7 books in 7 minutes: salient points from my favorite time management books

So, you’ve agreed your flexible working arrangement. Congratulations. Now what? How are you going to make sure you’re the most efficient, most creative, most impressive, most productive individual on the planet. Or if not the planet, at least on your team. 

One option is to read all the self help books out there: 168 Hours, What Successful People do Before Breakfast, How to be a Productivity Ninja, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and the like. Small problem: this will take you around four to five hours per book. 

The good news is that I’ve read all the aforementioned books, plus a few others and can offer a six to seven minute read with some salient points. 

We are all knowledge workers now

This is fundamental. We’re paid to think; to learn new skills; create rare insights; do high quality, focused work. We’re there to add value beyond what machines can do (and boy can they do a lot).

Cal Newport provides a useful definition of what he refers to as "Deep Work", in the book of the same name:

“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration, that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate."

However, all the technology around us is in danger of destroying our ability to focus, to think, to be creative. We are in danger of being constantly distracted. What by? A barrage of emails, notifications from all angles, meetings that don’t matter, phones pinging, you know the score.

So what can you do about it?

Think 80:20

Can you answer the question: “What are you paid to do?”  How will you be measured? What are you there for? 

Fact is, 20% of what you do in any given day will matter a lot and will be responsible for 80% of your impact (Phil Dobson, the Brain Book).  

“Slow down and remember this: most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness.” Tim Ferris, the 4 hour work week.

It’s a useful discipline at the start of each week or each day to be able to identify which are your three “most valuable tasks”. 

2. Be in tune with your circadian rhythms

I’m sitting writing this with the debris of breakfast still surrounding me. I have a tonne of admin to do, some bills to pay, emails to answer and the dog needs walking. They’ll all have to wait. I have the energy and focus to write this piece so here I am. I’ll give myself 60 minutes to write something worthwhile then will drop it and take the dog for a walk. 

(I know you’re now worrying about the breakfast debris and all those unpaid bills. Don’t fret, I’ll do a quick tidy before I take the dog out and I’ve scheduled that dead hour of 2pm til 3pm for all the mundane but important stuff).

When are you most alert? At what times of day are you most creative? When do your energy levels feel depleted? Be aware of this and make sure you’re doing your most valuable tasks during those high energy slots.

DO NOT CHECK YOUR EMAILS FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.

“Emails are someone else’s to do list for you.” Ashton Kutcher.  

Unless you’re highly disciplined, before you know it, you’ve spent the first hour of your highly creative day responding to emails which are nothing to do with your own priorities. 

3. Take proper breaks.

The Pomodoro technique recommends you break work up into 25 minute chunks, with a 5 minute break in between. After four chunks you take a 15 - 20 minute break. Other studies suggest you shouldn’t try to do 90 minutes without a break. 

Whatever you choose, here’s the thing. The break is the thing. 

Do not simply switch to some other task, check emails, browse social media or whatever. Stand up, take a walk, meet someone for lunch, go outside, breathe. The quality of your break will have a direct impact on the quality of your next slug of work. Burning out is not clever. Or as Arianna Huffington put it:

We’re suffering from the delusion that in order to succeed we need to burnout ... but in order to be most creative, most productive we need to prioritise our ability to recharge.

4. Learn to say No

“Focusing is about saying No”. Steve Jobs

Whatever your official role description you are inevitably going to be asked to do other things from time to time. They could be large, could be small.  

Nanette Gartrell has written a very helpful book called “My answer is No if that’s OK with you”. It takes a fresh look at why even the most powerful, accomplished, and successful women find it difficult to say NO and offers a revolutionary approach to setting limits without jeopardizing important relationships.

This includes weighing up the pros and cons, assessing fit with your own priorities, suggesting alternatives and - above all - if it’s a “no”, then saying no firmly and clearly

5. Be proactive

Manage your attention. The most successful people, according to Steven Covey (and after all the author of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People must know what he’s talking about) are proactive about where they focus their attention. 

Proactive people focus on the things they can control: where they work, who they work with, what they do, how they spend their time, how far they travel, when they take breaks, what they read, how they spend their leisure time. He refers to this as their “Circle of Control”

Which is distinct from their “Circle of Concern”, which contains all the things you might worry about but which you can’t actually influence (most of the time): someone else’s promotion; office politics; house prices; Colleen vs Rebekah (apologies to readers outside the UK for whom this may mean very little).

Another great thinker on this topic is Laura Van Der Khan, author of 168 hours and “What the Most Successful People do before Breakfast” who is adamant that we all have a lot more time than we think, we just fritter it away through poor planning. Here’s the quote that made me sit up and listen to what she had to say.

“If people are thinking about taking an 80 percent schedule I would caution against that, because it is quite possible to slack for twenty percent of the time and still get paid for it.”

That’s 1005 words which, according to the experts, should take you around 5 minutes to read. Now go implement.

Or, if you have five or six hours to spare, here are the 7 books:

1. Deep Work, Cal Newport
2. The Brain Book, Phil Dobson
3. 168 Hours or What the most successful people do before breakfast", Laura Van Der Khan
4. My answer's no, if that's OK with you, Nina Gartrell
5. The seven habits of highly successful people, Steven Covey
6. The four hour work week, Tim Ferris
7. Thrive, Arianna Huffington