photo by dregsplod

I had a great question come up from the post I used in my newsletter last week:  Who Needs Sleep?  8 Things to Watch Out For.  The question was in reference to point #3 – Constantly fighting fires (living in Quadrant 1) and brought up an issue that I think almost everyone can relate to.  The stuff in Quadrant 1 is IMPORTANT and urgent, so you can’t blow it off without serious impacts, so when things are crazy, how can you find the time to work in Quadrant 2?

Jason did a better job than I did with the question – here’s the actual text:

“In the small business environment where there is only one employee, the owner, what practical ways can we focus on quadrant II and yet keep quadrant I from failing?  I’m sure it’s about balance, but that’s easier said than done.”

So if you’re spending all of your time herding cats and you don’t have  a lot of help, how do you make things better?

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  photo by h. koppdelany

I probably hear it 2 or 3 times a week from clients or other business owners…I can’t get everything done…I need more time in the day!  Unfortunately I don’t know of any way to actually create more time, but there are a lot of strategies for getting more things done.

The thing with productivity is that everyone is different, so what works for me, may not work for you – your best bet is to try different things and see if you can land on something that clicks for how you work.

With that in mind, here are two suggestions I ran across recently that may be helpful for you if you’re looking for some ways to be more productive.

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  photo by jeffhillphoto.com

Are you exhausted? 

How about just not energized or struggling to stay focused and ‘in the zone’?  Maybe you just feel sleepy a lot!

A lot of people these days are feeling stressed, nervous, anxious and generally not as effective or productive as they’d like to be – and that lack of productivity makes the whole thing worse, creating a real problem for a lot of people.

With that in mind – here are 3 articles full of tips from experts on how to be more effective, productive and less sleepy!

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Picture this – you’re in the middle of a 10 day vacation at a cabin in a beautiful resort area.  There’s no cell phone coverage, the weather is great and you haven’t even turned on the TV in days.  You are in a stress free state – nothing you have to do right now, nothing to think about, nothing to remember…you’re practically floating.

What if you could take that feeling into your day to day work filled world?  How much more productive would you be if you were truly focused only on the task at hand?  Not thinking about phone calls you need to make, errands you need to run, stuff that you have to get done…not only would you get more done, you’d feel really good about it as well!

The key to that feeling of relief that you get on vacation or when you’re mind is empty because you’re concentrating and ‘in the zone’ is getting all of the stuff out of your head!  You need to clear your mind.

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Are you the king of your jungle?  Master of your own domain (oh wait…that’s something completely different)! 

What I’m getting at is do you feel like you’re in full control of your time and what you do with it?  Are you productive?

If you’re like most people, that answer is a resounding NO!  You’re buried in emails, crushed by voicemails, swamped with action items and you hate to even think about the things that are buried somewhere on your desk.

What you really need is to get more done…be more productive…or is it?

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