Are you somebody who have just so much passion in life that you wish that you have more than 24 hours a day? Life nowadays is much more faster and complicated. The world seems to be getting a lot smaller and more interconnected because of the explosion of technology and travel. So much opportunities abound and if you are a polymath like me who wants to learn a lot of things, explore a lot of places and wear a lot of hats at all times, I wish there are more hours each day!
But we are all limited to only 24 hours a day and the internet abounds with tips, tricks on how to get so much things done. There’s so much information available such that getting through all of the tips, tricks and life hacks seems to require us to use a special “hack” just to read it all!
The following are some tips on life hacks for polymaths on how to get more things done each day. These are just general tips and more may be added soon in future blog post.
1.) Manage your time well and make a short list for each project – List down all the things you want to do then categorize into projects. Then break down the things you want to accomplish per project. This is how to eat an elephant, piece by piece. The effect of this is that it will make your things to do on a per project basis, shorter, hence more “doable.” Then it would seem that the seemingly “fewer” things you try to accomplish, the more you’ll get done. Further the act of organizing and making a list will force you to prioritize so you can accomplish the most important tasks first.
2.) Focus on one project or one thing to do at a certain time – As polymaths, it is normal for us to run multiple projects at any given time, this is all right as we hate monotony and enjoy variety. However switching back and forth between two or more tasks in a certain time frame is inefficient. Learn to focus on one task until it’s complete before moving on to something else. Say you want to learn a language, read a book on finance and investing, write a blog post and write a computer program. The tendency for polymaths is to listen to several minutes of a language course, stand up and pick up the book on finance and investing, read 10 minutes, then try to write a blog post. You won’t be able to accomplish much doing that. Learn a language in 30 to 45 minutes, then read the book for the next 30 to 45 minutes then finish the blog post in the next 30 to 45 minutes and so on. Focusing on one project at a certain time will also promote efficiency as for example instead of writing a blogpost and posting it one at a time, why don’t you write several post and post it all at once and just schedule the time for it to be published in your blog ? That way you save time, logging in to our blog, tinkering with your blog and just surfing the net without any direction or purpose at all. If you lump posting, you focus on just writing and when you upload blogpost, you just focus on posting it in your blog.
3.) In most situations, confine your calling time to when you are driving or any other seemingly idle time – I normally do not answer most calls immediately except for a few people or institutions who I flag as an “answer immediately” or if somebody will text me and tell me that I really need to answer the phone. The reason for this is I do not want to be interrupted in the things that I am doing. When I am driving or I am taking public transport and I see the missed calls on my phone or that there are text messages asking me for a return call, that’s the time I make my calls. That way I focus on what I am doing and I get to utilize idle time while driving or riding in a public transport.
4.) Make short responses in your email and text message – No one will complain that your email or text message is too short or too long. What is important is that you responded to the people who tried to contact you. For emails, five to seven sentences would be enough.
5.) Sleep early – For a lot of people, staying up light and trying to get things done would not turn out to be very productive at all, as it is spent watching nice shows on T.V or doing something that isn’t related to your goals at all. Why don’t you go to bed early in order that you could get up early so you could get more things done.
6.) Be organized – Keep your table and or work area clean. Throw out junk and sort the rest of your paper work. Put important documents in an appropriate place. Avoid the frustration of trying to find an important paper and wasting so much time because you could not find it
7.) Get unplugged – The internet is both a boon and a bane when it comes to efficiency. Because of the deluge of information, polymaths seems to be fascinated by the information and starts to just click and click on related information until so much time has already been wasted. Just like the other day when I was searching for a good time management software. I found one but they seem not to have an edition that runs on a Mac. So I searched for ways to make it run on a mac. There are several options to do it from configuring your computer to doing multiple booting, emulators etc. and there seems to be several software available from free, mid-range and those with the most expensive prices. As information technology is one of my interest, I wasted time reading through this information, I even installed virtual box on my mac and downloaded a Linux and Windows ISO and to think that all I wanted in the first place was just a software for time management! Getting unplugged will mean no distractions on Facebook, no distractions to watch movie clips or surf for useless information With the distractions out of the way, it is sure that you will get things done. Why don’t you try it?
Apply these life hacks for polymaths to keep your life simple and to get more things done. You will see that you will end each day feeling more accomplished. Do you think you could add to the above list? Then drop your comments below and help me expand the list !
Hi ! my name is Zigfred Diaz. Thanks for visiting my personal blog ! Never miss a post from this blog. Subscribe to my full feeds for free. Click here to subscribe to zdiaz.com by Email
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