Lifehacker: Your personal productivity may be dependent on your unique needs, personality, and circumstances, but there are still general “laws” governing time management and potential output that apply to pretty much everyone. Economists, philosophers, and scientists have spent a lot of their own time researching what practices make a person more productive. Here’s an overview of the rules all that research has given us.
3 comments:
Sometimes I think that reading these productivity organization articles will somehow make me more organized. I seriously have a procrastination problem and feel too overwhelmed to even begin a big project, digging myself into a deeper hole of work. I feel the Yerkes-Dodson Law is important to keep in mind. Stress is a big factor of procrastination for me, I need to be properly stressed to get the best work done. It has to be motivating, not killing. I recently read a News quiz article about Illich’s Law, the law that says you shouldn't have too much time for any project. It all goes back to time management and planning. Limiting yourself but also being able to push yourself and get stuff done. I think my work habits will be improved after taking a step back and looking at the track I am on. Using these laws I will probably be more successful.
This article could not have come at a better time as I am currently very overwhelmed with my workload. When getting advice from people on how to study or be successful in college, there seem to be one hundred different conflicting answers. It was interesting to me how this article essentially was an in-between of the two extremes, procrastination and over-ly aheadness. I think there are some good points to be made for getting motivation from a deadline as well as budgeting shorter amounts of time to work, as that is when one is most productive. However, I also think there is a point to be made for sitting down and really getting in the zone on an assignment to produce good, thoughtful work. I don't think there is one correct way to be productive, so I will take these suggestions with a grain of salt, but it was still nonetheless helpful on a day like today when I am so overwhelmed having a solid, scientifically proven plan is relieving.
As I have just entered my busy season with booth and production, optimizing my work time and productivity has been something I have focused on throughout the past couple of weeks. I have heard of 3 of these laws in the past, the only completely new law to me being Carlson's law. I do find it odd that Carilsons law and Illich's law can contradict each other. I think the answer to following both of these laws is to set aside a large chunk of time to work however split up what work you are doing in that time so you follow Illich's law and do not work too much on one thing hitting the point of diminishing returns. I found the 1-3-5 suggestion that was a part of the Yerkes-Dodson law interesting and plan to test out the method over spring break to see if it would be effective for me. Overall I agree that how you work is significantly more important than how long you work and I am excited to discover more ways to optimize workflow.
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