No, you don’t need a fancy journal to learn how to utilize your time in the best possible way! All you need is a notebook and a vision of where is it that you want to get to. 🙂 To achieve 80 per cent results, you need to put in 20 per cent effort. So sit tight with your journal and make this cheat sheet your 10 per cent effort. The rest 10 per cent will fall right in place, giving you your 80 per cent results right away.
What is my story?
I was working at a big-law working a full-time job. When I say full-time, I mean full-time – I was on call twenty-four hours and my work timings were not fixed. If there was work to be done, it had to be done! Amidst all of that kind of work schedule, I decided to take a competitive exam for the (dream) job.
A few weeks into the studying process, I realised that others competing with me were studying full-time and already revising for the fifth time when I had just started studying. When I sat through the preliminary exam, I knew I would qualify for the mains but I also realised I couldn’t just sail through the mains without a definite plan. There were 12 seats and thousands were competing for each seat. I didn’t have to qualify, I had to be in the top 12! I knew I needed a productivity cheat sheet to make sure I was using all of my time well especially given my work schedule.
Here is what I learned from my experience.
Why do you need a productivity cheat sheet?
I remember sitting with about twelve to fourteen subjects on my desk for a competitive exam that was only about six months away. For about two months, I sat looking at those books overwhelmed with the study load while also working my full-time job at a big law.
All I thought about during these two months was how busy I was at my day and night job (no kidding, we didn’t have working hours so say – talk about hectic!) and how everyone else preparing for the exam was preparing full-time just for this.
Luckily for me, during the third month of my so-called prep, I figured that unless I found a way to use all 24 hours consciously and judiciously, there was no way that I was cracking the exam. A few months later – I cracked the prelims and the mains followed by the interview to be where I wanted to be finally.
So, you may be all over the place with the to-do list right now, but honestly, the only thing keeping you from achieving your goals is a cheat sheet to help you plan well and maximize your productivity during the limited time that you have.
Hope that’s enough motivation for now. Let’s jump right in –
How to make your ideal productivity cheat sheet:
Set the right mindset
What even is the right mindset? It is a mindset where you know your goal, why you need to reach the goal, and how no matter what, you are going to get there.
So, please STOP listening to anyone telling you that you can’t achieve your goals or how difficult it is going to be for you with everything you have going on for you. This could be a friend, a relative, an Instagram handle, or any other source or person leaving you feeling low and in self-doubt.
You just don’t need that in your life. So, if you need a sign to cut it off, here it is! Thank the Universe! 🙂
Instead, fill all of that space that you now have with the people who remind you that YOU CAN DO THIS. Mind you, we are not looking for any external validation here but to surround ourselves with the optimistic guy who won’t hold you back.
Stop saying that you’re not the person who gets things done. YOU ARE THAT PERSON YOU WANT TO BE! Trust me, this always works.
Figure out what you need to accomplish
You need to know your goal! I can’t stress this enough. I don’t mean just think of the vague picture but really if you don’t know what the destination is like, you can’t plan your journey to reach the destination.
Setting goals to achieve your ultimate objective has a direct connection with long-term success. It keeps you motivated and on the track. So says the science! You can read about it here.
Get into the details – what is the deadline? What is the end goal? Make your goal measurable. Are you looking for 1,000 followers on your Instagram handle in 6 months? Do you wish to have sold 500 first pieces of your product in 2 months? Be specific and put it all down on a piece of paper.
Plan well – do your research
Now that you know where you want to get to, let’s start with how to get there. So this is where you do your research.
Figure out how others achieved their goals that they did. You won’t believe how much information the internet has and will give to you free. Start by asking ChatGPT or just simply watch videos of people sharing their experiences on YouTube. Don’t hold back and reach out to them through LinkedIn or even email them. (P.S. – don’t forget to take notes on the side)
When you know what it takes to get where you want to be, that’s when you get to the next step in making your productivity cheat sheet.
Make a to-do list
Now that you know what all the others did, let’s make a list of all that you need to do. Let’s make it as broad as possible to cover all the tasks and under those tasks, put all sub-tasks and get as specific as you can get.
For example, if you need to deliver on a project for a client in 4 months, you need to set milestones based on the stages of the project and use these milestones to prepare a detailed to-do list which you can then use to allocate work to the team and fix deadlines.
Please spend as much time as possible on this because this will serve as your holy grail to stay on track.
Break your goal up into smaller milestones
Looking at the project as one big goal can look like a daunting task and leave you feeling overwhelmed. So, break it up into smaller goals and set defined timelines for those goals.
When I looked at the list of 20 subjects to be covered, it seemed like I would never be able to get it done. But I figured I had three months to finish the prep, out of which I needed one month for the revisions, I was able to break up the syllabus into smaller chunks and stop being overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task I needed to accomplish. Similarly, I would also do the same for my work and then get to striking things off from each of the lists.
I know when the client asks for their e-commerce website to be up and running in 15 days, there is just so much to be done that you don’t even know where to start. Well, start by drawing up the to-do list breaking it up into smaller tasks, and finishing those tasks one at a time.
Prioritize what is important
All tasks on the to-do list will not take the same time for you to complete and will not be as important.
You need to sort these tasks out based on the time that it will take to complete them and the order of importance of tasks. If you have 10 chapters that you need to complete in 10 hours, you need to figure out which are the most important and will have maximum weightage in exams. And also figure out which chapters will take the maximum amount of time to complete. If you have 5 clients, all of whom are pushing for their deliverables, you know that the one who pays the most is the most important one who needs to be catered to before you get to the others.
Accordingly, plan your 10 hours to complete the most important chapters which are the lengthiest, and then move to other chapters. But if there is ANY task on your list that will take less than 15 minutes of your time, DO IT NOW!
Take breaks
If you can barely focus on an Instagram reel or a YouTube short that lasts for 30 seconds, there is hardly a chance that you will sit through the 10 hours of office time and send out that deliverable in one go.
There are proven ways to learn how to manage limited time and ensure that you don’t get burnt out in the process. I highly recommend you try the Pomodoro Technique to effectively manage your time.
Avoid distractions
For me, the Pomodoro videos on YouTube worked wonders when I needed to give myself the motivation to work on my blog for 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break.
Over time, I have trained myself to sit for longer hours but I know I need a break when I need to read a sentence thrice to make sense of it. You can read more about how to stay focused right here.
Have a sacred place to work out of
If you’re going to the office, I am sure your desk will suffice. But if you’re working or studying from home or anywhere, it would help if you had a space dedicated just to work that is not disturbed by anything else. It will help you avoid distractions and focus on the task at hand. God knows multitasking is not as useful as we thought it to be.
Pro tip – There happens to be a study room near my place that I used during my CS exams. I was just amazed to see how much more work I got done during that time. I have tested this myself and seen the vast difference in the results.
Put this on your productivity cheat sheet – find a place to work from.
Stay on course
The idea of having a broad blueprint of your milestones is to make sure that you stay on track and don’t stray too far from the final goals.
At the end of every stage of the project, figure out where you stand to review your position and evaluate further courses of action. As you go about completing your detailed to-do checklist, achieving small goals, and completing the milestones, you will learn more about the project and the goal you’re working on.
Since your productivity cheat sheet is thankfully not cast in stone, so please do set out some time at the end of each milestone to see where you are.
For instance, if you’re working with a client, you should also take time to communicate with them about the achievement of the milestones (YAYY!!) and ask for feedback so you don’t deliver a far-from-expected product to your client. You will also have the added advantage of the client having confidence in your work and being satisfied with the work product.
Don’t forget your ‘why’
The process of getting where you want to be can sometimes be time-consuming and make you feel like you’re stuck. Keep reminding yourself why you decided to do this in the first place. What was your motivation and how should you keep going to get where you want to be? Why did you start researching how to make a productivity cheat sheet in the first place?
Don’t forget what your “why” is in the process. What is it that got you to sit and figure out how to make a productivity cheat sheet in the first place? Write this right on top of your productivity cheat sheet and display it on your desk or your laptop. Look at it every single day especially when you’re having a slow day and finding it hard to keep going.
There you go, you can now put yourself on the path to consciously work towards your goals.
