Our minds often work best when focused on one type of task, preferably something that we can do as a routine function and that requires no extra learning or difficult problem solving. Once we get into the swing of doing a particular kind of activity we tend to keep on doing that. When we interrupt our progress by switching from one thing to another we lose concentration and we take time to switch our minds from doing one task to another so our productivity tends to drop.

We can boost our productivity by actively organizing our activities to suit the way our minds work. Sometimes this can mean doing all of one type of activity at once, such as making a set of phone calls, dealing with e-mail or correspondence. Sometimes this can mean splitting up several tasks so that the processes that they share in common are done together.

The Organization and Preparation
For example, today I decided that I want to write a week’s worth of articles in one day (that’s 5 to 7-articles). This will then free up time during the week to do some other pressing activities that I find difficult to do when I spend my best hours writing. I knew that to do this would require a lot of organization. One of the first things that I did was create a “How To Do List” and I simultaneously looked at the common processes between each article. I paid particular attention to the most difficult parts, normally the learning parts, the creative parts and the decision-making parts. I came up with the following list:

• Think of the individual titles for the pieces
• Get clear about what to include for each piece - the real purpose and how to support that purpose with good introductions, methodologies and conclusions
• Create the ‘skeleton’ of the article
• Write the prose
• Proof read the articles
• Format the articles for posting

I decided that I would attempt to do activity on the list as a batch, i.e. I would do all 7 titles first, followed by all 7 considerations of content, followed by all 7 ‘skeletons’ etc. I know that this approach might fall down if I got too much brain ache from doing the same task for too long. I decided that in that case I would allow for the option of doing a batch of four and then a batch of three in this manner, or even smaller batches, if necessary. This recognized in advance a likely problem and built in flexibility to deal with it.

The Result
It would normally take me around 2-hours to create an article from start to finish. So it ought to take 14-hours to do 7-articles - that’s quite a chunk of work! Fortunately, by splitting up the the tasks into a process and then batching the common parts of that process together I could get things done very quickly. Once I had things prepared for each part of the process, I found myself able to focus intently on each batch item.

It took me half an hour to come up with titles for the proposed articles using title templates. I wasn’t too proud of them but they fitted the formula and were generally better than my normal efforts. I decided that I might yet refine them better before posting.

Three quarters of an hour later I had done the second step, about the purpose and what to include, for all but one article. I was having trouble with this one so I took a shower and thought about it. Half an hour later I had it. This step made the third step, sketching out the skeleton article quite easy and I was done an hour later.

All of this preparation work made writing the prose of the articles very easy and I was getting articles completed (without proof-reading or posting) at an average of 45-minutes per article. By 15:15, exactly six hours after starting and including an hour break for lunch, I had four out of seven articles written, or 57%. I did start to flag at this point.

Since I was flagging I knew that even the smallest obstacle would derail me for the rest of the day. Knowing that, I took a break for an hour and considered again how to do the remaining articles. I considered them in greater detail so that I would not have to solve problems on the fly. When I’m weary that proves more difficult to do. The break plus the further thinking and preparation allowed me to keep going. In the end I completed the writing for the 6-articles, proof read them and posted them and by 18:15 I was all finished!

Such a long period (about 8-hours) of intense productivity is highly unusual for me but the organization and preparation and batch working created a set of circumstances that made high-productivity very easy to carry out. I was fortunate that I had no distractions (I live alone, I did this on a Sunday and I told my girlfriend that I would be unavailable all day) but then again, I did actively create such circumstances beforehand. What’s more I did all of this purely out of personal desire. I had no external pressures whatsoever driving me to make this happen.

Batch working along with the correct preparation that the “How To Do List” generates combined to make a very powerful method of getting high-productivity over a long period of time. With correct preparation progress happens easily and even when I felt weary I know that I only had to deal with a few little difficulties and the productive flow would carry on. This is a result of what can happen when you understand how the mind works and how to work in harmony with it. Previously I would have struggled against practical difficulties hoping that self-discipline, strong character and high-motivation would carry the day - they rarely did and I ended up feeling bad about myself.

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