The article entitled “The Man’s Guide to Getting Productive” in January 2009 edition of GQ had some very good productivity tips.

Make a Deal with Yourself

Stephen King will go to a quiet place and make a deal with himself that he will just 5 pages done. He says that once he gets started he will often want to

do a little more. Often getting started is the hardest part so setting a goal can help motivate you to get the work over with.

Get Sufficient Sleep

According to the article “missing just a few hours of sleep every night for a week will give you the wordaday cognitive ability of someone who just chugge

d five beers.” They suggest that the average 35 year-old needs 8 hours of sleep a night. You may think if you sleep 4 hours a night, you will have more time to get things done, but everyone knows what it is like to try to think when you are dead tired. It is not effective and you will be better off if you take time to get rested.

Prioritize Tasks

The author of the story had a coach from David Allen’s Getting Things Done company come to help him become more productive. One of the first things the coach did was to set him up on a system of prioritizing tasks that the author had deemed important

in his life. She had him write down everything that he wanted or needed to do. “This is your in

-box. Now we take action on each item in the in-box.” If an item can not be acted upon at that time it goes into the “file f

or future reference”. Next, you start executing tasks in the “in-box” that will take 2 minutes or less. The next step is to take the tasks that will take longer and organize them in managable lists like “home”, “errands” and “office”.

You can learn more about becoming a more productive executive by reading “The Man’s Guide to Getting Productive” in the latest edition of GQ.

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