In the first part, I shared my thoughts about what the character of an effective person is. When everything is fine with the character, it's time to establish a mega—efficient process.
Give up the habit of remembering what you need to do. It's not difficult to keep three or five tasks in mind, but when there are 10-15 of them, the to-do list alone makes ordinary people depressed. There is a feeling that everyone is putting pressure on you, the world is unfair, and in general you want to go on vacation.
Don't memorize — write it down. Get a moleskin, download some program or register in Megaplan. Now write down any business — your own or accepted from others — only there. Free your head. Remember that you always have a to-do list that you will always turn to.
Make a rule to write down everything that is worth spending time on. Write down the case exactly when you promise to do it. Don't even take on short-term cases "for ten minutes" without an appointment. This is a kind of entry filter: if it's a pity to spend 20 seconds recording a case, don't do it at all. Don't waste your time on trifles.
In addition, it's always nice to put a tick next to the case and watch the list melt away.
Before each working day, decide what should be done today and what will be tolerated until tomorrow. Sort things out into "before lunch" and "after lunch".
Write down all new, terribly urgent and terribly important cases "under the line", after the scheduled tasks: process morning requests after lunch, afternoon requests the next morning. Let urgent requests lie down for at least a couple of hours — during this time, the cases will be clarified ten times and half will disappear.
If you feel that there are more things to do today than you physically have time to do, postpone the deadline, or better yet, refuse. There are very few cases that are really not tolerated until the next day.
It is convenient to plan things in Megaplan: there are deadlines for all tasks, there are personal files and checklists. It is easy to sort tasks by deadlines and understand what to do first. It's also easy to transfer things to others — there is a "Delegate" button and the ability to delegate.
As soon as you realize that now you want to do anything but work, try to find another useful activity. Press down ten times, look through the book, clean up the table, write a letter to mom (when was the last time you talked?). A good indicator that you are not drawn to work is that you are pointlessly scrolling the message feed on a social network. I found myself doing this — close the browser and do something useful.
If you work in Megaplan, you have an informer at the bottom right, which contains all your unassembled messages. Someone asked you a trivial question two days ago, there was no time for it, so it's time to answer. Someone opened a discussion on the general forum — unsubscribe now, while there is no mood to work. You see, back and forth, and inspiration will return.
If you have subordinates or assistants, make them fully responsible for their work, without your participation. Inform them that they are not working for you, and not for the company, but to show how cool they are themselves. When a person works for himself, he works best.
Stop controlling their every move. In the free time, do strategically important things. Sometimes, strong performers become very weak bosses. Don't be a weak boss.
Emails are the most disgusting thing you can think of in communication. If you have a Megaplan or any other collaboration system at work, don't even think about writing letters to colleagues. Letters devour your total time: but not now, but when you need to dig them up in a week under a pile of other letters. It's better just not to start.
In Megaplan, everything is fine with messaging: instead of letters, we have comments and personal messages. Full-text search instantly finds everything you need. Other guys have something similar, but we've done it right.
This was another Megaplan post, so it was not without advertising, it's true. But since Megaplan is initially free, and we paid for this post, it turns out some kind of reverse effect. However, this does not change the essence of the matter.
I would like to say that Megaplan will solve all your problems with efficiency. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Normal life and efficiency depend not on tools, but on what's in your head. Services like Megaplan help not to waste time and effort on stupid monotonous operations, such as planning, memorizing tasks, communicating with colleagues via mail and other office nonsense.
Megaplan is for people who already have character, willpower, discipline and order in their head. Such people already know how to manage their lives and work. Megaplan will be good for them. With him they will become great.
