Posts Tagged ‘efficiency’

10 Ways To Be Productive in 10 Minutes

Most of my free time, except when I'm doing it on purpose, tends to come in short blocks. I rarely have 2 hours free, but might, over the course of a work day, have those same two hours in twelve ten-minute bursts.I realized recently that, for the most part, I waste all of this free time. Since it's such a short period of time, it seems to not strike me… Continue reading

July 13 2009 | By David | Tagged: downtime, efficiency, schedule, spare-time, time, work | 34 comments»

Delegate Your Time Sinks and Reclaim Your Day

What’s the number one most effective way to make more time in your day? Get other people to do the things you’d normally be doing. Many people complain that there aren’t enough hours in the day when the problem is simply that there are too many tasks in their day that could easily be given away to someone else. You Can Afford It Even if hiring someone (probably a virtual assistant) to… Continue reading

April 29 2009 | By Joel | Tagged: assistant, delegation, effectiveness, efficiency | 4 comments»

Deirdre McCloskey on Writing

One of the best books for writers in the social sciences is Deirdre McCloskey's Economical Writing, a very short, very small book that offers a number of important principles for writing. McCloskey is an economist by training, but she has written across a wide variety of fields. Economical Writing is a must-have and a must-read for any serious writer. Here are five of her points from… Continue reading

October 10 2008 | By Art | Tagged: college, efficiency, persuasion, social-science, student, university, writing | 19 comments»

How to Use Parkinson’s Law to Your Advantage

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you're into productivity, you'll know this proverb as Parkinson's Law. This interesting statement was made by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the famous British historian and author, in 1955 - first appearing as the opening line in an article for The Economist and later becoming the focus of one of Parkinson's books, Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress.Parkinson was qualified to… Continue reading

June 4 2008 | By Joel | Tagged: efficiency, parkinson's law, time-management | 24 comments»

Saving Time on Routine Tasks: Optimized Writing

Last time we looked at saving time on routine tasks, we found a few ways to optimize our reading process. Today, we're covering the opposite side of the same coin with optimized writing. Technically, we'll spend more time on optimizing your typing than writing, but in this day and age there's really not much of a difference.Using your computer, by nature, involves writing. You no doubt write something at… Continue reading

May 21 2008 | By Joel | Tagged: efficiency, email, instant messenger, optimization, sms, writing | 6 comments»

Why You Should Kick the “Versus” Habit

A world painted only in black and white is a hard place to live or work

In our time-starved, action-obsessed approach to work and life, we easily drop into the habit of seeing every choice or decision in terms of simple opposites: good versus bad, right versus wrong, success versus failure, winners versus losers. Every choice must be one or the other, with no options in between. Macho management thinking… Continue reading

May 7 2008 | By Adrian | Tagged: choices, Desision-making, efficiency, reality | 9 comments»

How to Maximize Efficiency by Grouping Tasks

There’s a metaphor many of use on a daily basis that compares our brain to a car or a bicycle with gears. I need to shift gears or my head’s in the wrong gear for this indicates that the human brain, for the sake of efficiency and concentration, hones in on the task at hand to the point where it takes time to remove our concentration from the subject… Continue reading

March 26 2008 | By Joel | Tagged: efficiency, organization, scheduling, tasks | 8 comments»

Effective is Not the Same as Efficient

Are you efficient, effective, or efficiently effective? As you are focused on getting things done efficiently you may be making very quick decisions. You rapidly move through tasks and check things off your To-Do list one, two, three. You look productive because there is activity, your list is full of check marks or strikeouts showing completion, and your calendar shows meetings. That To-Do list isn’t too long and overwhelming… Continue reading

November 1 2007 | By Susan | Tagged: deadline, effectiveness, efficiency, project, work | 20 comments»