How to make the best use of the day?

Terminator Julia

In this era when both rest and exercise pay attention to efficiency, the ability to handle things efficiently becomes more and more important. In work and life, things can never be done and time is never enough. What should I do?

Liu Run, a time management expert and business consultant, will pay you his personal toolbox in one lump sum and give you comprehensive advice on time management from work to life.

Manage your time efficiently, and the earlier you start, the better. First, develop basic skills-e-mail, calendar, contacts.

First, mail.

Remember two things:

1. As a business person, never use a free email address.

It is very unprofessional to leave a QQ mailbox on a business card.

You should apply for a special company mail suffix to show that your business is serious and your business is formal.

2. Keep all historical emails.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of the United States requires companies listed in the United States to keep e-mails for at least five years. I use it to ask myself to keep my mail for the past 20 years.

Through search, you can retrieve historical emails at any time and instantly, improving communication efficiency.

Second, the calendar.

Mail exists in the Mail Server, and so do calendars and contacts. Everything should be written in the calendar.

Colleagues invited you to the meeting? Ask him to send a "meeting invitation" by email, click "accept" and there will be an extra agenda in the calendar.

Have you booked the plane ticket and received the SMS or email confirmation? Transfer flights, hotels, credit card repayment information, etc. And put them in the calendar.

My time granularity is 30 minutes, and I will put everything that takes up time in my calendar.

When my colleague asked me: Do you have a meeting for half an hour on Wednesday afternoon?

I will immediately open the email client to check the calendar, and then answer: send me a meeting invitation from 2 to 3.

After receiving the invitation, I will mark the schedule in red. Red means important and urgent things, and blue means important but not urgent things.

It's almost 2: 00 pm on Wednesday, 15 minutes in advance, mobile phone reminder 15 minutes later, there will be a meeting in the conference room on the third floor.

Reminders are very important.

Set the reminder to 15 minutes in advance for the meeting reservation;

For dinner, set it to 1 hour in advance;

Booked a flight, 2 hours in advance;

My friend's birthday is scheduled for the morning 10.

Microsoft Office 365 can also ask an assistant to help arrange the itinerary.

In the morning, my mobile phone rang and I jumped out of a trip: 1 .5 hours later, the driver came to the hotel to pick me up and take me to the client's office.

Before that, I need to have breakfast and check out. The invoice header, tax number, driver's phone number, customer contact name and the position required for checkout are all on this agenda.

This is schedule management and this is efficiency.

Third, the contact person.

Since 1998, I insist on storing all my contact information in the cloud, and my contacts now have 576 1 person.

Frankly speaking, I can't remember everyone, but the contact tool can.

Someone I haven't contacted for a long time called me. I picked up the phone and said, long time no see.

He was surprised: I haven't contacted you for so long. Do you still remember me

When using contact tools, please pay attention to the following points:

First, when you enter the telephone number, you must add the country and area code.

For example, the fixed telephone in Shanghai: 6 1888888.

People who print their phone numbers on business cards like this have no international vision. We need to save the phone number as "+86 (2 1) 6 188888" in the mobile phone.

Because if you are in America, you can't get to Shanghai by dialing 6 1888888.

Second, after meeting a new friend, you can take a photo with him, and then save his portrait in your contact. In this way, when he makes a phone call, his picture will appear on the screen of the mobile phone.

Third, friends' birthdays, various anniversaries, children's birthdays, hobbies and other important information. Can be stored in the address book, you can also set reminders.

Applying the most basic "mail, calendar, address book" to the extreme will have magical efficiency.

Second, avoid shaking hands with lazy collaboration software.

With the help of collaborative software with the same pipeline as Teambition, everyone's individual progress can be subject to the overall progress and move forward efficiently.

This is a collaborative software team that I am using. Take it as an example to introduce the value of collaborative software.

First, the automatic PDCA cycle (the ideological and methodological basis of total quality management, that is, planning, doing, checking and acting).

A team leader suddenly had an idea and wanted to arrange employees to implement it. He can say a sentence or write two sentences on WeChat. However, there are two risks:

1. Team leaders will forget;

2. Employees will forget. They probably won't even remember the initiative.

In Teambition, create a "task" and set 3W (who did what when), that is, the executor, the task content and the deadline.

After receiving the "New Task Reminder", employees can drag tasks from the "Pending" channel to the "In Progress" channel.

"Swim lane" is a jargon in collaborative software, which means one step at a time, just like a single lane in a swimming pool.

All tasks can only be completed in the end, or cancelled, and cannot be forgotten.

Second, the principle of mandatory intelligence.

In Teambition or similar collaboration software, the deadline of each task can be set, which forces T: time based on the SMART principle (S = concrete, M = measurable, A = achievable, R = relevant, T = time-limited).

You can also define four SMAR fields in the task template, requiring that each task must conform to the SMART principle, otherwise it cannot be created.

Thirdly, visual Scrum (iterative incremental software development process, usually used in agile software development) method.

Collaborative software can use software instead of whiteboard. The biggest advantage of using software instead of whiteboard is to change Scrum's sprint kanban from an "active tool" for one person to adjust notes to a "passive tool" for software reminders. The degree of visualization and work efficiency will be greatly improved.

Of course, besides Teambition, there are many other good collaboration softwares, such as Trello (Team Collaboration Software), Worktile (Team Collaboration Tool) and Tower (Team Collaboration Tool), all of which have their own characteristics. The team can choose to use it according to its own situation.

Third, rest and exercise efficiently.

Work is important, life is important, and rest and exercise are also important.

Junior business people fight for physical fitness, intermediate business people fight for skills, and top business people return to fight for physical fitness.

What really needs to be balanced is not work and life, but work and life and their opposite-rest.

Here are some tools that I often use to help myself rest effectively in my busy work and life.

First, white noise software.

My commonly used white noise software is called Relaxio, and adequate sleep is the best medicine. I used to sleep 10~ 12 hours every day. Even now, I can sleep for 7-8 hours every day.

Second, eye mask+noise canceling headphones.

I travel to many places every year. Sleeping on airplanes, high-speed trains and cars is a necessary skill for consultants.

During the journey, creating a dark environment is the key to sleep. In order to fall asleep quickly on the means of transportation and have a high-quality sleep, I will carry an eye mask with me to create an atmosphere at night.

This eye patch is very special. It says "Tell me to eat" on one side and "Don't tell me to eat" on the other. As for which side faces outwards, it depends.

Third, jump rope.

A better way to rest is to exercise.

Fitness has four purposes: losing weight, increasing body flexibility, increasing muscles and training cardiopulmonary function. Among these four purposes, the most relevant to health is actually to train cardiopulmonary function.

Running and swimming are good ways to train heart and lung function. But for me, running and swimming are too inefficient.

I did a lot of research and consulted many experts, and finally chose a more efficient exercise mode from the perspective of training cardiopulmonary function: skipping rope.

Jumping rope for 5 minutes is equivalent to jogging for half an hour.

If the posture is correct, skipping rope will only do one seventh of the damage to the knee as running.

Fourth, the whiteboard

The seemingly unremarkable whiteboard is actually a magical tool, which can liberate us from "structured thinking, bounded thinking and error-free thinking" and help us think endlessly anytime, anywhere.

The whiteboard itself is worthless. Give it the meaning of thinking, and it will have unlimited value anytime and anywhere.

Verb (abbreviation for verb) mobile office tools

Since 2006, I have to fly 100 times a year, and I am even away from home for nearly 200 days a year.

Therefore, in the fragmented time, it is particularly important for me to use tools to move the office. Share some common mobile office tools.

The first is a tablet with a stylus.

Second, large-screen mobile phone+Bluetooth keyboard+mobile phone bracket.

Standing the mobile phone on the table can replace the computer conveniently and effectively.

My phone holder, like a credit card when not in use, can be put in my wallet. After sitting down, take out the phone holder from your wallet and the Bluetooth keyboard from your pocket to create an office environment instantly.

This mobile office system can greatly improve work efficiency and make full use of fragmentation time.

Third, Bluetooth headset bracelet+conference call audio+active noise reduction headset.

Create a healthier, relaxed and effective audio environment.

Six, electronic readers

The more fragmented it is, the more systematic it is to study it.

Use a variety of e-readers to acquire knowledge efficiently.

If the purpose of reading is to "acquire knowledge efficiently", then enjoying paper books is a personal hobby, and mastering e-books is an efficiency tool.

Recommend three kinds of e-readers: get, read more and Kindle. These three readers have their own characteristics, complement each other and can be used in combination.

The efficiency of "listening to a book every day" is very high. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to finish reading a book while riding a bike, walking and waiting for the plane, which lays the foundation for me to read 200 to 300 books a year and greatly expands my knowledge boundary.

If I hear a book worthy of intensive reading, I will buy the electronic version of the book on the basis of reading more and read it carefully.

The three functions of reading are particularly important to me: reading the whole book by voice, automatically synchronizing notes and sharing them with friends.

The note automatic synchronization function can automatically synchronize every sentence I marked and every sentiment I wrote to the impression note.

Some books are not available or have been read too much, so I will go to Amazon to buy them.

Combining these three e-readers, I read at least 100 books every year.

Seven, knowledge management software

With the help of tools, we can collect valuable knowledge from e-mail, WeChat, Weibo, online news and other places and store it in our impression notes. Only after the collection is complete can we improve the handling and complete the review.

But how can we put "everything" into the collection basket? Here are some practical tools.

First, the mobile phone scanner.

I often use Microsoft's mobile phone scanning software Office Lens. Open Office Lens, aim at the document, and the phone will automatically recognize the file boundary. Click "Take a photo" and the file will automatically climb out.

There is also an APP called "Scanning Almighty King", which can also achieve the same function.

In the office, at home, in the airport lounge, I will record my thoughts on the whiteboard.

How do I put these whiteboard notes into the collection basket?

You can turn on the scanning universal king, aim at the whiteboard, and it will automatically identify the whiteboard boundary. Click "Take a photo" and you will see a whiteboard with the angle straightened, leveled, enhanced and sharpened.

It is worth mentioning that Evernote supports text search in pictures.

For example, search for the word "innovation" in Evernote, which is a whiteboard that has just been synchronized from scanning Almighty King.

It will be displayed. Moreover, the word "innovation" I scribbled in the picture will be highlighted.

Second, business card recognition software.

Advanced users of Evernote can directly regard Evernote as business card recognition software, scan business cards into mobile phones and store them in both Evernote and mobile phone address book.

Even more amazing, if the owner of this business card has a LinkedIn account, it will automatically get the latest information of this person from the LinkedIn account, and even scan the old business card to get new information.

Third, various other collectors.

Email-Every Evernote account has a corresponding email address. When you receive an email, forward it to the corresponding mailbox and it will be put into the collection basket.

If you find the e-mail address difficult to remember, you can create a contact named "My Evernote" and copy the name when forwarding the e-mail.

Wechat articles-in Wechat, search and pay attention to the official account of "My Evernote" and follow the prompts to associate the WeChat account with the Evernote account. When you see articles worth collecting in the future, you can put them in your evernote with one click.

Weibo's article-You can also associate Weibo's account with Evernote. When you see any Weibo you want to collect, leave a message "@ My Evernote" under this Weibo, and this Weibo will be automatically synchronized to Evernote.

Web news-you can install an "Evernote Clip and Hide" plug-in in your browser. When you browse a webpage, you can cut and hide the contents of this webpage into Evernote with a small icon.

The purpose of these information collection tools is to make the opening of the collection basket large enough to make Evernote (or other similar software) the only center for managing all knowledge. Only after the collection is complete can we improve the handling and complete the review.

Eight, anytime, anywhere through.

Any device can access any file cloud service.

Anytime and anywhere access to documents, photos and all other materials will greatly improve business, management and personal efficiency.

You can use Baidu network disk to synchronize files, use millet cloud service to synchronize photos, and use QQ synchronization assistant to synchronize short messages and contacts.

Nine, make good use of search tools

Search ability is a compulsory skill in the Internet age. 80% of the questions in life have already been answered, as long as

Just search, and the remaining 20% needs to be studied. In the Internet age, search skills are more important.

How can we evolve from an "outstretched hand party" to a "search expert" and get 80% of the known answers?

First, master search skills.

The simplest search technique is "-"(minus sign).

For example, if you search for "Clinton" but there are several pages about "Lewinsky", then you can find those pages without Lewinsky by searching for "Clinton-Lewinsky".

For example, everyone has different recipes when searching for relevant contents of weight loss, some are called slimming, and some are called slimming. What do we do? Search for "lose weight, lose weight" and articles containing one of these three words will be found.

But this is too much, isn't it? Articles that mention these words are not what you want to read. Only those mentioned in the title, such as "25 Ways to Lose Weight", are what you really want to read. What should we do?

Search for "slimming slimming intitle". "intitle" means that the keyword appears in the title. This can filter out articles whose keywords don't appear in the title.

Another example is searching for academic literature about BIGBANG. Enter "BIGBANG" and all kinds of gossip and news will flood the screen. What should we do?

The format of many academic articles is PDF (Portable File Format), and you can search for "BIGBANG".

File type: PDF ". Only PDF files containing "BIGBANG" will appear.

Second, make good use of keywords.

It is not enough just to master the skills of search tools. The core of the real "help yourself" is to choose the right keywords to search. Cleverly select and modify keywords, and keep getting closer to the answer.

Ten, the gentleman's nature is the same, good and false-

My day

To improve efficiency with tools, we should feel the mentality of striving for efficiency and the state of "gentlemen are the same, and good and false are also in things" Let's talk about how I use these tools to improve efficiency in a day.

At 7 o'clock in the morning, the alarm clock rang and a new day began.

I glanced at the calendar in my mobile phone-a car came to pick me up at 7: 30 and took the 9: 30 flight to Beijing.

There are still 30 minutes to get ready to go out. That's generous. I said to the smart stereo, "Play' Get Knowledge News'." Then, with the news, wash, jump rope, eat breakfast and get ready to go out.

After getting on the bus, I replied to the message of Liu Run 5-minute Business School with voice input method. Then reply to WeChat, friends circle, Weibo and email.

There is still time, open the evernote, organize the collection basket, and put dozens of inspiration, words, sounds and other materials into the "next action". All the collection baskets were emptied, and it took about 1 hour to get to Hongqiao airport.

When I got off the bus, all the work was arranged and I relaxed.

As a platinum card user of China Eastern Airlines, it only took me 10 minutes to get to the VIP room.

In the expensive 30 minutes I bought as a VIP, I intend to organize a new point of view. I took out my tablet computer and drew a model on it with a stylus.

The announcement sounded and my flight boarded on time. I put the model in my impression book and walked to the boarding gate.

When I got on the plane and put on active noise reduction headphones, the roar of the plane disappeared.

Turn on the Kindle reader and finish the four books you want to read recently with "speed reading method". These books are very insightful, but the core ideas can actually be clearly stated in one article.

After reading this book, I feel a little sleepy. I put on the blindfold, turned out the side of "Don't call me when eating" and began to sleep.

I was awakened by the vibration of the plane landing. I glanced at the smart bracelet on my wrist. I slept for 8.5 hours today. Meet the standards! Open the mobile phone, pop up the schedule reminder, and tell me the name, phone number and license plate number of the driver who picks up the car.

I got on the bus and received a phone call. That's an old friend I haven't seen for years.

I took the Bluetooth headset off my smart bracelet, put it on my ear and said, Manager Zhang, long time no see.

He said: I heard that you came to Beijing? Do you want to get together tonight?

I said, wait a minute, let me look at the timetable.

I checked my schedule with my mobile phone and said that my assistant would arrange my time very well. My last meeting ended at 2 1: 30. 2 1: 30, shall we chat in the hotel for a while?

He said, OK, it's a deal.

Hanging up the phone, Teambition collaboration software bound by WeChat reminded me that my colleagues had arranged three more tasks for me.

I opened the task board, looked at the new tasks, and then locked in several special times to complete the tasks in my schedule.

When I got off the bus, all the work was rearranged and I relaxed.

Arriving at the meeting place, the organizer prepared fast food for me. I ate quickly and entered the main venue.

Today, I will give a speech with several distinguished guests.

After sitting down, I took out my phone holder and folded Bluetooth keyboard, connected my phone, took notes carefully and saved them.

In the impression note. Inspired by several guests, I suddenly had several inspirations and couldn't wait to record them and put them in the collection basket.

After the speech, the client who asked me to be a consultant took me to a dinner party.

1 hour to discuss the project progress with customers on the road. Chatting, I asked: Have you read the latest new retail analysis report? The data and insights in it are very valuable.

He said no, I took out my mobile phone, opened the Baidu network disk, and shared the analysis report to the customer's WeChat. All materials are at hand and can be shared anytime and anywhere, which greatly improves our communication efficiency.

At the dinner party, I met many old and new friends. A man chatted with me, but I'm sorry, I don't remember his name. I said, let's take a picture together.

After the photo was taken, his name was immediately displayed on the mobile phone, listing all our previous photos.

After dinner, I hurried back to my room because there was a conference call at 20: 30.

Take out the Bluetooth stereo, connect the mobile phone, relax and lie on the sofa, and start talking to the room. The voices are clear to each other, just like each other in the room.

When it was not my turn to speak, I took out my skipping rope and played for a few minutes.

2 1: 15, my mobile phone reminds me that I will meet my old friend in 15 minutes.

After the conference call, I went to the executive lounge, ordered a coke and waited for my friends to come. He arrived as scheduled, and we recalled the eventful years at Microsoft, sometimes crying and sometimes laughing.

At 22: 30, I was already lying in the hotel bed. Everything has been emptied and relaxed.

In order to ensure sleep, I set the don't disturb mode to 1 1 until 7 am. Mobile phones that are not on the white list will not blink, ring or vibrate.

At 23: 00, my mobile phone automatically entered the "Do Not Disturb" state, and the whole world was quiet. I played 15 minutes of white noise from the rain on the window with the Bluetooth stereo, and fell asleep sweetly.

A full but not anxious day is over. I'm not busy, I just don't have enough time.

Source: WeChat official account @ Notebook Man. China's largest new business knowledge dry goods notes sharing platform. Provide cutting-edge global business speeches, top business school courses, classic business books, in-depth columns and other notes for the decision-making and management of 600,000 enterprises, including trends, strategies, business models, management, marketing, brands, big data, artificial intelligence, new retail and so on.

This article is from Tianxing Capital, authorized by the entrepreneurial family, slightly edited and modified, and the copyright belongs to the author. The content only represents the author's independent views.