Has anyone ever told you to have a chock-full morning routine in order to "face the day" and maximize your productivity?
We all have. But it can't be effective for everybody. People work differently and certainly feel differently in the morning.
Some people exercise and make a breakfast and read the newspaper (or the news on their iPad) and french press their coffee all before heading to work, while many others get out of bed and walk out the door and find productivity at other times of day.
Aytekin Tank, founder of JotForm, discusses how you can map out your energy levels throughout the day in order to determine when you are most productive.
Structure
Once you know your patterns, you can begin to schedule your day around that. Tank explains that those in the design and coding industries, for example, plan out their work days very differently than those in finance, teaching, or management.
The types of meetings they schedule are as different as the specific work that they focus on for hours on end in a flow state.
What type of productive time frames does your specific job demand?
What time of day is best to schedule those time frames for you?
Discipline
Once you begin to create a schedule of when you are most productive, you must make it a habit.
Many online calendars have features that allow you to schedule something that day and way every week automatically so that it is out of your hands and allows coworkers to see that you are not to be disturbed during that time period.
Furthermore, decide how your work schedule affects the rest of the day. Knowing when you like to exercise will dictate when you start your workday. Committing yourself to unplugging and relaxing your mind on the weekends will dictate the way you commit to your productive time frames during the workday.
As has been mentioned in a previous post, the new modern structure of offices and work schedules has offered flexibility to employees to employ their personal health habits however is most effective for them and in the most productive times of day.
Start with your own personal map:
- What time of day do you like to exercise?
- What time of day do you feel the most productive?
- What kind of work do you feel the most productive working on?
- What time of day do you wish to make sure you leave the office?
