DEVELOPMENT
How to boost your
productivity in
2-hour blocks
Breaking down the day’s tasks into manageable,
bite-sized chunks is the key to boosting efficiency
and productivity, writes Donna McGeorge
THE EXPERT
Donna McGeorge is a
speaker, author and
mentor who helps people
make their work work.
Using a creative, practical
approach, she improves
workplace effectiveness
while challenging
thinking on leadership,
productivity and virtual
work. ‘The First 2 Hours:
Make better Use of Your
Most Valuable Time’ is
published by John Wiley.
How do you currently spend your workday? Like
most leaders, the first thing you likely do is open
your email and see what pops up. Then, before
you know it, it’s 1pm and you’re still responding
or reacting to requests, in between rushing from
meeting to meeting, which means your ‘real
work’ gets left to the evening.
Many of these productivity problems come
about because we are operating on autopilot. We
don’t think about what, when or even why we
are doing things; we just do them in the order
in which the tasks came to us, or how they’re
written on our to-do list.
It can be very difficult to change settings that
feel like they are hardwired. But you can do it.
More importantly, there is good reason to do it. It
involves maximising the first two hours of your
day, and every two hours after that.
Schedule valuable tasks first
For most of us, our most productive time will be
first thing in the morning. Then by the afternoon
our body and brain will be ready to switch to
some routine tasks. This is best explained by the
work of Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lambert,
published in their book The Body Clock Guide to
Better Health, which describes a person’s typical
circadian rhythm.
For the majority of us our peak alertness is
at 10am and our best coordination is at around
2.30pm. Hence, tasks that require attention and
focus are best done in the morning, and repetitive
tasks that require coordination are best done in
the afternoon. Consider yourself a night owl?
While the results vary from study to study, in a
normal population only 10 to 21 per cent of people
can survive on minimal sleep and working late
into the early morning.
And if you still need convincing, then in a 2016
study titled ‘Diurnal Variations in Executives’ and
Analysts’ Behaviour: Evidence from Conference
Calls’, researchers found that CEOs who had
meetings about earnings with analysts and
shareholders were more likely to be upbeat and
positive in the mornings. The tone grew more
negative as the day progressed.
Design your day by brainpower
In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel
Kahneman describes the brain as having two
systems. One that moves quickly and makes snap
judgements. It also doesn’t require much energy.
And the other, which is slower, takes deeper
thinking and uses a lot of energy. People feel tired
or ‘brain dead’ if they have been using the second
system a lot.
Hence, we need to assess the amount of
brainpower a task will require. Does it need
deep thinking, concentration and focus (high
intensity)? Or can you do it with a blindfold on
and one hand behind your back (low intensity)?
When it comes to making the greatest impact
(remembering that we are at our best in the
morning), filter your tasks according to this and
the time of day that you do them, then watch your
productivity soar. S
www.donnamcgeorge.com
4 tips for daily tasks
The first two hours: High intensity/high impact tasks that
directly and positively affect results and require a lot of
attention, energy and focus.
The second two hours: High intensity/low impact tasks
that require being in the service of others. Giving time
to someone in your team to ‘bounce an idea off’ or
something similar.
The third two hours: Low intensity/low impact tasks that
can be done while metaphorically sleeping because they
are easy and the stakes are low. These are things that are
repetitive and routine in nature – like responding to email.
The fourth two hours: Low intensity/high impact tasks
that don’t require a lot of ‘heavy lifting’ brain-wise, but
will have a positive impact: planning, maintenance,
preparation.
Issue 2 2019 | Chief of Staff 59