WRITELOOP

HOW YOU CAN INSTANTLY IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND FOCUS USING AGILE RESULTS FOR EXTREME PRODUCTIVITY

2014 February 7
  • Three Wins: Identify Three Wins for your day, your week, your month, and your year.
  • Plan the year wins, for example, and base the month and smaller wins on the scope of those year wins. Always base the minor wins on the subsequent major one.
  • The simplest way to start using Agile Results is to ask yourself the following question and write your answer:
  • What are Three Wins or Three Outcomes or Three Results that I want out of today? IT’S NOT ABOUT LISTING ALL YOUR TASKS. You already likely have an overwhelming list of things to do, or things you want to get done. For example, your Three Wins for today might be:
  1. Draft complete on my project plan
  2. Desk cleared and ready for anything
  3. Great breakfast
  • Sense of progress is one of the biggest factors for happiness in life.
  • Your ability to chunk things down into little wins will add up in more ways than one.
  • You’ll be more productive AND life will be sweeter.
  • You’ll also get better at tackling bigger challenges.
  • FOR WEEKLY RESULTS:
  • MONDAY VISION: identify Three Wins for the week.
  • DAILY WINS: Each day, identify Three Wins for that day (on the context of the 3 wins of the week)
  • FRIDAY REFLECTION: identify three things going well and three things to improve. Your Friday Reflection helps you get better and better every week.

THREE WAYS TO EXPONENTIALLY IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

1. WORST THINGS FIRST: The idea here is to tackle your biggest challenge first. Everything after that will be a glide path. Use your best energy to nail the toughest part of your week or your day.

2. POWER HOURS: We all have our times in the day when we are at our best. If you pay attention for a week, you’ll notice that at certain times in the day, you will feel on fire. You will be way more productive. I guard those hours whenever I can, and I use them to get my unfair advantage. I can literally get several hours worth of work done in a single Power Hour. Never underestimate the power of energy. You can’t get more time in a day, but you can put more energy into the hours of your day. Energy is your ultimate catalyst.

3. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS: If energy is your catalyst, then your strengths are your force multiplier. First get clear on your strengths. Maybe you are great at starting, but not so great at finishing. Figure out what your strengths are and find more ways to inject your strengths into your tasks. Add your personal twist.

  • Get rid of as many of the tasks and activities that regularly bog you down or that you don’t have strengths or passion for. A creative way to do this is Pair Up with others. Find somebody who loves to do, what you hate to do. People love to share what they’re great at. Find the people who are great at what you need , and see if you can swap tasks, or at least learn ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper.
  • Any one of these tips will help you get exponential results, but when you do combine them, it’s better together. You can easily spin circles around others when you master these basics, and you get the power of energy, focus, motivation, time management, and extreme productivity on your side.
  • A powerful tip to really help you take your productivity game to the next level is 30 Day Focus Sprints. The way it works is you pick one thing to really focus on throughout the month. You effectively pick a theme for the month. For example, let’s say this month, you want your theme to be “House in Order.” For the entire month, do a little something each day to help you clean things up, get organized, and simplify. The results will be outstanding, because your little actions each day of the month will compound. It’s concentrated effort applied with a specific focus.
  • 30 Day Focus Sprints are especially powerful because they let you get a fresh start each month. Each month, you turn the page, and can choose a new focus (or repeat a focus.) Throughout the year, every month is a new chance to learn and explore a new topic. It becomes your most powerful way to really go deep on something, and expand what you’re capable of.
  • Here’s why 30 Day Focus Sprints work: First, your little wins start to add up. Along the way, you’ll find breakthroughs, and you’ll build better habits. Second, because you are doing this longer than two weeks, things really start to sink in more deeply. Third, because you try something small each day, you give yourself the chance to experiment and explore new ways of doing things. It’s these experiments that help you do things you haven’t done before, and find ways to do things better than you’ve ever done before. And, the beauty is that if things go wrong, each day is another chance at bat. REFERENCE: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2013/07/how-you-can-instantly-improve-your.html