Excerpts from book: The Secret to Peak Productivity by Tamara Myles

• Maslow’s Pyramid
  1. Physiological
  2. Safety
  3. Love and Belonging
  4. Esteem
  5. Self-actualization
• Peak Productivity Pyramid System
  1. Physical Organization
  2. Electronic Organization
  3. Time Management
  4. Activity-Goal Alignment
  5. Possibility
• Peak productivity provides a framework, but it is an iterative process. One may need to revisit the previous steps to fine-tune according their current situation.

1) Physical Organization

• 3 TOs of Sorting Documents
  • To Keep (e.g., bank statements, tax documents, etc.)
  • To Toss (e.g., spam mails) - Either recycle or shred
  • To Do (e.g., pay bills)
• Pick the right tools for organizing. e.g., files, folders, magazine holders, etc.
• Separate personal and business documents
• Sort the ‘To Keep’ documents categorically or chronologically.
• Don’t use miscellaneous category in sorting.
• Create a recurring event to sort and file documents

2) Electronic Organization

• Email management
  • Check emails only at allotted times (3 or 4 times a day only)
  • Unless an email takes less than a minute to reply, reply them in bulk at allotted times.

3) Time Management

• 3 Ps of time management
  1. Plan * Plan the week ahead on Sunday evenings * Maintain a single calendar and a single TODO list * Prioritize * Prioritize tasks using Urgent/Important Matrix. * Perform * Focus on doing the right thing instead of doing everything right * Follow the Pomodoro 25-minute rule. * Avoid multitasking and distractions. * Stop stealing time. e.g., checking emails during break.

4) Activity-Goal Alignment

• Define short term and long term goals
• Measure the time spent towards the goal
• Structure your weekly activities to work towards the goal
• A vision without a plan is just a hallucination - Will Rogers
• The indispensable first step to getting thing you want out of life is this: Decide what you want - Ben Stein
• Define SMART Goals
  1. Specific * Measurable * Attainable * Relevant * Timely
• 6 steps of goal setting Commit
  1. Understand - why is it important * Create goals - Find partners to work with * Break down goals into small tasks * Schedule to work on the tasks * Assess and Re-assess periodically if the goals are still important
• Discipline and Attitude
  • Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments - Jim Rohn
  • Books on discipline
    • 7 habits of highly effective people - Stephen Covey
    • Peak: How great companies get their mojo from Maslow
    • Mindset: The new psychology of success
  • Books on attitude
    • Happiness at work
    • The Happiness project
    • Peak: How great companies get their mojo from Maslow
    • The art of possibility