5 Secrets to Managing Your Time Backed by Research
It's the problem we all face at the office how to manage your time. You're so overwhelmed with meetings and email that you always wonder if you're really getting anything done. And often, you're not. But one expert has an answer to how to make sure you're getting ahead in your career while being less stressed and enjoying your work more. Cal Newport knows something about getting stuff done. In the decade after he graduated college he published 4 books, earned a Ph.D. from MIT, published a ton of academic papers and was hired as a professor at Georgetown University. Cal leaves the office every day before 6 p.m. and rarely works weekends. He's also married with 2 children. How does he do it? Cal prioritizes what he calls "deep work." And in his new book, Deep Work Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, he explains why this is key and how you can incorporate it into your own life. This book deserves the kind of praise I offer very rarely It's important. So let's hear what Cal has to say on how to manage your time, how you can be less busy and complete the kind of work that will get you raises and promotions, , The one line answer you're prioritizing "shallow work." You're making your attendance at meetings, the speed of your email replies and looking busy a proxy for real productivity. It's ineffective and it's making you miserable. Everything we do at the office gets called "work." And that's a problem. Really, there are two kinds of work, Shallow work stops you from getting fired  but deep work is what gets you promoted. Here's Cal, The problem is that we're all "drowning in the shallows" while the world is valuing deep work more and more. From Deep Work Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, How bad is it? Email and internet searches alone take up 60 of the average knowledge worker's hours. From Deep Work Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, The CTO of Atlantic Media the company that makes The Atlantic magazine wanted to know how much they were paying people just to respond to email. When he ran the numbers, it turned out the number was about 1 million dollars a year. Here's Cal, Now for some, like salespeople and senior management, emails and meetings are their job. But for most of us our real work only begins when the email and meetings are done. And these days those things never seem to end. And there's another benefit to focusing on deep work. And it's a big one Deep work makes you happier. Spending time on deep work has been shown to make us more satisfied with our jobs, while email and shallow work makes us miserable. Here's Cal, Cal's right. We're happier when we're focused and immersed. As Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, explained in the Harvard Gazette, a wandering mind is not a happy mind, I know what some of you are thinking But the world will burn down if I don't check email every 30 seconds. No, it won't. And your work won't suffer. And your business won't lose clients. Harvard Business School's Leslie Perlow got a team at BCG a leading consulting firm to spend one workday a week with no access to email. They all thought the world would burn down. What happened? Here's Cal, To learn how to stop being lazy and get more done, click here., Okay, so deep work is important. But how do we fit it into our insane schedules?, , We use our calendars all wrong. Meetings get scheduled. Phone calls get scheduled. Doctor appointments get scheduled. You know what often doesn't get scheduled? Real work. All those other things are distractions. Often, they're other people's work. But they get dedicated blocks of time and your real work is an orphan. If deep work is the stuff that really affects the bottom line, the stuff that gets you noticed, the thing that earns you raises and gets you singled out for promotion, well, let me utter blasphemy and suggest maybe it deserves a little dedicated time, too? Here's Cal, Don't schedule distractions and hope to fit in work where you can. Invert your schedule. Block out a few hours for real, deep work. Cluster your email and other administrative shallow work into "batches.", To learn what the most productive people do every day, click here., So you're making deep work a priority and giving it dedicated time. But interruptions happen and there are meetings you can't miss. How do you make sure the week doesn't become a blur where no real work gets done?, , As Peter Drucker once said, "What gets measured gets managed." Keep a running tally of hours of deep work. This is how Cal makes sure he's making real progress on things that matter. Here's Cal, Believe it or not, this was one of Jerry Seinfeld's secrets to becoming a great comedian. He recorded progress visually on a calendar. If it worked for him, it can work for you. To learn the schedule very successful people follow every day, click here., , I know what some of you are thinking But people keep asking me to do stuff like to go to meetings or help them with projects!, Cal has a one-word solution to this problem, , And that word is, "Yes.", You have to limit your use of it if you want to get things done. I know it can be hard but something has to give. You need to prioritize deep work and you need to prioritize your work. Here's Cal, Still skeptical about telling people "no"? Don't trust me. Don't trust Cal. Trust a billionaire. Warren Buffett once said, To learn the 6 things the most organized people do every day, click here., So you're setting aside time for deep work, you're keeping a tally and saying "no." You're way ahead of the game. But how do you actually get started once you're ready to roll your sleeves up?, , Rituals are powerful. Getting focused can take time. You can make things easier and train your brain to get ready for some fierce concentration by having a personal ritual that helps you shift gears. Here's Cal, Research shows rituals like these can help you be better at your work and even help you overcome procrastination. For more on how rituals can improve your life, click here., I'm sure there are still some naysayers out there. And I know what they're saying The only thing these tips are definitely going to do is get me fired. Here's why you're wrong, , Yes, if you stop going to a bunch of meetings and stop replying to email quickly and then use the time you gain to better curate your Pinterest page, yes, you're going to get fired. But if you use that time for deep work, stuff that really moves the needle, and can show that to your boss, you may very well end up as their favorite employee. It's a vicious circle everyone is busy with meetings and emails so little real work gets done. So the measure of productivity becomes email and meetings. When you break the cycle and deliver real results, those false metrics aren't as important. But you want to be sure, right? Okay, so talk to your boss. Get an idea of how much time they really do want you spending on meetings and email and how much "deep work" they'd really like you to be doing. Here's Cal, Join over 225,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts, How To Get People To Like You 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert, New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy, New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful