preface
I didn’t expect that I had already insisted on reading chapter 4. I have read the book for nearly a month, and I have read more than half of it. Harvest is quite much, oneself face a lot of difficulties, the original author also faced. Thank you for your valuable experience. Of course, we should continue to practice. If we don’t practice, we will soon forget. This article is about how to improve their production efficiency, but also full of dry goods, I hope you can gain.
The other chapters are wonderful, if you’re interested. Of course, if you can, I hope you can give me a like or follow, every week I will strive to share helpful career dry goods.
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 1
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code ii
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 3 (Self-Study)
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 4 (Productivity)
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 5 (Finances)
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 6 (Fitness)
Soft Skills – Survival Guide Beyond Code 7 (Spirit)
Everything begins with focus
How do you get more done faster, and it all starts with focus
Focus is important because it allows us to tackle tasks without having to repeat the basics over and over again. Our mindset is that we take some time to go through the task in our head before we can reach a mental peak to complete the task. You can think of it like a car on a highway. We need to change gears before we go, and if you’re constantly starting and stopping, we’re not going to be very fast overall.
36.1 How to be more focused
To get into focus mode, you have to overcome the pain of focusing your mind on a single task. Unless you thoroughly enjoy completing the task, the pain will be intense at first. But that’s the point. You must realize that the pain and discomfort is only temporary and will not last long
Concentration may be forced at first, but as momentum builds, it will help you get into the state of concentration. If your goal is to get through five minutes, if you have enough momentum for five minutes, then you might focus for 10 minutes or half an hour.
Productivity plans
The idea behind productivity planning is to divide up a week’s worth of tasks into tasks that take no more than two hours.
Quarterly plan
Break your year’s tasks into four quarters, and when you do your quarterly tasks, list each big task that needs to be done in the current quarter. I also need to set small goals. I think about what I need to accomplish on a daily basis or a weekly basis.
Monthly plan
Determine how much work needs to be done in the month based on the number of days in the month and the tasks completed in the previous month
Week plan
Every Monday, I make a weekly plan and list the tasks I need to accomplish for the week.
Daily planning and execution
Prioritize your tasks for each day and make sure you get the most important ones done first.
Fight distractions
With an effort, you can eliminate most distractions. You can focus your time on trivial tasks. For example, check email and messages for more than 10 minutes after working for a period of time.
Rest and Leave
Working like a machine every day isn’t sustainable, so make sure you have some downtime. Take a day off every once in a while, and schedule a two-week or month-long vacation every few months. Rest is a must.
Personal assessment: I quite agree with the author that rest is necessary. Working all the time will make you less and less productive, seriously affect your mood, and lose the meaning of life. At least the monthly plan and weekly plan mentioned by the author, I think we can try, but most of the time we can’t do it, because our work is arranged, not asked for.
The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro idea: You plan out the tasks you need to accomplish for the day, and then set a 25-minute timer to complete each of them. Make sure that for those 25 minutes, you only focus on one task. After 25 minutes, you need to rest for 5 minutes. Take a 15-minute break every four 25-minute breaks you need.
The Pomodoro technique only has its true power when used as a tool for estimating and evaluating work. By tracking how many tomatos you’ve completed in a day and setting a goal for how many tomatos you need to complete in a day, you instantly have the ability to really evaluate how hard you’re working each day and how well you’re working
Using the Pomodoro technique, you can think of each week as being made up of a finite number of tomato clocks. Want to accomplish a certain number of tasks per week? Figure out how many tomato hours you can work in a week and prioritize your tasks accordingly. By counting the number of tomatos you’ve completed, you can know exactly how many tasks you’ve accomplished during the week, so you don’t feel like you’re not getting enough done.
38.1 Mind games
We often feel like we’re wasting time when we could be doing more.
When you set yourself a goal of x tomatos per day (which is completely within your control) and reach it, you’ll know how much work you can accomplish in a day, which will make you feel good and, more importantly, relax
38.2 How much work you can accomplish
You might calculate that if you work an average of eight hours a workday, a tomato clock is 30 minutes, so theoretically you should be able to complete 16 tomato clocks during your working hours. But in practice, even completing 16 tomato-clocks in less than 12 hours is extremely demanding.
The authors recommend 10 tomato clocks a day. Ten tomato clocks is a lot of work.
Personal assessment: I personally don’t like the Pomodoro technique because I have a long attention span and can do it for 1-2 hours at a time without getting tired. If you set the Pomodoro technique, you’re going to get interrupted a lot. And the real job is not very suitable. If you don’t have 25 minutes to paddle for 5 minutes, the boss will talk to you. Another point that interests me a lot is that the author often finds in long-term practice that setting 10 tomato hours a day is already a lot of work. Ten tomato minutes is 250 minutes of work, and the effective working time is actually a little more than 4 hours. It means there’s only so many hours a person can work hard in a day. I used to expect myself to work hard for 8 hours a day, often agonizing over what I couldn’t do, which seemed a bit high. Paddling at work seems to be quite necessary. Of course, it could be that foreigners are too happy
Fixed work method
The only way to ensure sustained progress towards your goals is to set clear goals for how much progress you need to make within a predetermined time frame.
39.1 How the fixed work law works
Pick a few repetitive tasks and set a quota on how often you will do them in a given period of time. This can be monthly, weekly, or daily, but you must have a clear time frame for how much work must be done during that time
Commitment is the core of quota work law
The rules of the fixed work law
- Pick a repetitive task
- Define an effective time period during which tasks are repeated
- Make it clear that there is a quota for the completion of the task within a given time
- Make a commitment to meet your quota
- Adjust, raise or lower the quota, but not within the effective time
Personal assessment: The method of quota work is actually the same as the Pomodoro method, set a task in the specified time, and then complete the task.
40. Take responsibility for yourself
Internal motivation is much more effective than external motivation. When we work with internal motivation, we get more done and are more inclined to do better. So, the secret is to make your primary motivation internal rather than external
Self-control is the art of self-motivation, and at the heart of self-motivation is self-responsibility
To develop a sense of responsibility for yourself, start by getting your life in order. (Habit is very important ah, said many are tears)
External accountability is also a good tool when we don’t have a lot of control over ourselves. Find a partner to monitor yourself. Preferably someone with a similar goal. You can also be open about your daily activities, such as Posting a weekly blog on the Internet to be monitored by netizens.
41 Multitasking
Most research on multitasking seems to show that while many people who multitask think they are more productive, in fact multitasking almost always leads to lower productivity.
The root cause of multitasking inefficiency seems to be our inability to truly practice multitasking. (Too much, we’re not computers, we only have one brain, it’s hard to multitask.)
But some tasks can be multi-tasking, and we can combine a mindless task with a task that requires some degree of mental concentration. That’s how you multitask. Like writing code while listening to music.
Personal assessment: I personally hate multitasking. Firstly, it is distracting, and secondly, I always forget. I can’t do anything well
42 Job burnout
Burnout is normal, and we tend to get excited about new things that come along. But then, because we take them for granted, we either take them for granted or we get bored with them.
Burnout is entirely natural and not a serious problem. In fact, most of us eventually hit a wall no matter how hard we try — when our initial interests and motivation fade, we don’t achieve enough to convince ourselves to get them back.
When faced with burnout, we can imagine what the other side of the wall looks like when we succeed. Overcoming burnout will be easy, and your motivation and interest will return.
Personal assessment: There is also an underlying question of whether something is worth doing. I had learned to play guitar before, but after a while, I realized I wasn’t cut out for it and gave it up rather than stick it out. I think it’s a wise decision
How is time wasted
It is impossible to make full use of every day. If I can understand where I’m wasting my time and eliminate one or two major time wasters, I’ll be in great shape.
43.1 Time killers
The biggest time killer is television. The biggest problem with watching TV. There is no real benefit from the time spent watching TV. And everything from your spending habits to your worldview is directly affected by television. The more TV you watch, the more you give up control over your thoughts and actions
In a 24-hour day, we have at least six hours left to do other things besides work and study, instead of wasting time watching TV and reading the news. We can do one thing in our spare time as well as work.
Social media is another time killer
Some common time killers
- Watching TV
- Social media
- News website
- Unnecessary meetings
- cooking
- Play video games
- Drink coffee during work hours
Personal assessment: I feel the author is a bit extreme in this regard. There is no real benefit to watching TV, but it is very enjoyable. Is life all work and no play?
44 Habits are important
The real secret to productivity is doing the little things consistently over the long term.
A good routine starts with a big goal. What are you trying to achieve? Often you can only focus on one big goal at a time, so choose the goal that is most important to you right now
I suggest you spend the first hour or two of your day working on your most important goal. You may need to wake up an hour or two earlier, but by effectively using the first hour or two each day,
Is it highly recommended that you schedule your work day so that you know what to do each day and week
Make it a habit: Refresh code
Recommend the Power of Habit
Habits are made up of three main elements: cues, routines and rewards. A hint is something that causes a habit to be triggered. A routine is what you do, the essence of a habit. The reward is the anchor that makes the habit stick. This is the good feeling you get from the habit of performing.
45.1 the bad habits
The best way to identify bad habits is to try to identify things or routines in your daily life that you feel guilty about.
Try to find out what triggers the habit, what you do for it, and what rewards motivate you to do it.
Try to find out if there are other conventions that can replace the one currently being performed for a habit
Personal assessment: Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw this. Six taste rehmanniae pills walk.
46 Breaking down tasks
One of the number one reasons for procrastination, and the bane of low productivity, is the nagging question: How busy you are, how big your problems are.
These big tasks or projects take a toll on us psychologically and reduce our productivity because we can’t see clearly what the future holds
The key to overcoming procrastination and increasing productivity is to break down tasks
It turns out that most tasks can be broken down into smaller ones (which is why there are so many chapters, and so many repetitions).
46.1 Break down tasks
You first need to identify the steps required to complete the task. If I’m given a big task, the first thing I do is find out if I can break it down into a series of smaller tasks
If you’re having trouble breaking big tasks into smaller ones, it’s probably due to a lack of information. Make sure you have a clear goal for each task. Trying to identify these goals will often uncover important information that was previously missed using other methods.
The value of hard work
There is no escaping the fact that hard work is essential to success — and I think it was in finally accepting this that my career, and my life, took a huge turn.
Everything of value is the result of hard work. Looking for shortcuts, most of the time there are no shortcuts.
47.1 Work is hard
I’ve never met anyone who really enjoys hard work. Many of us will say that we enjoy hard work, but most of us only enjoy the moment when we have just started or are about to finish. Almost no one wants to do the hard work
The hard work is most likely to be the work from which we gain a lot.
You may work 60 to 70 hours a week for several years in your career. To get ahead, you may have to give up watching TV or hanging out with friends for years. You can’t cheat the system. What you get is what you give. As you sow, so shall you reap. No seed, no harvest.
47.2 How to work hard
Every time we try to improve ourselves, we encounter resistance that tries to keep us in the same place. If you are desperate to get the project, you have to learn how to beat this resistance.
You have to realize that work has to get done eventually, so you might as well do it now rather than later. You have to realize that the only way you will achieve your goals and reach your full potential is if you voluntarily bite the bullet, bite the bullet and get to work.
Personal assessment: I think the author’s chapter is very good. There really is no shortcut to success. Of course some people work hard and some people don’t work so hard. If you’re not the one born with a silver spoon in your mouth, then you really have to work hard. Don’t try to cut corners because you’ll just end up wasting your time.
Any action is better than no action.
Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unpleasant situation for a long time. If it was a mistake, at least you learned something. That way, it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stagnant, you are not learning anything.
A big reason we don’t take action is that we fear. We are always afraid of going the wrong way. And when we do that, we think about what’s the worst that can happen to us. This will help you overcome your fears.
Instead of finding a 90-point solution, we often try to spend 300% of our effort finding a 95-point solution.
Doing nothing is like turning the steering wheel in a parked car. Did you turn the wheel of a parked car? It’s not easy. But it’s much easier to turn the wheel when the car is moving.
When you’re not at all sure what to do, the best course of action is to do something and then change direction along the way
Personal evaluation: This chapter is also very well said by the author. I used to be a struggling person, and then I forced myself to make decisions. You learn that there are no dire consequences for making bad decisions. And the time wasted by making the wrong decision is much smaller than the time wasted by indecision.
// Productivity efficiency habit focus on the Pomodoro technique