(reading time: 4 minutes)    [en ESpañol]

Almost a month ago my twins were born, so it is no coincidence a new post has taken almost that long to arrive since the last one. You may know how this is, lots of visitors wanting to meet the new babies, a young daughter demanding the care and attention she had before “dis babies” that “don’t leave” -in her words- arrived, and of course the never ending work responsibilities. With the family extension the little time gained by waking up at 5:30 am to exercise is just not there anymore, and if there is such a thing as free time, I want to replaced it by –the now luxury of- sleeping. Clearly blogging is far under in the list of priorities -around the 2985 place-, the hard truth is that there is not enough time to do most of the first items of that list that is driven primarily by real survival needs. Anyhow I really enjoyed writing the previous blog posts, so I secretly push upward the blogging on my list -to about the 98th place- in order to use some available time slots when my wife and daughter sleep at my turn for “the night with the kids” -basically the every-other-night I get to feed, burp and change the dippers of the twins the whole night-.

So here I am, at 2am, with about 2 hours –if I´m lucky- before one of the twins ask for milk or a dipper change- and I want to use the time to answer a question I got by mail from one of my friends:  “How are you going to blog with 2 babies, 1 small kid, a wife and a full time job?”.  The issue is not trivial, as blogging is basically my motivational hobby -low priority if compare with daily needs at home and work- so writing at late hours, when for some misterious reason I get the energy for it if the right idea triggers my mind, is the only hope for this blog in this sleepless times. To really make this possible I found I had to use the following productivity tactics:

• Once I have an issue or idea dancing in my head and wanting to get out to the public, I make a list of 2 to 6  aspects that need to be reflected in the article -don´t wait until later, do that bullet point list right there, in a napking if necessary- and I mark the most important ones –the ones that really should be there to give the reader (you) value with the piece-.
• I set a time limit for writing the article and its sub-parts. I have borrowed this simple technique from my project management work where I need to write long report that could take –literally- forever if a limit is not set. For this post I have defined a 2 hour limit:  40 minutes for the first draft, 40 for editing and final piece (may sound like a lot, but if not if you -like me- are not a good writer-, 20 minutes to get an image from my own photo folders and tweak it to make it work for the post, and finally 20 to stick the article and photo into the blog and publish it. I may not be able to keep this timing perfectly but setting the limit does place some constructive pressure on me, and help me avoid the typical procrastinating activities like surfing the net or whatever other activity I could easily find to ‘get busy’ without doing anything really productive.
• Then I start the process and put an effort to focus on it. But with babies you can’t have strict plans, so I am prepare for the distractions I´ll get and I am ready to retake the task wherever I left it when they get back to sleep.

That’s it, clear and simple, but it shows that planning does have a big impact if you act after it (if it didn’t, this post would not be here). I have to stop now as my 40 minutes of editing the draft are over and one ofmy twins is starting to cry out for the milk bottle and a dipper change, anyone wants to give a hand?. Its mazing how fast time goes and how much text I had to edit out from the first 40 minutes draft to make this post clear and straight to the point. Thank you for reading, see you on the next post.

(reading time: 3 minutes)

The essential to-do list is a different one than the long list you use to add whatever task arrives at your work domains  (usually created on Outlook, RTM or some other tool). I have been using it since I started testing the 80-20 Paretto principle on different dimensions of my life. It has helped me to get things done,  specially for the ones I had an aversion to engage with (eg. long project reports). To understand what is it about and how to exploit its benefits, read this illustrative steps:

• List the 5 most important tasks you could do on the next day of work.
• Priorize them from 1 to 5. The first ones are the most difficult to do and usually take a long time.
• Be as specific as you can: “Work on the report” is not specific if you expect a 200 hundred page document. “Finish section 1.2, and 5.7 of the Z Report” is specific enough and gives you a clear objective to reach on that day.
• Do the essential list just before your working day ends (until it becomes a habit, use some sort of reminder). Doing it later on the day gets your priorities for the day fresher on your mind, then when you go to sleep your subconscious will keep making associations to help you create new ideas and guide you towards solutions.
• Chose 1 or the 2 most important items of your list of 5 and assign them the necessary time slots to do them on the next day (having 1 or 2 really critical or difficult tasks should be enough and usually there is no time for more). If the tasks you have selected as the most critical can be done quickly or easily, then think again as you may have missed that one you just don´t want to get on with.
• The next day, when you arrive at your work place, do not read your email -unless is absolutely necessary for the 1st and most important task on your essencial list-. Get on working with the 1st essential asap. Be patient, don’t allow drifting to surf something on the net or check if that old mate you found on facebook accepted your friend invitation. After a 2 hours of work, take a break for 15 to 30 minutes -walk and take some fresh air, or check your FB if can’t wait anymore. You can use eggtimer to countdown your time if you are at your desk.
• Get on with the non-essencials task just after your critical tasks. In a few days you´ll find that many non-critical task are just despensable.

You may need to change some habits at work (like telling your boss that focusing on the critical tasks allow you to be more productive and get the most valuable things done, or asking -nicely- to colleagues to not interrupt you if you look busy). If you manage to do the necessary changes to focus on the 1 or 2 essentials consistently, you will be saving most of the time that was previously wasted on things that did not give you the returns the critical tasks give you.

Thank you for reading. Remember to subscribe if you haven´t done it yet, and leave me comment (maybe you know some good references about how the subconscious help you -if at all- when we sleeping)