Getting work done in 2 hours in a day. Well, that sounds doable doesn’t it?

Well, maybe not. Due to various distractions or emergencies, we often find ourselves spending more time on a task than should be, and thus allowing our overall productivity to decrease.

The question then – Are we working too much?

Would we be more efficient and more productive if we work less?

Throughout the world it is known that Americans work far too many hours. So how can we go about reducing the time we work, and still produce the same level of work quality as we would in an 8-12 hour day?

Tips For More Productivity In Less Time

What is it that prevents us from completing our work in less time, and what is it that will allow us to increase efficiency and produce more in less time?

Here are some easy tips for effective implementation:

Eliminate

• Procrastination: Fear of more work/knowing when to stop. In other words, we secretly believe that if we work quicker and finish quicker, instead of being rewarded with less work time, there will simply be more work to do.

• Distractions: These are great influences in our tendency to procrastinate. We not only use distractions in order to procrastinate, but we create them so that we can procrastinate.

• Stress: Too many people believe that stress causes procrastination, when in reality it is the procrastinating that causes so much stress.

• Burnout: Working a 12-hour day instead of a 2-hour day is a clear recipe for burnout.

Increase

• Focus: This is the greatest tool you have for reducing the amount of time you work and increasing the amount of projects you finish.

• Be Task Based: Measure work by completed projects, not hours spent. This system puts the emphasis on the tasks you are doing rather than the hours you spend doing so. Essentially, you measure your productivity according to tasks that are finished rather than the time it takes to complete them. Instead of saying “I worked 10 hours today”, say “I finished three projects today.”

• Energy Management: Your energy, and not the amount of hours or the time you spend on a project, matters most of all. It is how much energy you spend on any given project. It is energy that completes the project. If it costs you X energy to complete Project A, it does not matter if you spend that energy over a 2-hour period or an 8-hour period. If your total focus is on the project, then you can get it done quicker in that 2 hours.

When you eliminate the things you need to do and increase the things you need to do, then you can look at the specifics of how to get your work done in 2 hours each day.

• Use Goal Lists On A Weekly and Daily Basis – For both of these lists, make sure you think about and write down all the goals you have for the 7-day week, not the 5-day. Then on the daily goal list, make sure your list includes every single task that you need to complete the next day.

• On the next workday you will only complete tasks on your daily list. If it is not on your daily list, DON’T DO IT. Ignore everything else in your work world. When you finish your daily goal list you are finished working that day.

That’s all there is to it.

That’s all you need – A weekly and a daily goal list and a rule that says if it is not on the list it does not get done.

When you are making your goal lists, be sure you pay attention to the amount of time you spend answering phone calls and emails. Don’t let these functions control your list or your time. If an email has nothing to do with anything on your lists, don’t answer it. Each email will eat up 5 minutes of your time if you let it. Only respond to those that are needed to meet a goal on your list.

In addition:

• Don’t spend any time reading forums or other distractions online.

• Make sure all spam is filtered out.

• Turn off your alerts so that you are not distracted by any incoming new email.

• Don’t let coworkers waste your time either. For most workers, up to an hour a day is lost to conversations with coworkers that are not relevant to the job. You need to go even further. If any coworker is not a part of a goal on your daily list, there is no conversation with that person at all.