Here’s a surprisingly effective productivity hack. All of us are super busy with careers, side hustles, kids, spouses, family, pets and every once in a while even some recreation too!

I understand.  Aside from running Duffweb, I’m also co-founder of DroneStock.com, a recently-launched stock marketplace for imagery shot by drones, I’m writing a book, helping my wife craft a reality-show and also pivot into a more scalable version of the one-on-one help she gives (deniceduff.com).  Busy.  Yep, I get it.

And since we’re all so slammed I’m going to make this a short and hopefully useful one for you which I recommend to my staff, and here it is:

Clean up your immediate work area (apartment/desk/office/house/computer desktop, etc.).

I’ve noticed while being in the space of my super-productive friends that it’s not cluttered.  And sometimes I can get a little lazy with my surroundings if I’m rushed.  I’ll leave mail in piles, jackets on a chair, Amazon boxes not in the recycle bin, clothes in the dryer not put away, or, or…

And I discovered that those things actually stick my attention.  It’s just a bit, but little by little they all add up.  I’ll start feeling distracted and unfocused and even make not-so-great decisions.  There seems to be an overall discipline (or lack of) at play here and I think it’s fascinating.

Git ‘er Done

I saw it clearly the other day (it was mostly because my wife is out of town and I was “allowed” to be a little messy, even though I don’t like it).  I stepped over a storage box that I hadn’t put away and then my cool shoe shining box and then I pushed a pile of yesterday’s mail on my desk into a small stack of client notes (all of which is because “I’m wicked busy, you know!”) and I finally said “WFT?!”  So I jumped up I cleaned the hell out of my place, took out trash, swept, dusted and everything, handled that mail and “piles” of things. I was like a blur.

After that 90 minutes or so I sat down at my nice clean desk, mind cleaned as well, and ripped through a bunch of things that needed to get done. Most of those hadn’t been getting done. I was focused, fast and furious (sorry).  I got so much more done in the next few hours than I did the entire day before!

Clean your space and clean your mind, then focus and get your shiz done quicker.  You’ll actually end up with more “extra” time.  Maybe enough to write a book!

Enjoy.

Duff