There are times in our lives where we are going to be very busy. When you’re fundraising for a start-up for instance or launching a new product. A lot of times we choose not to address what is happening and accept the hectic routine as our current reality. However, we are running the risk of compromising on productivity.

So how can we ensure we are more productive as opposed to simply busy?

Apply The Pareto Principle

The Pareto Principle states that 20% of our efforts create 80% of results. This might not be the gospel truth regarding an exact percentage to apply in all cases, however, it makes a sensible statement that much of what we do on a daily premise doesn’t add to or has almost no effect on the results we need to accomplish.

The issue is that most of us haven’t set aside the effort to think What is the 20% of what I do that acquires the result I want? Even if we don’t want to know the answer, it’s worth discovering. Particularly in a start-up, where time is a scarce asset for the founders and their team.

All things considered, we tend to overwhelm ourselves by doing a lot at once. Furthermore, when we overload our plate, shockingly we come up short on the concentration to perform at our pinnacle.

Locate the couple of truly significant things that you should focus on every day or week and the activities that help you achieve the best results, delegate the rest, or simply ignore it. It frees up energy and intellectual prowess to focus on the undertakings that produce results while avoiding procrastination or burnout.

Don’t Get Carried Away By The Whirlwind

How many of us start our days focused on the main priority and are swept away by a complete tornado afterwards?

A large portion of our workdays are loaded up with surprising, urgent, and routine undertakings that shield us from doing anything new. These tasks are known as whirlwind. 

If we have our essential objectives and activities lined up, we have to ensure that we invest a segment of our time every day taking consistent steps towards those objectives. The whirlwind is often not as dire as we might suspect it to be. Figure out how to be more discerning about what characterizes as urgent, what’s significant, and what’s simply not important or time-critical.

Make Time for Focused Deep Work

Neuroscience studies into how the mind functions propose that each time we switch assignments (what we may customarily call performing multiple tasks), it’s “costly” for us in terms of lost time and efficiency. For instance, have you ever been in a Zoom meeting and attempted to compose an email and communicate something specific simultaneously? We might not think that this is a big deal, however, throughout a day the aggregate impact is that we lose around 40% of our efficiency. If we are attempting to do a complicated task that requires focus, it implies we’re bound to make blunders and lose much additional time in the switching process.

The solution can be blocking off time for focused work, eliminating all interruptions, and focusing 100% on that task until it is finished. This is particularly useful for complicated tasks since it implies, we can complete it in the briefest measure of time and with the highest quality. By eliminating all interruptions, we are bound to get into a state from which our greatest work is frequently produced.

Schedule Time Off/Gaps In Your Diary

The mind isn’t intended to be working all day, every day. By permitting ourselves downtime, or slow time, we permit ourselves an opportunity to be inventive and creative, which are qualities essential to run a long haul, applicable business. We must have that free flow of ideas, and it is better to approach an issue in a creative manner to produce an inventive solution, as opposed to from a stressed, anxious state.

Permitting slow thinking time by taking a walk or meditating, for instance, gets you into a relaxed state – a mental state that is most open to ground-breaking ideas and solutions.