Links to other parts of the miniseries:
Be Awesomely Effective Part 1: Embodied cognition
Be Awesomely Effective Part 3: Mental Energy
Be Awesomely Effective Part 4: Stop fighting distractions
Be Awesomely Effective Part 5: Mind-body connection
Be Awesomely Effective Part 6: Workspace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be Awesomely Effective Part 2: Decision points
— From Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done by Josh Davis, Ph.D.
In yesterday’s Part 1 we left off with Josh Davis, Ph.D., the author, saying that the key to being truly productive is to “ditch efficiency and create, instead, the conditions for two awesome hours of effectiveness each day.”
However, it’s important to note that there’s nothing special about two hours. Davis recommends it because it’s “both attainable and sufficient for getting to enough of what matters each day,” but the specific number of hours of peak mental functioning is not critical. You can suit the time to the needs of your day, say, four hours or ten minutes.
Davis is not suggesting either that you set aside the same 2 hours each day (for example, from 9-11 am), because you can’t always control when things need to get done. And while you won’t be able to finish all our work in two hours, “when you are mentally effective, you can accomplish whatever matters most to you at that moment, with pride in your work and inspiration to do more.”
Further, “the rest of your day you can devote to those tasks that don’t require much strategic or creative thinking,” such as sifting email, filling forms, managing schedules, paying bills, planning travel, and returning phone calls. Since you’ll be thinking more effectively, you can determine which of those tasks you can let go, delegate, outsource, etc.
Having explained all this, it is now time to move on to the first simple strategy to master your productivity.
Decision Points
Our habits and our unconscious competence get us through most tasks on autopilot. That’s actually a very good thing, as we don’t have to remember how to hold our toothbrush, how to tie our shoelaces or how to step on the brake when we’re driving. Davis says, “Our habits are mental energy savers.” However, that also means that when we are working on many tasks, it’s hard to snap out of autopilot because we’re operating under neural routines. That’s why we intend to check email for 15 minutes and, 2 hours later, we are still doing it.
Introducing our new friends, the decision points. Davis explains, “The first strategy is to learn to recognize the few moments during each day when you have the opportunity and ability to choose how to spend your time. Decision points are the moments “when routine ends (e.g. when you finish flossing your teeth or reading the report) or is interrupted by someone or something (e.g. when a colleague interrupts)… [and] self-awareness ramps up. […] It is in that moment that you get to decide how your next chunk of time will be best used.” Being intentional is the key as you choose your next task.
For the most part, we don’t give any thought to our decision points, and we rush through them to get back to tasks that feel productive. But, Davis continues, “Hurrying through one decision point… might save five minutes. Starting on the wrong task may cost an hour.”
What to do?
The Thinker. Sculpture by August Rodin
Savor each decision point. They don’t come too often, so it’s important to recognize them when they happen and seize them. “Decision points can give you [psychological] ‘distance,’ [and this] leads to high-level thinking.” That way, minor, immediate concerns will be seen in the appropriate light and we can examine the big picture instead.
Plan your decision points in advance. Since we can’t avoid interruptions and distractions, we should plan ahead how we will respond to them. This is called an implementation intention: “a plan to implement certain action if a relevant cue arises.” This is an if-then approach to take. So next time your colleague pops in with “just a quick question,” make sure you have plans to know what comes next. But beware: “[it] does not work to ‘plan’ to use willpower in the moment and fight an urge… [and ] planning not to do something tends to fail.” Plan to take action, even if that action is mentally recognizing that you have reached a decision point.
Don’t start a new task without consciously deciding it’s the right one. As soon as you finish a task, “label this moment as a decision point.” Davis literally says to himself, “This is a decision point,” and that’s enough of a trigger to make him pause and think about his next move. You can mentally acknowledge the moment as well, or do something physical too: stand up, stretch, walk around, drink water, etc. The important thing here is that you know that you will be intentionally deciding what action to take next.
As you see, it’s easy to get lost in the trance of work if we don’t pay attention. By recognizing our decision points throughout the day, we can make sure that we are focusing our time on effectiveness and productivity. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s strategy to be awesomely effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Make a conscious effort to notice your decision points throughout the day. When you run into one of them, consciously and intentionally decide what to do next, even if it means going back to the task you were doing because that is where your time is best spent now (and you need to finish it).
FUTURE: Train your brain to recognize your decision points throughout the day. Plan ahead how you will respond when you encounter a decision point, and seize it by consciously and intentionally determining which task you will tackle next.
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