How to become more productive in 5 minutes a day

How would you like to improve your productivity without reading a book, without having to implement a complicated strategy, and without taking hours out of your week to do it?  I know it sounds impossible but believe me, it works.  A couple of months ago I lay down in my bed ready to sleep after a long day at work but I had this gnawing feeling in my gut that I hadn’t done all that I could have that day.  Something felt incomplete and I knew I had screwed up somewhere.  I’m sure we’ve all had those moments where we knew we could have done more but it felt like something was holding us back.

That was when I decided go back and review what had happened during the day to figure out what had happened.  As the movie played in my head certain moments, certain actions and certain thoughts stuck out.  Each one fit into one of two categories, good or bad, and unless you are extremely self–deluded you know when you did good and when you did bad.  (I should note that this is in regards to productivity, not morality)  As I closed my eyes I thought to myself, ‘Hmmmm, well isn’t that interesting.’

The system:

Now that I had reviewed my day and figured out what I had done that was good (meaning productive) and bad (meaning counterproductive) it was time to organize them.  Now I must say the order in which you think about them is pretty important.

First: The Bad

Go through your day one more time in your head.  This time think about all the things you did that were bad, they should be pretty obvious.  Things like time wasted on Flash games, not following work plans you’ve made, and avoiding tasks you don’t want to do are some of my bad things.  If you continue to do this technique for a while you notice a consistent set of problems, or at least a theme, which you can work on correcting.

Second: The Good

Now go through the day and think of all the good things that you did, your achievements, your progress and the problems you solved.  No matter how bad your day there are always a few things.  Remember what you did and how you felt doing it, this is action, this is productivity.

Third: The plan

Now, reviewing both the good and the bad think about what actions you can take the next day to eliminate the bad things you did today.  For example, if I played too many flash games today then tomorrow I don’t play any.  If I avoided a task I didn’t want to do the first thing I do the next day are tasks I don’t like.

Review:

1. The Bad
2. The Good
3. The Plan

If you try out this system you will notice that as you go through your day you will be much more aware of when you are getting things done and when you are not and be able to do something to encourage or discourage those actions.  The one problem of this system is that you might fall asleep in the middle, but it’s a risk worth taking.  The great thing is that it only takes a few minutes a day!

With my trip around Southeast Asia fast approaching I don’t have time to waste and since I discovered this technique a lot more has gotten done.

Do you have that incomplete feeling that you could have gotten more done just before falling asleep?  Or do you just feel like you could get so much more done if only if….?  Give this a try and if it doesn’t work I promise a full refund.

I should also mention, if you are interested in more productivity enhancements (not like that!) Google something called lifehacking.

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