intent on focus

I don’t toil over a computer at work all day, so coming home to a quiet evening to be in front of one is altogether an escape and opportunity to catch up on emails and more than a handful of blogs I subscribe to.

The notion of it seems daunting but being able to accomplish a lot of this throughout the day on the iPhone has lessen the time normally required to take care of all of this but I still think there’s a feeling of information overload that exist.

How much is too much information? Well, Beth Kanter has created an information overload self-assessment, a simple yes/no quiz of 20 questions that lets you diagnose the degree of information overload that you might be feeling and I plucked out 5 that stood out the most -

Do you ever wish the web or social media would just go away?

Do you sit at your computer for longer than an hour at a time without getting up to take a break?

Do you feel that you often cannot concentrate?

Do you feel that you have to read word for word all information that comes into your email box or RSS reader or Twitter?

Do you get anxious if you are away from the Internet for too long?

If you can relate to any of these, then you might be more than interested in exploring the rest. As a result of taking the quiz, I determined that I was completely overwhelmed with my feed subscriptions and have now trimmed it tremendously.

I’ve learn to hold in high regard individual post and it’s become key to selecting or forging information that I deem brings value to me. It’s no longer about how much content a blog produces because those that post sporadically are typically the ones resulting with quality content that I’m more than enthusiastic in reading, bookmarking and sharing as oppose to just skimming.

Reblogged from Jorge Quinteros.

December 06, 2009, 2:56pm

Comments

Minimalist time management

thomasgeorge1979:

For those who are overwhelmed by a schedule, and would like to take a more open approach, I suggest minimalist time management. Instead of allowing your life to be ruled by your calendar, let your life be ruled by the moment.

Here’s how:

1. Don’t schedule appointments. This will be a radical departure for many people, but it’s not a new idea and it’s worked for others. If someone requests an appointment, tell them that you don’t schedule appointments. Instead, ask them to call you a little before they’d like to meet to see if you can make it. If you’re free, take the meeting. I suggest keeping your meetings to a bare minimum if you want to get a lot of work done.

Now, there will be some things you’ll want to note on a calendar (I use Google Calendar, accessible from anywhere). These are events that you’d like to have on your calendar, but you don’t necessarily have to go to them. The calendar, then, serves as a way for you to see what your options are, but not as a tool to rule your life. I suggest not keeping too much on the calendar, though.

2. Know what you want to accomplish today. Have a short list of three things you’d really like to accomplish today. Your three most important things. You can have a short list of other small tasks you’d like to do in a batch (save them for later in the day), but the focus of your day should be the list of three important things. Let this list, and not your schedule, be the ruler of your day.

3. Focus on one thing at a time. To get your short list of three important tasks completed, you’ll need to focus on each one of those tasks in turn, and try to focus on them to completion. This will also be a radical departure for the multitasker in all of us. But single-tasking is not only more productive, it’s more relaxing as well.

It will take a little while for you to get used to single-tasking, if you are used to jumping from one thing to another and back. That’s OK. Just gently bring yourself back to your task, every time you feel yourself being pulled away. Keep at it and you’ll soon be knocking off your most important tasks easily.

4. Note tasks as they come up, to consider for later. As you’re working on your important tasks, and trying to focus, other ideas will come up, and other requests will come in. That’s normal, of course, but you can’t let those ideas and requests rule your life. Make a note of them on a sheet of paper or a small notebook (or wherever you write your list of 3 important tasks), and get back to the task you were working on. When you’re done with that task, you can take a look at your list to see what you should be working on next.

That’s it. Minimalist time management is keeping your day wide open, focusing on a small number of tasks you’d like to accomplish today, doing them one at a time, and prioritizing your tasks in the moment. For that, you only need a sheet of paper or a small notebook, and a calendar to put reminders of events that you can (but don’t need to) attend.

PS - This works for me as a student.Read the comments and the next post to understand why suggestion #1 is suicidal for businesses.

http://freelanceswitch.com/productivity/minimalist-time-management-keep-your-day-open/