Do you sometimes wish there were 26 hours in a day so you could get more done? You run and rush and hurry and still can’t get everything done? Not getting enough sleep either because not enough time in bed or too much on your mind to actually achieve a sleep state for 7 hours?
Some people actually thrive on a super intense, jam-packed thriller of a day and it energizes them. Others may feel exhausted just contemplating that much motion. And some would like to figure out how to accomplish a lot more per unit of time by being more organized – in others words, stick with 24 hour days but get more done. Which are you?
When I was very young one of my early jobs was working as a legal secretary at the government. Because I was extremely management trained and organized, I could get all my work done in the first few hours of the day and then have time to read my book. The other secretaries, who moved at a snails’ pace, would then ask their bosses to ask my boss if I could help them with their “overload” and my boss would say “yes.” So I learned to pace my own work out to make it take all day so I didn’t have to take on other people’s work too. And that didn’t feel very good to me either. So after a few months, I quit.
I then found 3 independent lawyers and moved them into an office near my house and was the sole receptionist, secretary and bookkeeper for all 3 and didn’t work overtime or Friday afternoons. But I did get all their work done.
The secret to super organization
The secret was being super organized and predicting ahead of time what was going to be needed – in other words, thinking about future needs all the time instead of waiting for last minute problems to pounce on me and drown me in out-of-control situations that then required heroic actions to stave off disasters.
Here are some more successful actions that I use:
- Don’t try and do two things at the same as you only put half your attention on each one and that has been proven in studies to slow you down.
- Finish each thing that you start. Having a half dozen incomplete actions “pending” can tie up a lot of your attention and leave you with too little Random Access Memory (RAM) to deal with other issues efficiently. So wherever possible, finish each thing you start before moving to the next.
- Make a plan for the day that not only includes your patient schedule but also everything else that you need to accomplish that day. Do not kill yourself off however by putting too much on the list. Prioritize the actions so you at least get the most important things done.
I made this article as short as I could so you could end off and get onto things! Forget the 26 hour day and have a great 24 hour day!
