized that I am moving more overall. So I forced myself to walk and ride a bike, doing the standard amount of work that ensures my height. This is a permanent exercise. Well, since I start and finish work at a certain time, in fact I get a lot more free time before and after my work day.

I realized that the most difficult part is to decide what exactly to do

Even these rules showed me once again that work, as a rule, it is not so difficult. Deciding to work hard. Even harder to focus on something. Super Productivity hack - just decide what to do. This is a good way to enter the workflow.

How to make it yours
A few notes:
- Usually you can choose to do more or less tasks in a cafe. The idea is to divide the tasks into different categories that take approximately the same time. Three is usually good, because these are just three tasks for you that are hard not to do.

-Email is not an important task. You cannot add it to your task list. You can do this at the end of the day when other tasks are completed.

“Work is a signal, Email is noise.

-If you need more time to complete the task, then use the Oreo Focus. Focus Oreo consists of two short sessions. Try this idea when solving your problems.

-If you want to be really tough, then do not use a laptop charger for one of the sessions. This is an artificial restriction that will allow you to do more until your computer has disconnected. Good luck!

-Try the Tomato technique, which turns on work in 25-minute iterations. You can combine this technique with super productivity.

- A productivity post will not be a performance post without mentioning music for productivity. Listen to what inspires you.

It's all. Plan your daily tasks and do them. Try it and let me know how it works!