One of the Most Powerful Productivity Tools

One of the most powerful ways to increase your efficiency is to determine what your most productive times of the day are.  In other words, do you get more done in the morning, middle of the day or at night? The interesting thing is most people intuitively know when those times are generally.  When someone refers to themselves as a “morning person” or a “night owl” this usually means that they know that they are more alert and work better at particular times of the day.

Your Golden Time

If you are a morning person, the first 90-120 minutes of the day are your Golden Time.  Ordinarily, the average person will get up and immediately look at their phone.  This often leads to mindlessly looking at email and social media.  A more efficient way to start your day would be to use a regular alarm clock to wake up and then to read or work on a special project for the first 90-120 minutes of the day without interruption or looking at any electronic devices.

Those early morning hours are magical because there are no distractions and your mind is usually clear of thoughts and concerns that often pop up later in the day.   If you are a night person, you can use the same approach.  After everyone has gone to bed, you turn off your devices and work uninterrupted for 90-120 minutes.  You will find that once you get working that the ideas will just flow and you will accomplish much more than at other times of the day.

Rate Your Time and Then Go To Work

To take advantage of this principle, you need to determine what your most productive time is and rate it out of 10.  Once you know that, do your most productive work at that time and only schedule your most intense work then. Any other mundane and routine things can be scheduled at times when you are less productive like in the afternoon when your mind begins to wander and your attention span is much shorter.   

Use productivity time efficiently and watch your work output increase dramatically.