Productivity Hacks with Laura Stack
Whether you realize it or not, you can make drastic improvements to your productivity by increasing your organizational systems and decreasing your time prone to distractions. Our guest, Laura Stack, speaks from her personal experience of her upbringing in a military household as well as the experiences of her consulting clients over the years. This episode is sure to open your eyes to the destructive practices you have and provide you with practical solutions to increase your ROI.
Our guest on this episode of Start with a Win is The Productivity Pro, Laura Stack. Laura’s father was a Colonel in the US military, so she grew up in a very regimented and structured environment, and since her friends were all living in similar households, there was actually peer pressure to be productive so then you could go have fun. By the age of 21, Laura had earned her MBA. Her local Kiwanis club asked her to speak about her motivation to complete her degree so young, and it sparked in her a desire to share with others who had not had productivity engrained in them from birth how they could jumpstart their productivity.
During her years as a consultant and speaker to businesses and entrepreneurs, she has found some common themes about the way people have organized (or not organized) their lives and barriers to productivity. When it comes to distraction, many people know exactly what they need to be doing, but they are looking for any excuse to be distracted. Sometimes they are being lazy, but sometimes distraction creeps in because of the lack of systems and organization to keep them on task. It is a proven fact that it takes 7 minutes for people to gain back their attention after being distracted, and the average person gets one email every 4 minutes, so if you do not have a structure telling you not to check your email every time you hear the ding, you will go through entire days and weeks without being truly productive.
Time blocking is an excellent way to combat this and is very easy to do through an Outlook or Google calendar. Then it will just require the discipline to stick with the times and tasks you have set out for yourself. Perhaps you can’t block every moment of every day for specific things, but at least you can block off 1-2 hours every day that is dedicated to working with no interruptions. You will be amazed what you can accomplish if you are not receiving alerts of any kind.
Finally, being productive today means preparing for today yesterday. At the end of every work day, take a look at what you didn’t get done. Transfer those tasks to the relevant to-do list – by taking an honest look at your priorities as well as the “soft” time you have in your schedule coming up, you can properly schedule when tasks can be completed. Honestly evaluate which tasks provide you with the highest ROI of your time and do them – even if you don’t want to.
Laura relies heavily on Microsoft Outlook Tasks to keep her organized. This is also a reliable method for maintaining a record of what needs follow up. For more information about Laura’s tips and strategies for productivity, check out the content on her website.
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