Create Blocks of Time

YOU REQUIRE UNBROKEN blocks of time for maximum accomplishment. The more important your work is, the more important it becomes for you to establish blocks of time to work on serious projects. You need a minimum of sixty to ninety minutes to accomplish anything worthwhile. It takes about thirty minutes just to get your mind into a complex task, like preparing a proposal, report, or even planning an impor- tant project. Once you are into the task, you can then con- centrate single-mindedly, at a high level of awareness and creativity for the next sixty minutes or more of serious, focused work.

Don’t Mix Creative and Administrative

You cannot mix creative tasks with functional or administra- tive tasks. You cannot really do operational tasks and creative tasks simultaneously. They require fast or slow thinking, but not both. Office activities require fast, short-term thinking. Creative tasks require thought, planning, and application. Think of creative time as your “internal prime time” and operational time as your “external prime time.” And don’t mix them up. You cannot do big creative jobs requiring focus and concentration in a typical office environment unless you put up a DO NOT DISTURB sign on that door. Otherwise, you must be creative in finding ways to get away from your work environment so that you can complete the tasks that your career really depends on.

How to Create Chunks of Time

Here are several recommendations for creating blocks of time, any one of which can dramatically improve your effec- tiveness and efficiency. First, work in the morning when you are the freshest and most alert. Many of the most productive people in business discipline themselves to go to bed early and then arise at 5:00 or 6:00 A.M. so that they can work for sixty to ninety minutes uninterrupted before they go into the office. Even if you get into the office a bit late, in those ninety minutes of uninterrupted work, you will accomplish as much as the average person does in an office environment in three hours.

Another time that you can use to your advantage is lunchtime. This is a great opportunity for you to shut off your phone, turn off your Internet connection, and remove other distractions while everyone else is out of the office having lunch. You’ll have sixty straight minutes of peace and quiet where you can work single-mindedly to clear up some of your most important tasks.

Do Not Disturb

Another strategy you can use is to close your office door for certain periods each day during which you work single- mindedly on your biggest tasks. Many executives will get a DO NOT DISTURB sign from a hotel and hang it on their door handle at work. Everyone knows that while this sign is on the door, no one is allowed to interrupt them except in the case of a real emergency. My controller, a talented and skilled woman, complained to me that she was overwhelmed with nonstop interruptions from different people. As a result, she was unable to get her detailed accounting work done and send out her financial statements and reports on schedule. After I recommended that she put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on her door and work nonstop for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon without interruptions, it transformed her work life. She told me afterward that, within a few days, she was totally caught up. Even more, none of those interruptions turned out to be so important that they couldn’t wait for a later time.

Gain Extra Hours

Here is yet another great technique that virtually all execu- tives on the fast track use. It is so simple that it should be ille- gal. Get up a little earlier and arrive at your office one hour before everyone else. Use that hour to organize your day and to get started before there are any possible interruptions. Then work through lunch and gain one more hour of pro- ductivity. Finally, stay one hour later, after everyone else has gone home, and use that time to wrap up your day and com- plete your most important tasks.

This is an amazing technique! By adjusting your day in this way, you beat the traffic on your way to work and you beat the traffic on the way home. In between, you add three productive hours to each working day. You accomplish two, three, or even five times as much as the average person who works regular hours. With this strategy, you can double your output and transform your career. Remember, you are a potential genius. One of the areas where you can demonstrate your creativity is in creating blocks of time when you can get more done and start moving ahead faster in your career.