1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.
At the end of each week, I’ve been sharing an idea from Tynan‘s book Superhuman by Habit about how to install specific, positive habits into your life.
So far, we’ve covered:
- Building positivity
- Being compassionate
- Eating healthy
- Improving sleep
- Learning mindfulness
- Working out
- Seeking out masterpieces
- Writing every day
- Traveling to unusual countries
2: Have you ever heard the saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”?
“That phrase makes sense,” Tynan writes in Superhuman by Habit, “because you know that busy people have, probably subconsciously, created habits to allow them to get a lot done.”
Hard to argue with that logic.
“So much of getting things done is that system of habits,” Tynan observes. “Just give them what needs to be done, and they’ll do it.”
If you want to get more done, try thinking of your work as a set of habits.
“Having a defined system allows you to pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t, and to iteratively improve it over time,” he notes.
Like compound interest, the benefits of working on your work habits accumulate over time.
“The interesting effect of building productivity habits is that because so much of your output is defined by your habits,” Tynan notes, “you’ll have a major advantage in anything you do.”
Because once something becomes a habit, it becomes much easier to do consistently.
“By tweaking and improving upon those systems, we can become incredibly effective executors, while simultaneously making that execution require much less willpower than before,” he explains.
Good productivity habits also carry over from one area of our lives to the next.
“So even if your specialty is programming,” Tynan observes, “if you decide to become a writer, a lot of those habits that you built are universal enough that you’ll start with a leg up.”
3: A good place to start? Eliminate procrastination.
“When I began trying to track down where wasted time was going, I found that I procrastinated quite a lot,” Tynan shares.
That’s common. What’s less common is the insight that came next: “What I didn’t expect to find was that almost all of my wasted time was before I even got to work.”
Tynan believed he woke up, enjoyed a pot of tea, and then got to work.
But that’s not what was actually happening.
When he started tracking his time, he discovered that “in reality, I would wake up, have my cup of tea, and then browse the internet and engage in low-productivity activities almost until lunch time!”
To tackle procrastination, he focused on one specific area: Starting work earlier.
What did he learn? “That turned out to be true, and the solution was simple and painless,” he writes.
The way to beat procrastination was simple: Write down your most important task for the day and commit to doing it first.
“For me it might be writing a blog post or dealing with customer service for my blogging platform,” Tynan shares.
Next, write down what time you start that activity.
“This sounds like it wouldn’t have much of an effect,” he says, “but what it’s actually doing is training your subconscious to recognize when you start that task, and to value starting early.”
By tracking when you start, “without doing anything else,” Tynan writes, “your schedule will gradually shift up until you’re doing high-value tasks first thing in the morning.”
What gets measured gets done.
Once you’ve completed your first task, if you find yourself slipping back into procrastination, start tracking when you begin your next important task.
“In practice,” Tynan writes, “I track when I write a blog post and when I start working on my blogging platform.”
“The blog post usually jumps me into productive mode, and then when I start programming, I usually end up getting into a groove that lasts for hours, or maybe the whole day,” he shares.
By tracking when you start your most important tasks, you can spend less time procrastinating and more time doing what matters.
More next week!
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Reflection: How much time do you lose procrastinating before you begin your most important work?
Action: Identify your most important task tomorrow morning. Record the time you actually start working on it. Repeat for a week and notice what changes.