Productivity is something of the utmost concern for the working professional. For the working anyone, really. The goal has always been to get more done in a given amount of time. But there are only so many hours in a day. So how do we maximise the use of each minute?
Richard Branson
The Virgin Group founding CEO has never kept his hate for time wasting a secret. More specifically, he has never kept his hate for time wasting meetings a secret. Branson has been quoted in saying:
“Agendas get forgotten, topics go amiss, and people get distracted… It’s very rare that a meeting on a single topic should need to last more than 5-10 minutes.”
To ensure exchanges are kept brief, Branson holds meetings standing up. A physical reminder that time is of the essence. Mark Cuban apparently never takes a meeting unless someone is writing a check. Now that’s next level.
Elon Musk
The man himself reportedly works 80 to 100 hour weeks over at Tesla and SpaceX. And yet he still manages to dedicate 80% of his time on engineering and design. How is this possible? Time management to the max.
Forget hours and half hours. Musk manages every single detail of his day in five minute chunks. Even lunch. This makes tasks you approach more realistic in terms of logistics. It also makes the discipline way more ridiculous.
Dan Mall
Behavioural psychologist takes a much easier route with productivity and time management. Mall opts to prioritise the two most important tasks of the day in the first two hours of that day.
The logic behind this is that people “… spend the two most productive hours of their day on things that don’t require high cognitive capacity (like social media). If we could salvage those precious hours, most of us would be much more successful in accomplishing what we truly want.” Solid advice.
Now you have essentially the same tools as these titans of industry. Give it a go and see if the quality of your work day is improved.
