Here are 7 I things I stopped doing to become more productive.1. Stop Working Overtime and Increase Your Productivity
Have
you ever wondered where the 40-hour work week came from? In 1926, Henry
Ford, American industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company,
conducted experiments with interesting results: when you
decrease your daily working hours from 10 to 8, and shorten the work
week from 6 days to 5, your productivity increases.
The more you work, the less effective and productive you are going to become over both short and long term. “Scheduled Overtime Effect on Construction Projects”, a report issued by The Business Roundtable in 1980 states:
“Where
a work schedule of 60 or more hours per week is continued longer than
about two months, the cumulative effect of decreased productivity will
cause a delay in the completion date beyond that which could have been
realized with the same crew size on a 40-hour week.”
In an article for AlterNet, editor Sara Robinson referenced research conducted by the US military that revealed that “losing
one hour of sleep per night for a week will cause a level of cognitive
degradation equivalent to a .10 blood alcohol level.” You can get fired for coming to work drunk, but it is deemed acceptable to pull an all-nighter.
Irrespective
of how well you were able to get on with your day after that most
recent night without sleep, it is unlikely that you felt especially
upbeat and joyous about the world. Your more-negative-than-usual
perspective will have resulted from a generalized low mood, which is a
normal consequence of being overtired. More important than just the
mood, this mind-set is often accompanied by decreases in willingness to
think and act proactively, control impulses, feel positive about
yourself, empathize with others, and generally use emotional
intelligence.
It’s important for us not to overwork ourselves and
get enough sleep to maintain a high level of productivity. Next time
you’re wondering why you may not be working productively, the reason may
be simple as you being one of 70% of people who doesn’t get enough sleep.
Did you know?Leonardo da Vinci took multiple naps a day and slept less at night.The French Emperor Napoleon was not shy about taking naps. He indulged daily.Though Thomas Edison was embarrassed about his napping habit, he also practiced his ritual daily.Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, used to boost her energy by napping before speaking engagements.Gene Autry, “the Singing Cowboy,” routinely took naps in his dressing room between performances.President John F. Kennedy ate his lunch in bed and then settled in for a nap—every day!Oil industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller napped every afternoon in his office.Winston Churchill’s afternoon nap was a non-negotiable. He believed it helped him get twice as much done each day.President Lyndon B. Johnson took a nap every afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in order to break his day up into “two shifts.”Though criticized for it, President Ronald Reagan famously
took naps as well.
On
a personal note, since I started getting at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep
a day, I’ve noticed a change: I became a lot more productive and got a
lot more work done than when I worked 16 hours a day. Who knew sleeping
was such a great tool for marketers?2. Don’t Say “Yes” Too Often
According to the Pareto Principle, 20% of the effort produce 80% of the results; however, 20% of the results consumes 80% of the effort.Instead
of working harder, we should focus primarily on those efforts that
produce 80% of the results and forgo the rest. We will have more time to
focus on the most important tasks. We should stop saying “yes” to tasks
that bring low or almost no result.
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.”—Warren Buffet.
This
begs a question: what should you say “yes” and what should you say “no”
to? If you can’t figure if something is going to be worth your time,
consider running a simple split test. Track everything you do and
optimize if it is possible.
Most of us say yes more often than we should because it is so much easier than saying no. Nobody wants to be the bad guy.
In a 2012 study
published in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers split 120
students in 2 groups. One group was trained to use “I can’t”, while the
other was trained to use “I don’t”. The results were interesting:
The
students who told themselves “I can’t eat X” chose to eat the chocolate
candy bar 61% of the time. Meanwhile, the students who told themselves
“I don’t eat X” chose to eat the chocolate candy bars only 36% of the
time. This simple change in terminology significantly improved the odds
that each person would make a more healthy food choice.
Next time you need to avoid saying yes, say “I don’t.”
Another
great trick to avoid activities that don’t add enough value into your
life is the 20-second rule: give yourself 20 seconds longer for
activities you shouldn’t be doing.
Lower the activation energy for
habits you want to adopt and raise it for habits you want to avoid. The
more we can lower or even eliminate the activation energy for our
desired actions, the more we enhance our ability to jump-start positive
change.3. Stop Doing Everything Yourself and Start Letting People Help You
At
some point in my career, I was managing a very large community and
couldn’t handle it. I tried to do everything myself. I burnt out, but
the community ended up taking over and managing itself. Surprisingly,
members did a better job than I have ever done. I learned the power of
community andwhy brands need user-generated content.
Consumers understand what they want and how they want it better than any marketer. Did you know that, according to Octoly,
user-generated videos are viewed 10 times more than brand-generated
videos on YouTube? When seeking information about a particular brand, over half
(51%) of Americans trust user-generated content more than the content
on the brand website (16%) or media coverage on the brand (14%). It’s
important for marketers to open up and seek help from the brand’s
community.
Being a great content marketer is not about creating
the best content, but building a great community that will generate
high-quality content for you.
It’s important for us to realize we
can seek help when needed. We cannot do everything ourselves. It is
better for you to let someone who can do a better job taking over some
of your tasks. It will give you more time to focus on your most
important tasks. Instead of wasting your time trying to figure something
out yourself, let the experts help you.
A lot of time, even if your friends can’t help you, having them around can help you become more productive.
Just having friends nearby can push you toward productivity. “There’s a concept in ADHD treatment called the body double,”
says David Nowell, Ph.D., a clinical neuropsychologist from Worcester,
Massachusetts. “Distractable people get more done when there is someone
else there, even if he isn’t coaching or assisting them.” If you’re
facing a task that is dull or difficult, such as cleaning out your
closets or pulling together your receipts for tax time, get a friend to
be your body double.4. Stop Being a Perfectionist
“We
found that perfectionism trips up professors on the way to research
productivity. The more perfectionistic the professor, the less
productive they are,” Dr. Simon Sherry, a Dalhousie University
Psychology Professor who conducted a study on perfectionism and productivity,
tells University Affairs magazine. Dr. Sherry found a robust
correlation between increased perfectionism and decreased productivity.
Here are some problems associated with being a perfectionist:They spend more time than required on a task.They procrastinate and wait for the perfect moment. In business, if it is the perfect moment, you are too late.They miss the big picture while being too focused on small things.
Marketers often wait for the perfect moment. In doing so, they end up missing it.
The perfect moment is NOW.5. Stop Doing Repetitive Tasks and Start Automating It
According to a research study conducted by Tethys Solutions,
A team of 5 people who spent 3%, 20%, 25%, 30% and 70% of their time on
repetitive tasks respectively reduced this time to 3%, 10%, 15%, 15%
and 10% after 2 months of enhancing their productivity.
A week
ago, I spent 15 minutes writing a basic Python program. The idea was to
generate content from the data, which I pulled from Twitter API using a
Ruby bot, and use Hootsuite to bulk schedule them. While it used to take
me an entire day to accomplish, it now takes me less than 5 minutes.
Nowadays, whenever I do something repetitively (more than 5 times), I
would ask myself if I can find a program to do it for me.
You
don’t have to be a coder to able to automate your repetitive tasks. It’s
nice to have the skills or the resources, but it’s not a requirement.
If you cannot build it, buy it.
People often forget that time is
money. People usually do things manually because it’s easy and requires
almost no research. It is manageable to moderate 30 images on Instagram
for your user-generated campaign. But if you have to manage 30 000
photos and videos from 5 different platforms, you need a good digital
asset management software. At Filemobile,
we help people to solve that problem generate even more user-generated
content. Just like managing rich media, you can easily purchase a
software to solve almost all of your
problem on the internet.
If
you still can’t find a solution, you can hire an expert to help you.
Keep in mind that you need to spend money to make money and that time is
your most valuable commodity.
Tips for marketers: check out GitHub or Google app script library. Often times, you’ll find free ready-to-use open source code that requires very little programming knowledge.6. Stop Guessing and Start Backing Up Your Decisions with Data
If you can optimize websites for search engines, you can optimize your lives to grow and reach your maximum potential.
There
are so many research studies out there that can provide answers in a
range of areas. For instance, did you know that most people are more
easily distracted from noon to 4PM? This random statistic comes from
recent research led by Robert Matchock, an associate professor of
psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Even if you can’t find the
data you need, it doesn’t take a lot of time to run a split test.
For instance, last week we did a few tests to figure out the best way to optimize images for Twitter in-stream preview.
Keep asking yourself how you’re going to measure and optimize everything you do.7. Stop Working, and Have Do-Nothing Time
Most
people don’t realize that we’re essentially locking ourselves in a box
when we are too focused on something. It’s important to walk away from
our work once in a while and have some alone time. Alone time is good
for the brain and spirit, according to The Power of Lonely, an article in The Boston Globe.
One
ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and
accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone.
Another indicates that a certain amount of solitude can make a person
more capable of empathy towards others. And while no one would dispute
that too much isolation early in life can be unhealthy, a certain amount
of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and
earn good grades in school.
It‘s important for us to take time for reflection. We often find the solutions when we’re not searching for them.
We
don’t become more productive overnight. Like everything in life, it
requires efforts. Change doesn’t happen if you just sit there and wait
for it. It’s important for all of us to learn more about our body and
find ways to optimize our energy for a more successful and happy life.

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