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Being able to work smart without necessarily working hard for me is the real definition of being hyper-productive. In fact, to be hyper-productive, you need to leverage your strengths, while capitalising on the weakness of the situations around you to excel.
It’s almost certain, the satisfaction you achieve from hyper-productivity will be enormous.
Hyper-productivity is a “state of mind” and existence where you achieve the overarching ability to be focused and patient, no matter the situation or challenges you face when delivering on your plan, objectives or goals. Being hyper-productive requires of one a “think big but start small” mentality.
For those really interested in being hyper-productive, I recommend reading books;- The Compound Effect, Atomic Habits, The 4-Hour Workweek and Deep Focus to get a good idea of what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. For those in the project management & software development industry, also books;- Scrum, and Ask your Developer will come in handy.
atomic habits. Source: Atomic habits website.
Those books have been very instrumental towards my professional growth as well as personal development.
Now as much as I respect the 5 am club following and all the inspirational advice out there regarding being successful, I would caution treading carefully.
Personally, Along the way I’ve realised that I’m perfectly capable and actually more comfortable or should I say used to waking up between 3–4 am. I’ve been most productive when I wake up at 4:30 am, then stay in bed for 30mins to fully wake up, before I start my daily morning routine.
Therefore, it’s better to learn from the best and craft something that suits your lifestyle rather than changing your whole life to follow the advice of someone else word for word, action for action.
My lessons from the pursuit of mastering hyper-productivity.
Controlling one’s time is the single most important aspect of being hyper-productive. I was chanced to discover a video on the “hierarchy of productivity” by The Swedish Investor. After watching this video I got an idea of “what it means” and “how” to prioritise my time and activities. Most importantly it helped me understand how to separate my needs from wants. I’m confident this can work for you too.
To become truly hyper-productive, you need to focus on being productive and not being busy. For this, you will need to Plan, Do, Check, Act constantly. This helps you have a good idea of what to expect, what to improve, what to change and what to stop.
Simply being hyper-productive means learning by doing and mastering by teaching. The more you practise, the more learn what works and what doesn’t work for you. Over time you begin to deliberately quit anything that is not working, leaving room and time to focus on what works.
Hyper-productive people delegate and automate unimportant tasks and do the most important tasks first, preferably before noon. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should work on your important tasks in the morning when you are an evening or night person. The idea behind focusing on the most important tasks is to improve your income per hour and not as a total income. As it’s often said, “Time is money.”
To be hyper-productive, you really need to define time for work and time for relaxation. Ask yourself if, “what you are doing at the moment was the only thing you accomplished today, would you be satisfied and happy with yourself?!”
The ultimate mastery of hyper-productivity in my opinion is developing an “Action” habit. This to me is very key and important as you are able to focus on 20% of the work that brings 80% of the results.
As the saying goes; “ do what you can and is possible and whatever is impossible is improbable “. You need to be very precise and purposeful about your goals and how you intend to achieve those goals.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.