Key takeaways §
- Multiple of his top tips are about reducing distractions from email and your phone. Don’t open email until noon and leave your phone somewhere else.
Highlights §
- Being productive is about maintaining a steady, average speed on a few things, not maximum speed on everything. (View Highlight)
- Step 3: Don’t open email until noon.
Sounds simple. Nobody does it. It took me awhile to get over the urge to open my inbox, but eventually I realized that everything can wait a few hours. Nobody is going to email you about a true emergency (a death in the family, etc.), so leave your email alone for the first few hours of each day. Use the morning to do what’s important rather than responding to what is “urgent.” (View Highlight)
- Step 4: Turn your phone off and leave it in another room.
Or on your colleague’s desk. Or at the very least, put it somewhere that is out of sight. This eliminates the urge to check text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. This simple strategy eliminates the likelihood of slipping into half–work where you waste time dividing your attention among meaningless tasks. (View Highlight)