Writing and Photography by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter
Hey blogaudience! I’ve got a lot of work to do this week.
As I’m writing blog post for you to read, I’m also doing these things:
- Creating a brilliant logo for a creative company in California
- Creating a stunning website for a creative company in California
- Finishing production on a website for an artist in New York
- Writing 15 short informative stories for a web publisher
- Drinking a coffee
- Checking my Twitter
- Checking my email
- Doing dishes
- Doing laundry
- Thinking about what to eat for lunch
- Trying to sell my bike
Whew, that’s a lot of work that I’ve got to do, and most of it involves a hard-to-harness skill called ‘Creativity’.
The problem is that for the last three hours I’ve been trying to do all of this stuff at the same time. I’m getting somewhere, but I’m not seeing the results that I need to see in order to get all of these projects to done in an acceptable amount of time.
It’s a well known fact that multitasking is a productivity killer. Minimalists try not to multitask, because by doing so we’re wasting time that we could be enjoying our lives.
So why am I engaging in the ultimate productivity sin?
Because I haven’t stopped myself yet, which is why I’m writing this post. I’m going to turn this situation around. I’m going to be a minimalist productivity master, and so are you!
How a minimalist can single-task his way to done.
1, Identify which of these tasks can be finished in under 2 minutes. Do these tasks first, so you don’t have to worry about them. Do them one at a time. Until all small tasks are completed. I’m going to make sure my email is back at inbox zero before I start on big projects.
2, Figure out the first big project that you want to complete. If you need to write this project on a post-it and paste it somewhere visible, as a reminder that you shouldn’t be Tweeting.
3, Eliminate all distractions. Turn off email, twitter, Facebook, etc. Stop reading the New York Times. Finish eating your sandwich. Lock yourself in a room and don’t come out until you need to eat.
4, Stop doing other projects while you’re working on this project. I find myself googling research material for my short informative stories, but I should wait until I’m actually writing them. We’ll get to other things when the time comes, right now you need to focus on this thing.
5, Break down the larger project into actionable tasks. It’s important to break big projects down into smaller task that you can do in a reasonable amount of time. If you don’t you risk being paralyzed by the scope of what you need to accomplish. For instance, I’m going to designing that logo with an outline, then create a 3D object, then play with color, then play with texture.
4, Work on the project that you choose until it’s complete, or until you need to take a break. Save it, publish it, send it on to your boss. Good, it’s done.
5, Repeat from step 2 until everything on your to-do list is done.
Yay! Now we’re minimalist productivity masters! Now let me get to that logo design.
