A Clock is Your Most Important Tool

A Clock is Your Most Important Tool You Can’t Be Really Productive Without One We’ve been talking a lot about productivity and ways to be more productive. Part of that discussion focused on tools to help with this. First was a list. We focused on OneNote as our list tool. There are many ways to keep lists. Lists are a way for you to prioritize and keep track of things. Second was a calendar. This is a way to organize the list and schedule blocks of time for the different things that need to be done. By scheduling things and being aware of deadlines it increases the sense of urgency. There is no limit to what you can put on a list. It can be as long as you want. A calendar on the other hand has a limited amount of space on it. It is great for planning and scheduling blocks of time but can be ignored if we aren’t aware of time constraints. This is where the clock comes in. It helps us to be aware of the time constraints of the calendar. A clock can remind us about deadlines and upcoming things. The clock helps us to be aware of the limited time we have. If we understand this and are intentional about how we spend our time we will be more productive. Think about it like a snowball. The intentional, continuous, focus of small actions over time will increase productivity. The process, known as the “snowball effect”, is the accumulation of small things upon small things until they become a big thing, like a snowball rolling down a hill. The snowball effect works the same on time. Small segments of time used wisely over and over again add up to big savings. Saving a minute here and a few seconds there adds up overtime. If we save five minutes every hour, twelve times per day, we end up with an additional hour. If you add that hour to another the next day and do that five times a week for a year the time saving snowball would be 260 hours. It’s hard to imagine our little five-minute snowball having that much effect on productivity. At first it doesn’t appear that it does, but if we keep after it, it will. Those little wins add up. Another nice thing that happens when that snowball rolls downhill, it picks up momentum. This is another benefit of good time management. The better we get at spending time wisely the more wisely we spend time. There are a lot of different ways to spend time and how you spend yours is up to you. The important thing here is to realize that you control the snowball. The only way to get control of our time is to just do it. If you take care of the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves. So, how do you take care of those minutes? You need to always be aware of the time, if you’re going to spend those minutes wisely. Currently my reminders just came up on my computer screen reminding me that I have 15 minutes until my scheduled time for working on construction proposals. There are also some additional reminders. This increases my focus to get finished with this week’s solution. This is why I like using a digital list and calendar … I can set reminders for both. Paper lists and calendars don’t have reminders. You need to be aware of the time, understand how to track it and then do something. The key to being productive and managing time wisely is intentionality. This is why a clock is the most important productivity tool. If you would like to know more about how to be productive, schedule a free 30-minute meeting with me.

A Clock is Your Most Important Tool

Show Notes

You Can’t Be Really Productive Without One

Episode Transcript

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