“Where do you find the time to do so much?”

That’s the question I get the most, almost every day, from those who follow my Blog.

And indeed, I also do a lot of things.

To do all this, I organize my time scientifically and optimize my work based on the following 1 mindset, 3 rules and 6 methods.

THINKING

When you search online with the keywords “time management” or “working effectively”, most of the articles/videos only focus on steps to do a lot, cram a lot of work into one day. However, this is almost impossible because a person’s time in a day is limited, just working 4-8 hours of concentration is tiring. If we cram so many things into one day and try to do them all, continuously for many days, sooner or later we will be exhausted, leading to serious physical and mental problems.

Therefore, for me, above all methods, rules, and time management thinking, working smart is most important. And my thinking is always: Minimalism.

Instead of looking at an overwhelmingly long to-do list and thinking you have to do everything at once, have a mindset of choosing and prioritizing. Focus on the really important things that need to be done right away, and leave out or leave for later the redundant, less important things.

This change in thinking sounds small but has great significance.

All of the following rules and methods revolve around minimalist thinking.

RULE

1. THE 80/20 RULE (PARETO PRINCIPLE)

This rule is based on the research of an Italian economist named Pareto and then expanded to many fields such as production, business, time management… Basically, the 80/20 rule for that: 80% of output (outputs/achievements/consequences) is created by 20% of input (inputs/contributions/actions)

So, applied to time management, if you think that 80% of your work results are created by 20% of your productive time, you can track when that 20% of your time falls. which part of the day, in what situation, in what cycle… From there, you can reimagine and expand these 20% of the most effective times to further improve your labor results.

Personally, I often use the 80/20 rule to make decisions about which tasks to prioritize. When planning for the next day/week/month, I often look at the list of tasks that need to be done and ask myself: “Which 20% of these tasks will give me 80% of the results?”. Answering this question will help me prioritize and focus on the most important tasks (which often yield the most results) and gradually reduce secondary tasks that do not bring many results.

2. THE FOUR BURNERS THEORY

Imagine that your life is like a stove with four burners. Each furnace symbolizes an aspect of life: The first furnace is family, the second furnace is friends, the third furnace is health, the fourth furnace is work. The Four Furnace Theory states: “To be successful, you must turn off one of the four furnaces. And for excellent success, you must turn off two of the four furnaces.”

This means that the so-called “life balance” is never perfect, it is difficult for you to take care of your family, have time with friends, and take care of your health. personal, while being able to focus on work. But if you can do everything at the same time like that, the quality of each thing will hardly be good because you will be distracted and spread out too much.

So, instead of thinking you have to divide your attention equally into all aspects, you can think about work-life in terms of stages or times of day. For example, at this stage when we have to take care of our family, we accept that the furnace of work and friends will be left behind; After my family is less busy, I will return to make up for it with work and friends. Or like in a day, when I go to work, I will turn on the work furnace to burn brightest, when I come home, I will turn off the work furnace and turn on the furnace of family, health, friends…

3. PARKINSON’S LAW

Parkinson’s Law states that the longer you spend on a task, the more that task will expand to cover that time.

For example, if the school assigns homework for a period of 1 month, you won’t be able to complete it for the entire month; But the night before submission, you suddenly feel very productive and finish the assignment in just a few hours. Or if your boss assigns you this job, you think it’s simple, just do it tomorrow and you’ll be done. But your boss says to extend it until next week, so you keep procrastinating, or add this or that to the work, making it more cumbersome, more complicated, and in the end you get closer to the deadline to complete it.

So when it comes to working effectively, you need to create time pressure for yourself, never ask for an extension, except in force majeure cases. Especially for tasks that do not have deadlines for you, you must also create your own deadlines to overcome Parkinson’s law and complete the work as quickly as possible.

METHOD

To apply these 3 golden rules in practice, here are 6 methods you can do today to manage your time better:

1. THE EISENHOWER MATRIX

One of the best ways to prioritize your to-do list is to divide it according to the Eisenhower matrix.

This Matrix is a model that includes 4 criteria: Urgent, Less Urgent, Important, Less Important.

1. Urgent and important (tasks that need to be done immediately).
2. Important but not urgent (tasks should be planned for later).
3. Urgent but not important (task should be delegated to someone else)
4. Neither urgent nor important (tasks must be eliminated or done when there is free time or rest).

Instead of having a long to-do list, arranging tasks according to this matrix will help you make decisions about what needs to be done faster and better.

2. MOST IMPORTANT TASKS

This method emphasizes the importance of focusing on only one to three most important tasks of the day.

This should typically fall under the Urgent & Important category of the Eisenhower Matrix above. You should do these things first in the day and if you do them, you will feel like the day was successful.

This way helps you organize your time in a more realistic, more oriented way, reducing pressure on yourself during the day.

3. POMODORO METHOD

For best concentration while working, you should use the Pomodoro method (tomato in Italian).

This is a method of working according to the cycle of working 25 minutes, resting 5 minutes and repeating working 25 minutes, resting 5 minutes.

This method creates time pressure, makes you more focused, and more clearly quantifies the level of effectiveness in your work - in other words, defeats Parkinson’s law. At the same time, it also gives you time to rest so you are not too tired and regain your strength to work longer.

4. THE 2-MINUTE RULE

The 2-minute rule is mentioned by author David Allen in the famous book about effective work called Getting Things Done.

This rule is simple: Anything that you feel you can do in 2 minutes or less should be done immediately, without delay.

When you encounter something, instead of wondering: “Should I do it right away?”, you often think: “Does this take less than 2 minutes?” If it’s under 2 minutes, do it right away, otherwise put it on your list to do later.

5. BATCHING

Batching is a method I learned from the book “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Farris. A very good book!

Batching means that if you do anything that you can do later, if it’s not important or don’t need a rush, then you do it in groups.

For example, with emails, I usually set aside about 1-2 hours a day just to answer emails, rather than spreading them out all day or seeing a new email arriving and having to stop all work to respond immediately. except for urgent emails.

Similar to making YouTube or podcasting, because each recording or recording requires a lot of equipment, I usually try to arrange to “batch” 2-3 videos/podcast episodes at a time.

This method is very good because it saves time, puts you in a focused work flow, so it’s very effective and quick.

6. BE PRESENT

That is the mindset that when doing anything, focus wholeheartedly on the present.

For me:

Life balance is not 50% work - 50% life but living 100% in the moment.