How to Work Efficiently: The 2 Critical Keys to Productive Work

Author: Dennis Zdonov / Source: Lifehack

There’s a lot of research on the subject of productivity, but in my experience, most of it is bogus.

So how to work efficiently?

Being productive really boils down to two key things:

1. Prioritization
2. Finding your flow

Each of these are distinct skills, yet they inevitably impact each other since honing your ability to prioritize improves your capacity for finding and staying in flow.

So to maximize your efficiency, you have to work consciously to develop both.

Here’s what you need to do that.

1. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to Prioritize Better

The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool to help you prioritize tasks in terms of urgency and importance. As co-founder of Dairy Free Games, I found it immensely valuable; there always seemed to be a thousand fires burning, but using this tool helped me decide which ones to put out myself, and when.

Here’s how the matrix breaks down:

• Urgent and Important: Tasks that you yourself have to do right now, or conversations and decisions that you must quarterback quickly.
• Not Urgent and Important: Projects requiring of planning and strategy, but that can be delayed for a bit. You’ll still need to set a deadline for these and carve out time on your calendar to work specifically on them, but you might not need to tackle them today.
• Urgent and Not Important: Tasks which must be completed, but which you should delegate to someone else. Think: files, documents, or processes that need updating—jobs that need to get done fast, but that don’t require you or your best engineer.
• Not Important and Not Urgent: Ideas which are best eliminated from your to-do list altogether.
  Or, at the least, tasks that should be postponed until all other important items have been checked off. These might be “nice-to-haves”––they’re not urgent or mission critical.

The most crucial piece here is deciding which action items must be completed by you, and which could be delegated. For many, you have the sense that everything that’s urgent is also important, and everything that’s important MUST be completed by you. But over time––through utilizing this matrix––you come to realize that urgent and important are in fact different qualifiers.

The most effective leaders are those who can differentiate between the two and plan their days around the tasks which…

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