Organize IT

Not too long ago I came across the concept of raising your consciousness. Any habit or behaviour is a subconscious action, which means you basically do it without thinking about it. That urge to reach for a cigarette, slouching in a chair or calling somebody by a particular name… that’s your subsconscious doing its work. If you had to think through every single thing you did humans probably wouldn’t be around today. Of course, the only problem with that is it can lead to your picking up bad habits.

Parkour is the aim of moving from one location to another as quickly and efficiently as possible. This typically involves overcoming obstacles like park benches, trees, walls and cars. I found this idea especially interesting because of the uncanny similarities between it and productivity. You have to have the right mental discipline (no procrastinating or lack of focus), not get distracted by unnecessary activities (vaulting a bar when you don’t need to) and make decisions on how to deal with those obstacles in as stress-free a way as possible. Sound familiar? Can you see any other similarities in this video?

View original image

Over the last two weeks I’ve been looking at time management. Firstly, I looked at the misconception that there is never enough time in the day. I found that the more time we have the more likely we are to waste it anyway. As one comment said, even if we had 48 hours in the day we’d still want more. With this in mind I started looking at what it takes to use your time better by looking at the two building blocks of good time management; being effective and efficient. To conclude I want to take a look at how I personally manage my time using those two principles, so that you have a better idea of what is involved. Excuse all the links in this post but to avoid repeating stuff I think it’s better if I point you to other posts dedicated to the various topics rather than rehashing it here. I hope it proves useful for you.

View original image

Good time management involves being both effective and efficient. You have to be able to pick out the right tasks and then do them in the most economical way. In the first part of this series I looked at effectiveness. As I discussed then, that is certainly the most important stage. However it also needs to be tied with efficient work practices to really save you time. It’s no good deciding you’re going to write that life changing book you’ve always wanted to do if you are going to procrastinate all the time. Likewise, focusing on preparations for a big work conference is all well and good but if you’re not breaking the workload down into manageable chunks you’re going to be wasting time.

Below are the most popular posts from September. As usual, if you missed any of these posts please check them out, and leave a comment. There was quite a broad range of topics covered this month, ranging from life advice for students to covering the first steps of an healthy lifestyle. Do you like the variety or would you prefer more focus on particular subjects? Let me know your thoughts!

• Introducing My New And Improved Weekly Planner!
• How To Deal With The Obstacles In Your Life: Part 1
• How To Deal With The Obstacles In Your Life: Part 2
• Self-Help Myths: There Is Never Enough Time In The Day
• Productivity Tip #08: Streamline Your Productivity System
• Productivity Tip #09: The Hard Landscape
• The 5 Simplest Healthy Habits You Will Ever Learn
• 4 Tips For Students That Will Set You Up For Life