Optimizing Personal Efficiency to Increase Business Results

No matter how hard we try, we can’t separate our personal, family and ‘regular’ lives from our business performance.

If we have a bad day at home, our work life will feel it. If a meeting runs over and we get home late for dinner, our personal life will begrudge it.

But instead of lamenting over the fact and trying to compartmentalize our life, why not work on optimizing both of these facets of our everyday existence - work and home life – in order to make the most of both worlds?

Start making fewer decisions

As human beings, we are faced with countless decisions every day – and each one will demand some time, some thinking, and a certain level of energy.

Instead of wasting them on the mundane and the unimportant, leave your decision-making abilities free to handle the important stuff.

This will mean eliminating certain decisions altogether: what to wear and what to eat can be the first to go. Assemble a workday capsule wardrobe where everything goes with everything else, and set aside a couple of hours on the weekend to plan each meal of the work week, down to the snacks.

As time goes by, you will find more decisions you can eliminate, thus decluttering your mind even further.

Learn how to shut out the noise

Our minds never really shut up, unless we occupy them with something, but even then, they can keep up a constant chatter in the background.

This chatter and internal noise can become increasingly distracting, especially in times of heightened stress, which is why tuning it out, or at least learning to ignore it, is an excellent skill to master, no matter what you do.

Start by meditating and practicing mindfulness – both of these techniques will in time teach you how to handle the myriad of thoughts zooming through your unfocused and excited brain.

Give it time though, as you won’t be able to grasp either very fast – it takes a lot of practice and repetition before you can learn how to ignore yourself.

Prioritize rest as opposed to fuel

We are all sometimes guilty of staying up too late to watch that latest Netflix show. But we also tend to sacrifice sleep in order to get more things done in a single day.

The more we do this the less productive we will actually be. Instead of completing a task in an hour, as we normally would after a good night’s sleep, we now need an extra 30 minutes in our sleep-deprived state. The funny part is we don’t even consider this to be poor performance, rather praise ourselves for getting things done and pushing through.

Instead of relying on sugar and caffeine to keep you awake, try to prioritize sleep as opposed to staying awake. A memory foam mattress can help you sleep better, which helps you return to your more productive version. This means you’ll be able to not only get everything done, but do it with more ease and less stress and pressure.

Give up trying to multitask

We are not really good at multitasking – no matter how hard we try to tell ourselves otherwise.

True, there are times when we can and should do more things at once: listen to a book while washing the dishes, watch a TV program while folding the laundry, etc.

The reason these kinds of multiple tasks mesh well is because they use different parts of our brains. But when we try to write an email and have a conversation at the same time, we will not be doing as well, as both of these tasks require our brain’s language resources.

Multitasking means switching focus between more than one task at the same time – while we are much better at completing one, then moving on to the other.

Try to adopt that method in your everyday life, and see how much more you get done in a day.

Final thoughts

Being productive is a challenge, and some days will be more difficult than others. As long as you are always ready to optimize how you do things, and ready to make a positive change, there is no reason why you shouldn’t see your results spike, in all aspects of life.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.