10 ideas that will save you 10+ hours every week

Happy Monday!

What would you do if you had an extra 10 hours given to you this week?

Here are 10 ideas that will save you 10+ hours every week.

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Big Idea #1: Close your open loops.

1. Take 10 minutes to write down every open loop you can think of…

   • Things around the house you need to fix

   • Subscriptions you wanted to cancel

   • Gifts you need to buy

   • Unfinished projects

   • Appointments

   • Other plans

2. Now your goal is to close those open loops as soon as possible.
   Go through the list and make sure every item is either getting:

   • done
   • dropped
   • delegated

3. If it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now.
   If it takes more than 5 minutes,
   schedule it into your calendar.

4. If there is no time for you to do it in the next few months,
   consider dropping it. You can also park this item and
   assess it in a few months if you have time for it.
   Don’t let it slow you down if you cannot
   deal with it any time soon.

5. If it’s an option, consider delegating certain items.
   How can others help you close those loops?

Big Idea #2: 15-minute evening prep.

15 minutes of preparation in the evening is worth hours the next morning.

What you can do:

• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow

• Tidy up and prepare your workplace

• Choose your number one priority for the day

• Look at what appointments you have scheduled

• Decide what you will do first thing in the morning

Impact:

• reduce decision-making fatigue

• increase your energy

• improve productivity

• have better sleep

• get things done

Big Idea #3: Get rid of 60-minute work meetings.

Why schedule 60-minute meetings for items
that can be discussed within 20 minutes?

Why schedule 30-minute meetings
for what can be an email?

Do not waste time.

Big Idea #4: Allocate shorter timeframes for tasks.

Pay attention to the deadlines you set for tasks.

Parkinson's Law suggests that work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion.

Extended deadlines can cause procrastination or prompt you to fill your time with unnecessary work.

If it can be done within 3 hours, do not allocate an entire day for it.

Big Idea #5: Reduce task-switching costs.

Task-switching costs are the time and cognitive resources that are wasted when you transition from one task to another.

When shifting to a new task, it typically requires more than 20 minutes for your brain to regain the same level of focus and productivity that you had when working on the previous task.

The greater the contrast in task nature, the higher the switching costs tend to be.

Strategies to consider:

• do not multitask

• batch similar tasks together

• separate creative work from analytical

Big Idea #6: Know when to quit.

As applicable as it is to careers, relationships, and big life decisions, I encourage you to start by applying this rule on a smaller scale this week.

Normalize not finishing a book, a movie, or a podcast that you don’t enjoy or extract value from. “Thank you, next.”

Normalize not staying for the entire meeting or event if you don’t want to.

Big Idea #7: Add one more hour to your sleep.

Unless you already sleep 8+ hours, add one more hour to your sleep.

If it sounds like I am taking 7 hours away from your week when I promised to give you 10 back, this tip alone will generate the ROI you came for.

An extra hour of sleep will boost your focus, productivity, and engagement.

You’ll complete tasks faster and more effectively.

You will accomplish more in less time.

Big Idea #8: Opt for greyscale mode.

Make your distractions less rewarding to minimize time wasted on them.

Big Idea #9: #1 priority done by 1 PM.

Always know what your number one most important task for the day is.

Complete it by 1 PM.

The more you delay it, the less chances are that you will finish it.

Why?

• Other urgencies tend to come up.

• Others interrupt you more later in the day.

• Your willpower is decreasing as the day progresses.

Big Idea #10: Create before consuming.

If you want to waste your day, start it by checking the news or scrolling your social media feed.

If you want to raise your productivity, create things before you consume.

Consuming information, such as news, music, podcasts, books, and social media, drains our energy.

If you do this easy thing first:

• you create an unnecessary challenge for yourself to break
  the consumption loop and switch to the creation process,
  which is harder; and

• if you do switch, your creating process will not be as effective.

Prioritize and complete more challenging tasks first when your willpower is at its peak.

Tiny Habit: Delay your first cup of coffee.

Have you ever felt groggy waking up?

Or felt like you can only function if you get some coffee first?

The reason is adenosine.

[Adenosine is a chemical produced naturally within our bodies that promotes our need for sleep. The more adenosine, the more sleepy we feel.]

Upon waking up, you still have some level of adenosine present.

So, you have two options:

1. let your body undergo a natural cycle when cortisol clears the remaining level of adenosine
   OR

2. ingest caffeine to block that action of adenosine (coffee’s magic revealed).

I recommend you choose the first option.

Why?

Because caffeine blocks adenosine only on a receptor level.

Once caffeine is gone, adenosine is still there.
So unless you ingest even more caffeine you’ll
feel sleepy and experience that afternoon crash.

Not to mention the effect of caffeine on your cortisol level first thing in the morning…

Delay your first cup of caffeinated beverage until at least 90 minutes after waking.

You will not interrupt the natural cycle.

You feel more awake throughout the workday without relying on coffee.

The Productivist Question

What do I need to double down on?

Pareto’s 80/20 principle suggests that
80% of the result comes from 20% of input.

• Identify those 20%.

• Double down on them.

• Have less time left to waste.

If you choose not to double down, you choose to carry that excess baggage.

Have a productive week ahead,

Valeriya

P.S. Which idea is your favourite? (reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn)