Waste time on fun things: Chapter 1 Time Management

Section 1: A simple "time management method"

Since the beginning of the year, I have been posting "three things in the morning" in the WeChat group every day. The interesting thing is , I posted silently without trying to win over anyone, and gradually more than a hundred people started "posting" together.

This idea first came from a time management book. A great company in the last century asked a management master for a method to double its efficiency. The other party asked him to write down the three most important things every day, and then cross one out after he finished it. Then the master said confidently and mysteriously - obviously because this method is too simple to be embarrassed to charge - you run for a year first, and after one year the money will be calculated based on the results.

A year later, the guy received a check for $30,000.

When I read this story, I marveled at the wisdom of the master - you know, I have tried various self-management methods and found two secrets - first, the most useful ones are the simplest ones. . Because the time when people can return to the position of "self-management" is too short every day. Just like walking on the road, the moments when you can stop and think about why you want to go and how to go better do not account for 1% of the process. Once this method is cumbersome and cumbersome, you will not implement it at all.

So I wanted to try it. Just give it a try, don’t ask me who is trying it.

But when I woke up with a grin on my face the next day, I forgot again.

This is the second secret I learned - only those who are really busy and short of time need time management. In fact, most people who are keen on time management do not have wrong time management methods at all, but their problems lie in other aspects: either the efficiency is too low, or there are too many things that they don’t want to do, too complicated and messy, and they end up doing less. Time—how to put it, given that most people are so inefficient that they don’t need to manage time at all.

Finally at the beginning of this year, there are more and more things, and I feel that I need to do some time management. So every morning I would list three things that needed to be done that day and send them to the group.

The format is roughly like this: "37/100 # Three Things in the Morning # Review of yesterday + the first thing today + the second thing + the third thing".

There are a few things to pay attention to here:

1. Think about it in the morning

The best time to set it is just after you get up in the morning, when the bed odor has just dissipated. go. At this time, the brain has not yet been flooded with information and can prioritize. The sun is shining brightly outside the window, and a busy (cao) day seems like a world away, and I can make more reliable plans. So I call this method three things in the morning.

Or just before going to bed is also a very good time. So, either right after waking up in the morning or before going to bed. If you are a perfectionist, you can do it twice, or just find a time in the morning and evening.

2. Write it down

I used to have the habit of getting up in the morning and thinking about what I did every day, but I didn’t record it, I didn’t publish it, and it was impossible to review it. At the end of the day, "target loss" often occurs. (Target attrition is the behavior of secretly lowering the target standard due to our unwillingness to admit the gap between plans and reality. For example, if you plan to memorize 100 words in your mind, but actually memorize 50, you will comfort yourself that this is not bad)

Have you done the three things? It seems like I didn’t do it even though I said I did it, but it seems like I didn’t do it even though I said I did it. Many times, the things of the next day are overwhelmed and I have no time to take care of it. It has been a long time since I saw this "important thing" again. The guilt caused by procrastinating something really important seems to be greater than the loss of not doing it.

So, write it down!

3. Add progress

Add "progress" to your plan and try to stick to it for 100 days. For example, mark 16/100 before the plan for the 16th day.

This has two obvious advantages:

Simply adding this counting progress will make it easier to continue and reduce the possibility of giving up halfway.

At the same time, just watching the numbers increase every day gives people a sense of accomplishment because there is "visible" progress and effects.

4. Send it out

Until here, this is still a self-time management tool, but once you publish it, it will be different.

For me, I will send my plan to the career planner WeChat group every morning. In fact, at the beginning, I was too embarrassed to post it in the group because it involved some privacy and might affect my work; on the other hand, I was embarrassed not to be seen by others the next day. But when I thought about the strategy of this year's new elite, which is called "Everyone adds fuel to the fire, the flames will rise", so I gritted my teeth and stamped my feet and joined the group. Unexpectedly, there are many benefits.

The first benefit is the execution power brought by public commitment.

No matter how busy I am or when I want to rest, I will still post three things. As time goes by, the habit becomes natural. If you write something down, you would be embarrassed to take it out three or five days in a row. It really does not live up to my reputation as a personal growth coach (hu) (you), so I had to say to myself:

"Pretending is a disaster, just do it after writing it."

Once you do it, you can't help but have to do it well before taking action. Therefore, if the plan is not made reliably, you will often work hard. I rested late, and then wrote in review:

"I will never make any plans next time!"

This happened several times, and slowly it started to make me happy. I have developed two very good mentality: I will finish my work today and I will not be greedy for too much.

The former is used to cultivate peace of mind, and the latter makes me aware of my own abilities and physical strength. I can hit wherever I point and don’t point if I can’t hit. As time goes by, I feel confident.

The second benefit is collaboration.

Many colleagues will make an appointment with me in advance when they see me writing that I will do something this afternoon; when they see a meeting they are interested in, they will actively ask to participate; classmates in the group have suggestions for what I should do. A quick word of advice would be very helpful - once I talked about communicating with the chairman of NCDA in the group, and AMY in the group gave me a lot of relevant information and suggestions, because someone from them had just talked with me.

If everyone in a company does this, the basic effect is similar to holding a lean startup stand-up meeting every morning, doubling efficiency. Internet teams often do not work together, so this should be considered more.

The third benefit is leadership.

Action is the best form of leadership. I posted it every day to my own college classmates, and after a few weeks, they started checking in too. The power of role models is endless.

The fourth benefit is to bring resources.

Just by stating clearly what you want to do, you can already gain a lot of support in a highly supportive community.

For example, the crowdfunding course for middle school students’ career courses is a strange thing in the industry. For more than 20 days, under the premise that no one enrolled at all, everyone recruited people to open one by themselves, which was not included in the new elite course schedule. class. The origin of this incident is that one day I wrote three things in the morning, one of which was "Preparing Lessons for Middle School Career". Then someone asked, someone suggested, someone took the lead, and a bunch of people participated. After 20 days, the class was completed.

This month, the people I hooked up from the three things I posted include: 3 corporate executive advisors, 2 partners, 1 running coach, 1 design expert, A doctor, a lawyer and many good friends from various industries.

Your three things also reflect your focus, and your characteristics will also be affected by the power of the group. If you really lack resources, you can also seek help there. We have more resources than you can imagine. But use it with caution. Visually, people like it once or twice a month, but once a week, it’s a bit annoying - don’t you think you can do something about it?

As for whether there will be privacy leakage issues? ——I will think about what can be posted and what needs to be renamed, such as replacing the name with letters, blurring the name of the meeting, etc. Generally speaking, even if there are risks, the benefits of communication are greater than the risks.

At this point, I have basically finished the basics of the "Three Things to Do in the Morning". If you like it, you can start doing it today! If you can't find a community suitable for practice around you, you are welcome to join the New Elite Career Growth QQ Group, where there are many like-minded friends.

Section 2: An advanced chapter on the "time management method" that cannot be simpler

In the basic chapter, we mentioned that #三事# the reason why the time management method is effective is It is because the four-step method of "think about it in the morning, write it down, make progress, and send it out" is well applied. Students who don't remember can click "Read the original text" at the end of the article to read it again.

What I’m going to talk about today is, if you have been practicing #三 Things in the Morning for a while, what other points can you make to improve?

1. Write three things, but focus on three results.

The definition of ability in career refers to "the combination of a person's attitude, skills, knowledge, and mentality that enables him or her to complete a certain professional task." Simply put, your professional ability does not depend on your working hours, work intensity, or how many actions you perform. The key is how many valuable and exchangeable results you produce. Simply put "the resulting list is the payroll."

One of the biggest reasons why people in the workplace are ignorant and have inferior skills is that they believe that ability comes from self-evaluation rather than results. Therefore, simple tasks (self-assessed ability VS task difficulty) cannot be done well, and difficult tasks cannot wait. But the company believes that if you can’t pass the first level, why should it give you the password for the third level? What level of ability you can deliver is the level of your ability.

It is extremely important to understand this principle. You must shift from focusing on the process to focusing on the goal - for example, your three things can be abbreviated as "meeting XX", but you must think in your heart: "This meeting What is the purpose? What results do I hope to achieve? What conditions and indicators mean that I have achieved it?" In this way, the task of "meeting people at three o'clock in the afternoon" becomes:

"I hope to meet the vice president of marketing of the other party. The first is to let the other party understand what New Elite does. I also understand the other party's business. The second is to reach some consensus on exchanging traffic, but there is no need to advance the agenda in detail. The third is to let the other party understand their respective strengths, so that they can go back and communicate with the team before the next meeting. The last is to list one of the person's strengths and one point of interest to see if they can get one. Friend."

Then you propose indicators for yourself:

"I hope you can briefly describe your and the other party's products, advantages, and business models in three sentences. Type 3 to 4 intentions on your phone and confirm via email; briefly explain the advantages of both parties, and prepare a team email after the meeting. Find an area that both parties may be interested in and make an appointment together.

When you have thought about your plan to this extent, there are basically a lot of tasks around it: you need to sort out your company in advance, and you need to go to the web to understand the other party; you need to properly check the other party’s Moments or Weibo; you need to Write down what you want to say in writing...

This is the core ability to do things, penetrating power.

You are always 10% better than others at the same thing. If you do it five times in a row, you will become the most awesome person among your peers. This is true for "Tear Down the Wall" and "Maybe". They are not perfect, but they are definitely 10% better than books of the same type. The cover is 10% more eye-catching than others, the catalog is 10% better than others, the first chapter is 10% better than others... This is what achieved the final sales of 1 million copies. Because in the Internet age, in fact, it is no longer the "28 principle", but the 19 or even 100 principle - 90% of resources are concentrated in 10% of things. So penetration is extremely important.

With penetrating power, you can do things with sincerity and achieve success. Ordinary novices can only look at you and open their mouths in amazement. This is called "setting tasks based on results" and starting with the end in mind, or as I like to call it: "be sophisticated in mind and simple in style."

If you can think about three results every day, If you insist on it for 3 months, it will be difficult to do anything without penetration. And this ability does not come from talent, but from the mind. So what’s even more satisfying is that everyone thinks you are very talented, and you know that there is actually a way to practice it - this kind of secret happiness is really exciting.

Someone next to me complained, is this too tiring? No one can bear to think this way about everything, but three things a day are definitely worth thinking about. It is best to do things like hammering nails, one nail at a time, in a real way.

2. Not too many, just three.

Based on the previous content, you should have realized how difficult it is to do something well. So you should know that basically if you do three things a day, the workload is already very saturated. So be sure to think and let the really important things come to the surface. This is the practice of concentration.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have three – one is the most awesome.

Here are some tips:

· Sort by importance, not chronological order

· Regularly check whether it is related to personal strategy (about personal Strategy, you can do it)

·If there are not three items, then write two or one item

·It is best not to exceed three items, more than 5 items will be invalid

·Don’t write things that can be solved within 3 minutes into the list, solve them immediately

·Don’t write down the daily tasks such as receiving emails and holding morning meetings, but keep them in the list Make time to focus on things

·The first half hour in the morning and afternoon is a good time to focus on things

·The best time to call someone is half an hour before get off work, everyone is waiting When eating, there is no time to chat, so it is easy to get straight to the topic

·If you are in a good relationship, you can make an appointment for dinner directly. According to the degree of emotional establishment, dinner>lunch>breakfast. But if it is a conversation between acquaintances, the efficiency is breakfast > lunch > dinner. The less familiar you are, the later you will make an appointment. You can make a date with a new client for a night out, and things are basically done.

·It can’t be too late for the opposite sex, otherwise something will happen. A friend of mine met with a client and said we should have a night out together, and then he said we should go to the movies together. After watching Super 7, he went to Super 8

Back to the topic - it’s precisely because you don’t know how hard it is to do something well. How difficult it is, how difficult it is to work at your best for 4 hours a day, why would you design so many things for yourself every day without hesitation? Everything is embarrassing for you.

So, three things a day, not too many. Practice concentration and stay focused.

3. Review and review

I have been using an APP called clear to make a task list, and I will list all the tasks for my Flower of Life. Monthly goals, daily goals, writing and reading goals, etc. So I can always see a phenomenon, that is, some things will always "penetrate".

The concept of "penetration" comes from mathematical models, which is the process of something penetrating a system through transmission - for example, to prevent the spread of a disease, it is necessary to calculate how many people should be vaccinated to prevent the disease from spreading. . Or after the density of trees in the forest exceeds the certain value, the fire will spread and burn the entire forest. This requires calculating the probability of penetration. This paragraph is purely a problem for science students. If you don't understand, please skip it.

For example, in my list, there is a task of "changing teaching materials". This task is like a bullet passing through the paper, like a three-body water droplet passing through the mantle of the earth, ruthlessly passing through me again and again. It penetrates into every daily plan and continues to penetrate into today’s daily plan. He stands on my list of three things to do in the morning every day. He looks at me in high spirits in the morning. At night, he says "cut" with disdain and leaves me with a back view. Then he turns around and sneaks into the list of the new day, leaving the sentence "see you tomorrow". ".

If a task cannot be completed, it is either a motivation problem or a resource problem. I don’t want to do it in the front, but I can’t do it in the back.

The motivation problem is that part of you wants to do it, but part of you is unwilling to face it. For example, one voice said, "Okay, that's it this time," and another voice said, "You damn well have to sign the textbook with your name, okay?", and he was already internally consumed to death before he even started writing. This should be resolved in the "core contradiction" part of the personal strategy.

Resource problems are another situation: a resource shortage is that you need a larger and more comprehensive amount of money, time, ideas or space; for example, many tasks require large chunks of time, and you simply don’t have enough time in the office. Unable to start. For example, this matter requires several people to talk about it, but you can't find it; this is a resource of time and space, and you need to raise resources.

Another kind of resource scarcity is that you actually cannot obtain this kind of resources at this stage. The most common ones will appear in those fields where you look at them while walking; for example, in fact, the names and slogans of most products It’s all determined after the product is formed, and you can’t come up with a perfect plan; for another example, if you can’t determine the title of an article, you might as well decide it after you finish writing it—just like a child, you really can’t think of a good name. Then let's go out and check your temperament, sir. The white one is called Gu Xiaobai, the black one is called Gu Xiaohei, and the mentally powerful one is called Gu Lingjing.

(This article was written in a coffee shop after avoiding everyone. The title was named after the basic version was written.

)

Thinking about the results gives you penetrating power, three things give you determination to do things, and review allows you to truly understand the obstacles.

Section 3: 10 productivity apps commonly used by professional experts

There are always people snooping on my computer and mobile phone to see if I am using any magic tools, even for a short period of time Did a lot of things.

To be honest, I usually blush when I hear this kind of comment, because my time management is actually very poor.

You have never seen a truly awesome person, what kind of work he often does, how many things he does - he is polishing an artifact that transcends utility and time in an unknown corner, and one day it suddenly appears, It is shocking to the world, but it is not revealed, but it also allows him to understand it with his heart, understand it with his spirit, and live his life in a down-to-earth manner.

Doing something stupidly is actually the best time management tool.

I don’t belong to this kind of peerless expert. I am still smart and use a lot of gadgets to share with you.

1. CLEAR, (IOS MAC) or thinking rock

Clear is my favorite TO DO LIST software.

Time management has actually gone through several generations. From the beginning of making lists, to parallel operations, to the four quadrants of ABCD, everyone began to get confused about "what is important and what is urgent" vegetable. At first, everyone thought it was due to unclear values. Later, everyone was living in an increasingly unpredictable world, and it was difficult for you to judge what was more important - for example, when you were in a meeting and saw a landline phone call coming, this was extremely difficult. It could be a nasty cold call, it's absolutely not important. But it’s also very likely that it’s a call from some government department (they never use mobile phones!!), and you don’t dare not answer it.

After running the time management method for a few times, I finally returned to the idea of ????GTD, making a list of all the items, and then processing them quickly first, deleting unnecessary ones and those that cannot be started immediately. Then start doing it quickly. This is the easiest way - don't think that time is the biggest resource. In fact, your mental energy is the biggest resource - if you can concentrate on doing 4 hours of deliberate practice every day, you will be a master.

After using countless GTD tools (including OMNIfocus, THINKROCK), I finally realized that the simpler this thing is, the better. The best form is actually a notepad. It's a pity that I lost all my notebooks and never used them up. I finally kept my notebooks, but my pen disappeared.

I started using CLEAR 2 years ago. The interface of this APP is extremely simple. To add an item, just type it without clicking the plus sign; to delete an event, you only need to swipe your finger. There are also different themes.

But the biggest advantage of this software is that it feels so good when you finish deleting the event! After you finish something, you swipe your finger, hear "Colin", your phone vibrates, and one of them is blocked. When the entire list is finished, scroll down and remove them all.

My inner voice is usually, rough, rough, rough, rough... Oh yeah! Finished tonight! (Just like the end of this article)

2. Pomodoro software: FOREST

Pomodoro is an APP that controls you not to touch your phone for a period of time and do things with peace of mind. It is used for training. It works great for my kind of inattentive mania.

If you search, you will find at least a dozen related software. The theme is that you first set a certain time (at least 20 minutes), and the software starts to lock the screen. Once you can't help but open it, there will be an interface to encourage (KONG) and encourage (HE) you to persist. Then you weakly put down your phone and continue working, which is extremely efficient.

Once you are familiar with it, from 20 minutes to 45 minutes. If you can gradually increase it to 1 hour and 30 minutes, you will be a very focused person.

I prefer the FOREST APP because it can plant different trees. Also because every time I couldn't help but play with my phone, a small tree was about to die - I couldn't bear it, so I had to continue to concentrate.

Next time you have a Pomodoro before going to dinner with your girl, your chances of getting a date will double. Chat with your parents and try opening one too.

3. Mind mapping (mindmanager PC MAC)

This one needs no introduction, but there are two particularly great applications of mind mapping.

a. Use it for brainstorming during meetings, chatting about it, and then use 10 minutes to integrate all the ideas into a structure.

b. Reading Notes

Let me introduce my own reading habits - I often have messy thoughts while reading. Don't skip them and write them in the margins. The core of reading is the process of integrating the knowledge in your mind with new knowledge, and generating a new knowledge structure through assimilation - in KK's words, learning is a kind of emergence.

So the messy things you think of are the most important things to record! ! So it is possible to buy paper books for easy recording. At the same time, the more you want to skim a book, the more paper-based it is better to turn it over faster.

After reading a chapter, no matter you are confused or happy, don’t rush to read the next chapter. Otherwise, if you read the whole book while you have the momentum, you will feel that it makes sense but everything is unclear. The feeling of not being able to remember. It's a good idea to stop and write the mind map at this time, and write down those comments on the mind map at the same time.

After reading the whole book, the book will be given away. But I should open the mind map and read it every once in a while and explain it to others for at least three years. I have 100 mind maps in my hand. If I have nothing to do, I can print them out and take a look at them.

4. Calendar software

No need to explain, I use Apple’s own calendar. For PC users, you can check out a domestic product called “365 Calendar”.

The essence of the calendar is actually the enjoyment. Share your calendar with your colleagues and family, saving you a lot of trouble and explanations. Many times, my colleagues open my colorful calendar with just a click and instantly understand my schedule, and they no longer complain.

If you are worried about your privacy being leaked, there seems to be another option that others can only see you: "very busy" or "free", but they don't know what you do - you can be very arrogant Write:

"PM7:00-9:30 I just don’t want to see people!"

5. IA writer ommwriter

Writing software. This article was written using IA Writer. This software is available on both IPHONE and MAC, and it is extremely simple - without any other extra buttons or interface. The first time I met him was when I went to the mountains to write one year. A novel writer next to me actually used this software on his IPAD to write a 150,000-word script alive. I knelt down on the spot.

IA is suitable for people who want to vomit when looking at the interface of Word, and it will always be synchronized and automatically saved in the cloud. I often write three lines of poetry, and then a year later I remember the fourth line and call it up on my phone to continue writing.

I mentioned OMMWRITER in another article "Why I Want to Write". Say no more.

My experience is: use IA when writing emails and business, and use OMM when writing boring novels.

6. REEDER or RSS reader

Everyone is maxed out on WeChat Moments, right? I wonder how many people still use RSS?

An RSS reader is a software that grabs blogs instantly. The REEDER I commonly use is the most pleasing to the eye. You can often find an "RSS Reading" tag on your favorite blog. Click to subscribe to this blog - any updates on this blog can be fetched directly.

So, why crawl blogs?

Because blogs, especially many foreign blogs, are still being updated seriously, compared with Weibo and subscription accounts, their ideological concentration is relatively high.

I often use the method of concentration of thought to evaluate an article - the ratio of the time it takes a person to write this thing to the time it takes you to read him. For example, it took me 20 hours to write this article (it didn’t take much time to write, but the time to search may be longer than this after repeated comparisons), and it takes you 10 minutes to read it. This ideological concentration is 20×60/10=120.

Articles under 50, such as news and jokes, can only be regarded as entertainment and cannot be called reading.

50 to 100 is considered entertaining reading.

Basically, articles worth more than 100 are considered worthy of your time.

If it exceeds 200, it is worth buying a book to read, and it is not easy to find it on the Internet.

Of course, there are many classics that are worth reading and re-reading. They are accumulated through a lifetime of insights. Even if you can’t understand them all at once, they are so worth it. For example, you can easily read the 5,000-word "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu in 15 minutes, but the concentration of thoughts is estimated to be over 1 million by visual inspection.

So, how to find articles with high ideological concentration? In fact, just find the same blogger. So even today when I have a subscription account and a Toutiao account, I still retain the habit of reading a lot of blogs with an RSS reader.

7. Youdao Cloud Notes and Evernote

This is not explained.

The difference is that collaboration is done much better. Evernote’s tag search is very useful. So if you want a group of people to compile a book and do a project, use Youdao. If you want to write a book yourself, do a paper data search and use impressions.

And out of inexplicable nostalgia, I still have an international version of Evernote account.

8. NetEase Cloud Music, Douban FM

NetEase Cloud Music is the best music software I have ever used, bar none. It’s easier to use than Xiami and iTunes. I especially like the complete playlist and radio station. I often need to find a foreign singer or a weird version of a certain song, and there are actually all of them, which surprises me - except for Jay Chou's, whose copyright is too expensive and they can't afford it.

NetEase Cloud Music is suitable for directional listening, while Douban FM is suitable for opening when you don’t know what you want to listen to, and you will encounter a lot of music.

9. Baidu Cloud

There is a place for important documents, installation essentials and photos to be shared every time you come back.

Another application is to find a few colleagues to share a folder, put the good movies, music and articles you have watched into it every day, and go home every night to find the secrets of the secret room treasure hunt. pleasure.

10. Paper and pen

Whenever I am really bored and have no ideas.

Whenever I have a quarrel with my colleagues, or when I have no ideas for consultation,

I will pick up a pen and paper and just write and draw something.

I said to myself, I want a real first sentence, or first stroke.

If the first sentence and the first stroke are true, then I encourage myself to say:

"The next stroke will be the same"

Many, many creative ideas And words come from this.

When everyone writes and draws on paper, everyone’s ideas seem to be clear.

Paper and pen

Preferably a blue and red ballpoint pen

or a bundle of erasable colored pencils

Or just a pencil and an eraser

are always the best productivity tools.