Overcoming Laziness

“18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work”

Posted by john on September 12th, 2006 — Posted in Cures For Laziness

I found a valuable article by software entrepreneur Dave Cheong called 18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work. Laziness is often a problem of lack of focus. You get involved with doing Task A, but then Task B catches your eye. Pretty soon, hours have gone by and you haven’t gotten a lot done.

My favorite of Dave’s recommendations — which I’ll be posting detailed step-by-step instructions about in the coming days — are these:

“1. Write out a daily task list and plan your day.”

This for me has been my #1 breakthrough in getting things done. Every morning, I write out a to-do list of three things (that’s it, just three measly things!) that I want to have done by the end of the day. It’s been miraculous for me. For one thing, it makes my day much clearer.

And at the end of the day, I feel like I’ve really accomplished something, so I can happily reward myself by doing something I enjoy such as reading or watching a favorite TV show. What you do to reward yourself doesn’t matter, but the key is to have something.

By the way, I’ll explain in an upcoming post why 3 is such a magic number for your to-do list.

“3. Apply time boxing.”

Dave has a good article about that called Time Boxing is an Effective Getting Things Done Strategy.

“5. Do not check personal email in the morning.”

I’ve also found it good to not check the news either. Any site that you can surf on for hours (e.g., an interesting discussion forum, Wikipedia, etc.) should be avoided like the plague!

“7. Listen to the right types of music.”

“8. Use the headphones but leave the music off.”

Silence is one of the best ways to clear the cobwebs in your mind, on a number of levels. For one thing, when you look at the brain, various things can snap us out of what I like to call that highly-productive Zone State — e.g., traffic noises, dogs barking, co-workers talking, the telephone ringing, etc.

“9. Fill up a water bottle.”

13. Clean up your desk.

I’ve discovered a super easy, super fast organizing system which I’ll be revealing shortly.

“17. Limit time on Digg, Delicious, news sites and blogs.”

Like I said in my comment to #5, aimless web surfing can be a time killer. As Dave says, “No, you don’t need to have your finger on the pulse every single minute of the day…”

18. Change your mindset and make work fun.”

I am going to be talking a LOT about this concept in the coming days. Your mindset is the magical key doing any task you want and not having to suffer through it.