How to become more efficient?

December 2, 2021 12:01 PM

I'd like to become more efficient and productive in both home and work life but am struggling with how to start this journey. Mental health aside, I think I'm a natural ponderer, I've always been a bit slow and tend to think too much about things. Not one for action at all! Please could you recommend any books or other resources that you've read that you think I might find useful?
posted by Sunflower88 to Human Relations (12 answers total)

Getting Things Done by David Allen provides good actionable advice.
posted by saturdaymornings at 12:09 PM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

GTD as recommended above is my go to.
posted by pyro979 at 12:31 PM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I notice from your question history that you’ve wondered in the past whether you might have ADHD.

Regardless of any official diagnosis, and even if you’re not sure whether you have it or not, you might find it helpful to read books aimed at people with ADHD and see if any of the advice there resonates with you.

I have ADHD and I’ve become so much more happier and more productive since starting to accept that my brain works in a weird way and sometimes I need to find weird ways of doing things so that I’m working with my brain instead of against it. If you do have ADHD, it’s quite possible that “mainstream” productivity techniques simply won’t work for you at all, which I’ve definitely found to be the case for me.

Delivered from Distraction by Hallowell and Ratey is a good starting point.
posted by mekily at 12:47 PM on December 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

The Pomodoro method is most helpful for me (pick one thing to work on, set a timer for 25 minutes, work on it for that time, then take a break or decide to do another 25 minute chunk).
posted by pinochiette at 1:16 PM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

I use the 5 Minute Rule: if I realize I have something I need to do but have been avoiding, I have to work on it right now for 5 minutes. After that, I can stop. Or I can choose to continue. Mostly I decide to keep going, since for me its about getting over that hump of inertia. It's been surprisingly effective.
posted by ananci at 1:27 PM on December 2, 2021 [8 favorites]

there’s a helpful site/community called focusmate that can help w this.
posted by elgee at 2:55 PM on December 2, 2021

I'm an efficient person and didn't always used to be. Haven't used GTD but have a series of smallish mantras that really help me get stuff done in a way that doesn't also make me agitated. Because it is worth looking into the idea of productivity. Totally good to do it if it's a thing you value, but also worth making sure you're not just down on yourself for "not being productive" when in fact you're producing things, just maybe things that don't quantify as well as others. So like many people don't necessarily lump making food, making music, spending time with kids, or whatever (just spitballing, these are not my particular values) in with "productivity" but you have to think about being productive for your life, not just your job. So here are a few things that have helped me.

- if it takes less than five minutes and you've thought about it, just do it. Sometimes it can take you six days to fill a bird feeder and then it feels like a six-day task as opposed to a five-minute task because it's on some nebulous to-be-done mental list. Free up psychic space, do the short things
- if you can't do a full task it's okay to do a part task or get a thing closer to where it needs to be. Sometimes I can't just file all my papers but I can create a "to be filed" pile for all the paper. Same with paying bills. Maybe I just have time to open the mail, but I can pay bills later. Have a clipboard for the to be paid bills. Walking through the house I move things closer to where they need to go to be away, for example
- spend some time and (maybe) money on infrastructure, which just means that maybe your office is a mess because there isn't a space for all the paper. Maybe it's hard for you to organize your inbox because you don't have good email filters. Think of those things where some time spent setting up a system is time saved in the future.
- a system that doesn't work for you isn't working. Obviously there are some people who need the outside structure of someone else's system to make it work for them but just like you don't have to finish a book you're not enjoying if you try a thing and it doesn't work for you, it's okay to move on

So I agree with other people, if you think you may have ADHD especially, try some things but also explore diagnosis/therapy/meds options if they are available because lack of ability to organize or be efficient can be a thing that has nothing to do with your systems and everything to do with your brain chemistry or your lifetime adaptations to it. Best wishes and best of luck.
posted by jessamyn at 3:34 PM on December 2, 2021 [11 favorites]

You may find some useful recs in this other recent askme
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:27 PM on December 2, 2021

Best answer: One thing that worked for me when I worked (I'm retired now) but also at home - habits. Without being obsessive about it, always do certain things in the same order and at roughly the same time of day. This works with things like checking the status of things that were supposed to happen overnight; checking e-mail first thing in the morning, showering, whatever. It pretty much ensures that the routine stuff gets done.
posted by TimHare at 9:12 PM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

Pomodoro, mentioned above, helped me. In part because I can tell people I'm working with that I'm using Pomodoro, so it's helped me manage how quickly they expect me to get to non-rush items. A *surprisingly* significant help for me was getting one of these little visual timers. I have no idea why it's been so helpful, but I suspect it's something to do with being able to glance at the color bar and not be alarmed by the whirring seconds (or milliseconds!) disappearing on a digital timer or stopwatch. It's a timer, but a chill timer (I cover the tiny alarm speaker with a piece of medical tape so I can only hear it a little bit).
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:25 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's okay and valuable to be a natural ponderer, and you don't owe the world "productivity" at all times. I just want to say that out loud for you.

But yeah, if you're mentally going in anxious circles or getting in your own way about everything, that's super frustrating. Overthinking the dishes and laundry and then being distracted by feeling bad about it? That's a problem that a little efficiency can solve. I handle this kind of thing very similarly to jessamyn; her list really resonated with me. It also helps me to jot down a train of thought so that I don't have to RE-overthink it as much. (I use the Notes app on my phone a lot and have a side-note for work of ideas I'm trying to work through.)

If you need more time and space than other people to do something, or to absorb what you're reading, that's absolutely fine. It can seem "better" to be a person who thinks and does things very quickly, but I notice that there are useful types of knowledge/understanding/context that I just intrinsically "get" and have internalized, while those quickbrains fly past it every time.
posted by desuetude at 7:25 AM on December 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

Along the lines of Jessamyn's "part tasks," having a big list of tiny tasks makes a huge difference for me. If I have a big project, "do the big project" or even "work on the big project" tends to get me nowhere, but "make a list of tiny tasks for big project" and then tackling five or six of those tiny tasks makes me much more efficient and effective. I aim for things that I think will take 5-25 minutes - one pomodoro or less. It all keeps me motivated, because checking off each of those small tasks makes me feel like I'm getting things done.
posted by kristi at 11:00 AM on December 6, 2021 [2 favorites]