Author: Blaz Kos
Research shows that more than 50% of meetings are unnecessary. People do it to socialize, feel important, share opinion, avoid decision making, and so on. Not to mention, you usually have to commute to a meeting destination, make small talk with all the participants, everybody is on their phones during the meeting, and so on. Meetings really can get in the way of you doing real work. Learn a few core tips how to run a productive meeting.
One big phenomenon that I notice when people have to deal with email is email guilt. To be honest, even I used to suffer from email guilt. So, let’s look at what guilt is and how it can cripple your email efficiency. Guilt occurs when you feel that you violated your moral standards. Guilt can be a useful feeling, until it escalates out of proportion and becomes overactive. Many people suffer from an overactive conscience or false guilt. False guilt always looks for people to please and rules to keep. You won’t believe it, but false guilt can also be shown when it comes to email.
Email can be real work. If you, for example, work in software support or you are a journalist or your job is to send out newsletters, then email is obviously your main working tool. But in many other cases, email can be one of the biggest distractions. And if you have an email client always opened when you’re behind your computer, it can be a devastating thing for your productivity. Thus learn the three reasons why email is so addictive and how to properly manage email to stay ultra productive.
Reacting to every interruption or distraction from your environment is the biggest productivity killer. That’s because it takes 5, 10, 30 or even more minutes to fall back into a working flow every time you’re interrupted (one big study showed it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds on average). And there are so many interruptions and distractions out there today. It’s insane. In this blog post you will learn how to minimize distractions to stay productive.
Technology is one of the important leverages that can dramatically increase your productivity. But the problem is, it can also kill it. Technology is nothing but a tool. Like a hammer, for example. With a hammer, you can hammer a nail or nastily hit your fingers. It depends on how good you are at managing the hammer. It’s same with all contemporary technology, apps and devices. If you manage the tech, your productivity level increases. If the tech manages you, your productivity decreases.
