How to Be More Productive And Eliminate Useless Activities That Murder Efficiency Part 1

By Carlon Haas | July 10, 2007

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Some years ago as I sat in my office after a long 12-hour day, I sat and pondered something deeply.

How was it that I sat there at my desk all day and managed to do absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Not one iota of work.

But I had been so busy all day. How was it that I completed nothing.

Certainly, I had done something, right? I was super-busy all day. The only problem was that all the things I was doing had nothing to do with work.

Welcome to a typical day in the life of the busy, yet unproductive. That was your glimpse into the reflections of a worker who did not exist. He was simply a figment of the imagination of the payroll department that cut checks to this “worker” who did very little, if any, work.

But it was not my fault really. The problem was that I really couldn’t figure out what I was doing with my time. I had no idea why I wasn’t getting any work done. And let me tell you when I set up my own business I had to figure it out quick or I would have gone broke in the

Does this sound familiar?

Well, in this 4-part series I will present to you the 3 things that I found had cut most deeply into my work production and how I solved all of them in one fail swoop (after a lot of trial and error). Needles to say, they all involved my computer.

The key to existing more is having more time to do the things that are important. And we can’t do that until we learn to be more productive and shed the “activities” that prevent us from using our time wisely.

Let’s start with the first of these murderers of production:

Production Murderer #1: Checking E-mail

I can hear the sound already. That Whoosh MS Outlook makes when I get a fresh, hot delivery. As I stated in an earlier post, though, it was usually from someone trying to sell me something, and in most cases that was my fault because I got on the person’s list in the first place.

Or how about that “urgent” e-mail from a friend that they so lovingly forwarded to me and 100 other people? I had better answer it right away before I forget about it.

I can tell you that at least once every 5 minutes I was checking my e-mail. And how much of it was urgent? Not a one. They all could have waited. In fact, 90% could have been deleted.

The truth is the people sending me e-mail were just as bored as I was. So, we sent each other e-mail all day going on about how bored we were when we should have been working.

But there is a quickie solution production murder by e-mail—turn it off.

Turn off your e-mail client. If you use Outlook, don’t open it. If you use web-based e-mail, don’t open your browser until your work is done. It’s that easy.

Some will say, “But Carlon I need to check my e-mail…that’s how I get clients.” That’s fine. But if you want to be productive, check your email at certain intervals in the day (like at 10:00 & 3:00, once every 2 hours, etc.). or check it after your most urgent task is completed. That way you can be sure not to miss any e-mails (trust me, most e-mails don’t need immediate replies) and still get some work done.

Tune in tomorrow, as I show you the second production murder and how under its smileyface-winking-sharing facade lies the potential to waste week after week of work with absolutely nothing to show for it.

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