2. Start with the most important task first, so you can get it out of the way early and while your mind is most fresh.

3. Believe your will-power is in your control, and you can often motivate yourself to do more (study).

4. Bring work to do when you know you will have time to kill (such as in the waiting room at a doctor’s office).

5. Practice mindfulness meditation to increase your focus. (see 100 Breaths meditation).

6. Exercise periodically to keep your energy levels high.

7. Learn from your time management mistakes. Don’t be afraid to try new things.

8. Know the uses and abuses of setting deadlines (see here).

9. Define your values in life. Avoid meaningless tasks that don’t fit into your value hierarchy.

10. Be willing to take suggestions from friends, family, or experts.

11. Visualize process, not results. Imagine yourself doing the things you need to do to in order to accomplish your goals. This can often prime you to actually do those activities.

12. Know when you need to take a break. A well-timed break can be a healthy re-boost between activities.

13. Collaborate with the strengths of others to help you complete a task.

14. Learn that happiness is a more productive state than depression (see here).

15. Decorate your workplace or change your environment. (recent research shows it improves health, happiness and productivity).

16. Entice yourself with a reward (although incentives work best for routine tasks, not creative problem-solving: Dan Pink on motivation).

17. Focus on aspects of the activity you enjoy.

18. Be creative with aspects of the activity you don’t yet enjoy.

19. Listen to music, as long as it’s not distracting (for example, music makes us exercise harder).

20. Be more mindful of negative self-talk while working (“I don’t want to do this. This is lame. Why is Timmy such an a-hole?”). Replace these with something more inspiring (for more see quick tips for reframing).

21. Blur the line between work and play.

22. The presence of plants can increase attention and productivity (see here).

23. At the end of the day, reflect on your actions and how you can improve. Reflection has been shown to improve learning (see here).

24. Find a support group to hold you accountable.

25. Identify role models to motivate you and inspire you.

26. Keep a personal diary or blog to keep track of your progress.

27. Identify what activities put you in a state of flow.

28. Find stress relievers to help you re-energize yourself throughout the day.

29. Focus your complete attention on one task at a time. Multi-tasking can often be mentally taxing and deplete our cognitive resources quicker.

30. Prepare and cook dinner in a slow cooker. Set it and then go do something else.

31. Try going to the library, moving to another room in the house, or going somewhere else to maybe spark some new energy and creativity.

32. Try to dedicate one day toward all shopping errands (this also tends to be easier on gas use).

33. Create a schedule with other parents for carpooling to school.

34. Use a calendar (digital or paper) to track important events.

35. Call in refills for the pharmacy ahead of time so they can be ready by the time you get there.

36. Confirm your appointments before going.

37. Get chores done while watching TV or listening to music.

38. Do business meetings online over Skype (for convenience).

39. Do something while waiting on hold (on the phone).

40. Always have a pen and paper handy to write down things that come to mind (or leave voice memos on an MP3 recorder/iPhone/etc.)

41. Eat right and keep your body nourished. Without proper nutrition, cognitive sources will deplete much quicker. You need to feed your brain!

42. See your work in the context of a “bigger picture” and be proud and motivated by it.

43. Remember you only live once so make the most of your time here.

44. Find an encouraging quote to put up on your wall or read as a daily affirmation.

45. Try talking to yourself out loud when solving a difficult task. Or explain the problem to someone else. Making a problem understandable in words can often help us solve it better. (for example, see rubber duck debugging, a technique used by computer programmers).

46. Ignore the little things that don’t matter, but always seem to wrack up our brains. Don’t waste your attention and energy on things that you can’t change. If it is out of your control, it isn’t worth worrying about.

47. Re-visit your long term goals and aspirations.

48. Remember that money isn’t the only measure of productivity.

49. Pay attention to key signs of failure such as low self-esteem and only looking for a quick fix.

50. Consider keeping your goals to yourself to avoid a false sense of accomplishment.

51. Stop reading tips on how to maximize productivity and start doing things.

What tips do you find work best for you?

Stay updated on new articles here.

Is that ticking clock in the background really helping us work harder and more efficiently? Or is it giving us incentives to rush in some situations, slack off in others, or even frustrate us to the point where we neglect our work altogether?

This article wishes to explore these situations and ask the questions:

1. When are setting deadlines productive and useful?
2. And when do they inhibit us from doing a good job or achieving a goal?

Setting a deadline for disappointment

I want to destroy the notion that we must set deadlines for all of our goals. Some things just aren’t conducive to time-related constraints.

Take for example your health and fitness – is it really appropriate to take some arbitrary date and say, “I must lose 10lbs within the next month.”

What if you don’t meet your goal? What if you only lose a single pound? Are you going to feel frustrated and give-up? Albeit it’s a small step, but does not meeting your quota really take away from the achievement of losing one pound?

What if instead you said, “It would be nice if I lost 10lbs within the next month.” That is a much less restricting statement because you aren’t telling yourself what you absolutely have to do. You are still maintaining an empowering vision of the future without setting a constricting deadline (and setting yourself up for a potentially crippling disappointment).

Can’t rush inspiration

For some people their creativity is their main source of livelihood. Their job depends on them to come up with riveting ideas that capture people’s imaginations. This is true for people like musicians, filmmakers, and artists.

When I think about this in the context of deadlines I am reminded of a scene in the Spike Jonze movie Adaptation. The whole movie centers around Charlie Kaufman’s struggle to create a film based on this book called The Orchid Thief. For those who don’t know, Charlie Kaufman is a real writer and director…he has worked with such excellent films as Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York.

In the movie Kaufman (who is played by Nicholas Cage) gets a call from his boss wanting to know how the screenwriting is coming along. He says he needs to see it on his desk in a couple weeks, and in turn Kaufman replies, “You can’t rush inspiration.”

Is this true? Can you put a deadline on creativity? I’m tempted to side with Kaufman on this one, especially since I consider him one of the most innovative writers of our time. Creativity can come at any moment. Imagine rushing a piece of art only to come up with an idea that is ten times better the day after it is due – that would be devastating.

“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”
- Rita Mae Brown

Working best under pressure

In defense of deadlines, there are some people I know who claim to work best when they are under pressure. They thrive off of the thrill of channeling their stress into a state of flow – getting in the zone – and working their butts off until they have finally finished their project.

This could be true for some creative endeavors, but I imagine that this strategy is most effective with work that is more do-oriented and less thinking-oriented.

If you already have a clear picture in your head of what needs to get done, then setting a deadline is a great way to motivate yourself towards action.

One example I will borrow from my own life:

I have been wanting to write an ebook on well-being and happiness ever since I first got interested in mental health and personal development. I have had ideas floating around in my head for years. Finally earlier this year I wrote an outline on the types of lessons I wanted to include. Now that I have everything comprehensively planned out, it all boils down to getting it done.

Realizing this, I now know it is a good time to set a deadline for actually getting this thing out of my mind and into the world. That is why I am giving myself until the end of the month to finish writing it. This is one case where I am OK with setting deadlines – even though I am the kind of person who usually prefers spontaneity.

A beacon of light in the distance

Because most people are so bad at time management, we often see deadlines as something that is always right in front of us – forcing us to get to work and get things completed.

However, deadlines can also be something we place in the distant future. For example, when I first started this blog in June of 09 I gave myself two years to turn it into a profitable enterprise. I am not even a year into it yet but this deadline has guided me to stay focused on what my bigger goals are. It is a beacon of light – a vision for the future – that is in the background of everything that I do.

When deadlines are used in this way they can become a kind of symbol for success, something to aspire towards, and dedicate energy to gradually over time. Deadlines don’t always have to rush us to be effective; they can give us room and be inspiring.

You may have already set deadlines like this without even being aware of it. For example: when you were a young adult (or if you are one now like me), you may have said at one point, “I won’t get married until I am 30.” This is one example of setting benchmarks way in the future.

Beware, however, that when we place these distant deadlines for the future, if we don’t revisit those goals and aspirations from time to time, we may forget about them or run too far off track.

When do deadlines work best for you?

This is my rudimentary analysis of deadlines. I don’t wish to rid the world of them completely, but I do think it is important we put them into perspective. In some contexts they can do wonders, while in other contexts they can inhibit us severely.

Tell me – what are your experiences and thoughts on deadlines? When do they work best for you?

The first thing I noticed before I knew I had to make a change was my mood, or my “long-term” mental state throughout the day. I felt as though my life revolved around the work I did. Work was the center of my day, the center of my being, the cause of all my stress. It was becoming too much a part of my identity, I was swept up in the wonderful world of deadline-making. Yippee! Not. And when you begin to lose yourself in your work in a negative way, then it is time to take a step back.

Whenever I used to get frustrated or angered as a kid my parents would always tell me to take a deep breathe and count to ten. I always hated hearing the advice – it only made me that much closer to punching the nearest wall. But throughout my years I have found out it was not bad advice at all, they were just giving it to me at the worst possible time (the times where you are so upset and outraged that you won’t listen to anybody). So I’m here to tell you now: the next time you are so overworked and frustrated, take a step back, a deep breathe, and count to ten. Do it – not because people tell you to do it – but as an experiment. Just stop. Say, “I’m going to take a deep breathe and count to ten,” and then do it. Simple. Done. A ten second break is still a break, and it can actually seem like a long time when you count it out.

Breaks in general are important. They signify how we chunk up our day. What do you prefer:

• Longer breaks but fewer
• Shorter breaks but more.

If you want to really become an excellent worker, you need to be as equally excellent at taking breaks.

Think of the guys at Google, one of the biggest and fastest growing companies of our generation. Their work offices have all sorts of fun trinkets and games: there are slides you can use to get down a floor, game rooms with pool tables, Foosball, arcade machines, professional massages, and even a room where you can just sit down, relax, and gaze at pretty fish. The Google people sure know how to take a break – and for good reason!

Any kind of break is a good break. It freshens the mind, gives it time to mold over ideas, and strengthen neural connections in the brain. Taking breaks can facilitate learning, become a creativity enhancer, and energize you before you need to get back on your grind.

Even so, some breaks are better than others, and choosing the right kind of break depends heavily on the kind of work you are absorbed in. If your work is very mentally-intensive, maybe it is a lot of number crunching, problem-solving, or you get paid for your creative output, than it is a good idea to do something physical on your break. It doesn’t have to be as intense as going to the gym or playing football. Just a light jog or walk outside is usually perfect. It gets your face away from staring at papers or computer screens and gives you time to spend outside and with nature (which psychologists recommend). If your work is some kind of physical labor, then you may want to do something more restful like read a book, listen to music, or even take a short nap.

Naps are some of the best breaks you can take whether for physical work or mental work.

I have seen a numerous reports lately showing how naps improve worker efficiency (Here is the most recent one I could find, published in Harvard Business Review, “Why Companies Should Insist That Employees Take Naps“). A healthy nap can range anywhere from 20-90 minutes long.