Productive Ninja: 5 effective tricks to do more

In this article we will explain how to become a productive ninja, paying less attention to the distribution of time and more - managing your energy .

1) Know when you are at your best

And make plans for this.



Charlie Munger, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway, used a similar system for continuous self-improvement .

He determined the best time for himself, and then constantly spent one of these hours on training.

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Charlie Munger discovered one strategy when he was a young lawyer. He made a decision: every time legal work is not as intellectually stimulating as we would like, “I will sell the best hour of the day to myself.” He was going to use his paid time at the peak of the day and devote himself to his own thinking and learning. "And only after improving my mind, after I spend the most productive hour on myself, I will sell my time to customers."



Are you a morning lark? Night owl? Tired after lunch? Feeling better after a short day nap? Find out what works for you, and use it in your plans.

2) Sleep enough time

No, you will not succeed in fooling yourself with regard to sleep.



Tricks with an afternoon rest lead to a whole cascade of negative effects, of which not the smallest is the reduction of proactivity.



Regardless of how well you managed to spend the day after a sleepless night, you could hardly feel most alert and happy for the world. Your more negative than usual view of everything was the result of a general deterioration in mood, which is a normal consequence of overwork. And what is more important than mood: this state of mind is often accompanied by a decrease in the ability to think and act ahead of time, control impulses, have a positive attitude towards yourself, sympathize with others, and generally use emotional perception.



Indeed, people whose emotions after a sleepless night are so unstable can be counted among psychopaths.



The combination of these things changes the results obtained on the clinical scale of affective disorders, often transferring perfectly normal people outside the zone of adequacy. Therefore, when tested on such a specific day, some of them were classified as being in a state of depression, or even as psychopaths.

3) Distraction dulls

The school in New Haven was located near a noisy railway line. Measuring the effects of these sounds on academic performance, a couple of researchers noted that only one side of the building was on the way. Students in the classes on this half were constantly exposed to noise, but otherwise completely resembled their comrades. Scientists have discovered a striking difference between the two sides of the school. Pupils of the sixth grades in the half facing the trains lagged behind their peers from the quiet side all year round. The following data appeared when the townspeople attracted by the study installed sound-absorbing shields. The researchers found that this smoothed out the differences: now the students' productivity on both sides of the building became equal.



Distraction can lead to the fact that you do not notice the passing gorillas. Seriously.

4) Work where you usually complete tasks

Know where you are productive? Go there. What about the place where you always count crows and lose time? Avoid it.

USC professor Wendy Wood explains how the environment develops habits - so much so that your mind does not even notice it.



Habits arise as a result of a phased study of the links between action and the result of the circumstances associated with them. After the formation of habits , various elements of the environment can become incentives that trigger behavior regardless of intention and the absence of a specific goal ... Very often, the mind does not even pick it up.



Circumstances matter more than you think.

5) Believe in what you are doing

It sounds like an old-fashioned cliché, but research confirms this.



What happens if you take your tasks as a challenge, and not just as a job that allows you to feed yourself? You are more careful, interested and happy.



A study of psychologists, Ami Vrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, shows how strongly our attitudes — what we chose to focus on — affect our work. Vrzesniewski and Dutton followed the cleaning team at the hospital and found that some of them perceived their activities as work — something that was done only for payment — and described it as dull and meaningless. And another group perceived the same tasks as a challenge, and found the hours spent in the hospital fascinating and significant. The second group of cleaners performed their duties differently than the first. They more often interacted with nurses, patients and visitors, wanting to improve the condition of each of those with whom they were in contact. In general, they viewed their work in a broader context: they not only cleaned the wards and threw out the garbage, but also contributed to the patient's recovery and the soothing atmosphere of the hospital.



How to do it? This is due to the interaction with people who benefit from your work.



A professor at Wharton, Adam Grant, conducted a study, trying to increase the motivation of the university call center staff.

When employees of the call-center were shown letters of grateful students who received a scholarship through talking with them, their motivation sharply increased.



And what could raise it even higher? Talk with these students.



When the staff met one of the scholarship holders in person, they became even more energetic. The average employee doubled the number of calls per hour and minutes on the wire per week. Acting more diligently, the staff helped more graduates, bringing the number of weekly scholars to 144%. Even more impressive is the fact that the income of the workers themselves increased 5-fold: from 412 dollars to a meeting with the recipient of the scholarship to more than 2,000 dollars after it.



Never underestimate the power of the right approach.



PS We recommend another article on the topic - 5 reasons to communicate with people who differ from you .



Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult