A Simple Tip to Be More Productive

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a task or project? Perhaps you need to write a report that requires a lot of effort to prepare. Or you need to do something you don’t like that seems big and difficult.

In such situations, there are two responses you might take. The first one is procrastinating. Procrastinating is a way to temporarily relieve the pain associated with being overwhelmed. When you procrastinate, you choose to delay doing the task so that you don’t have to deal with it. The second response is doing the task despite being stressed. You still do what you need to do, but you have many things in your mind that drain your mental energy.

To deal with the situation, there is a good tip in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz:


I had the good fortune of being trained at Skip Barber’s racing school… What they taught me at Skip Barber was all about focus. In order to navigate the course at top speeds, I was trained to focus exclusively on the next turn while the car was still piloting the current one… Not the current one, nothing beyond the next one, just the next turn.

The paragraph is written in the context of running a company but I believe it’s also applicable to individuals. If you want to be more productive, you should focus exclusively on the next thing to do. Don’t think about what you did or what to do later. Just focus on the one thing that you need to do next. Doing this simplify the situation since you don’t have many things in your mind. Instead of having your energy distracted by the past and the future, you focus your energy on the task that you need to do now.

What if you still feel overwhelmed? Then make it simpler. Break the task to even simpler tasks.

Focus only on the next turn and you will navigate your tasks and projects at top speeds.