Life
Become a Lean, Mean, Productivity Machine
The times for high productivity appear to be 10 am to noon and 3 pm to 4 pm
For many people, Sunday is for rest and reflection. Monday through Friday is a different story.
Daily tasks can either drain or energize you. Completing them can make you feel accomplished; postponing them can leave you frustrated. Surprisingly, the order in which you approach tasks can have a notable impact on your effectiveness, energy, and enthusiasm.
Some tasks are better handled at a specific time of the day, and should be completely avoided at other times. To maintain balance, get your work done, and still have life at the end of the day, ensure that the sequence and the timing of your projects supports, rather than impedes, the likelihood that you’ll accomplish most of what you sought to do during your day.
When to Tackle the Day’s Toughest Task
Tackle the day’s toughest task first thing. Why, pray tell? Recall if this has ever happened to you: You approach the end of your workday and realize that you didn’t get to the most difficult tasks. Whether they are time-consuming or mind-boggling, the hardest tasks are the ones most likely met with procrastination.
Researchers agree that you are most able to handle your hardest tasks if you do so in the morning. Dr. Norbert Myslinski, a neuroscience professor at the University of Maryland, found that cortisol – a stress hormone that affects your “flight-or-flight” ability – peaks around the time that you wake up.
Cortisol increases your blood-sugar level, better enabling you to handle tasks energetically and with enough momentum to carry you through their completion.
Most vital, tackling tough tasks in the morning often enhances your confidence level. By striving for increased productivity at the start of your day, you are motivated to perform better and accomplish more throughout the rest of your afternoon and evening.
All told, you’re inclined to accomplish more on your daily task list when you start with the hardest tasks. Moving to the easy tasks then seems like a downhill bike ride. By contrast, moving from easy to hard tasks can be an uphill battle.
When to Ease off on Tackling Tough Tasks
When your workday begins to wind down, tie up any loose ends. What can you file so that it is out of the way? What can you make complete? Can you make that one key phone call?
Can you discard any unnecessary items, including junk mail? Can you assemble tomorrow’s project materials or notes to once again be able to tackle the toughest tasks? In this case, the early bird does indeed catch and complete the worm (work).
Tackle that Task You’ve Been Avoiding
As I discuss more broadly in my book The 60 Second Self-Starter, when is an opportune time to tackle a task you’ve been putting off continuously? Answer: When something else comes along that’s even more onerous.
Suppose you seek to start on task A, and find yourself making little headway. Along comes task B, which bigger and more difficult, and something you have to do, you have no choice. Task B now becomes the nexus of your procrastination.
Suddenly, task A doesn’t seem so big and so bad. In comparison to what else is on your plate, you find yourself starting on task A with greater ease than you recently experienced. How so? You have mentally traded off one task for another.
Eventually you’ll have to tackle task B, but for now, work the trade-off to your advantage. Buzz through task A.
A caveat: Often, you don’t have much control over when another huge task is forthcoming. When one such task arrives, that’s when to launch into the earlier task.
About High Productivity
Your body’s temperature goes up and down in the course of a day, a pattern dictated by your brain. According to John Poppy, a former senior editor for Look magazine and long established health columnist, your body’s performance ability for memory, alertness, and physical coordination is optimal when you have a sufficiently high body temperature.
Conversely, memory alertness, physical coordination, and performance ability tend to decrease with a less than optimal body temperature.
For work related tasks, in accordance with your body temperature fluctuations throughout the day, in review, here are noted times for high productivity, and other times worth knowing: From 8 am to 10 am, your mental capabilities steadily rise.
From 10 am to noon, you have the wonderful opportunity to take on a challenging project and succeed, or to hit your boss for that raise you’ve been wanting.
By noon your brain capacity begins to diminish. At 3 pm, the brain power dip you might have experienced in the early in the PM begins to diminish and your productivity rises.
By 4 pm, ‘til at least 5 pm, your muscle tone reaches its peak and so, this is the favored time to exercise for many people.
So, the times for high productivity appear to be 10 am to noon and 3 pm to 4 pm, and the best times for a productive physical workout are between 4 pm and 5 pm.
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Life
With Representatives Like Kelly Daughtry, We Can Take Back America
Daughtry is a soft-spoken woman who gets things done
When President Trump takes office next January 20th, he’s going to need a cadre of strong-willed Congressional representatives. It’s not enough to simply retake the White House, we need the foot soldiers with the unshakeable resolve to restore America.
In North Carolina’s 13th district, one candidate is firmly rooted in the values that made this country great, and will make it great again. Her name is Kelly Daughtry and, quite frankly, the nation needs many others like her.
Raised in rural North Carolina and the daughter of a U.S. veteran, farmer, lawyer, and entrepreneur, Daughtry has been a practicing lawyer for the past 25 years in Johnston County, where she makes her home. She’s been in the trenches and is not skittish about the slings and arrows that come with taking bold, conservative positions for what is right.
Clear Positions on Vital Issues
Daughtry is exceedingly clear on where she stands and on what will improve the lives of American citizens. She is a vigorous supporter of law enforcement and decries ‘de-fund the police’ movements wherever they arise. She understands that, by and large, the men and women in law enforcement are dedicated, hardworking individuals who, in many instances, put their lives on the line.
Similarly, Daughtry supports the U.S. military and our veterans. She knows that nations around the world with rogue leadership wish to do us great harm, and that we must maintain a strong military at all times. Not coincidentally, a strong military is the best prescription for peace.
On the border issue, Daughtry recognizes that the Biden Administration is firmly committed to swamping our country with illegal aliens. Why? Because the U.S. Census count doesn’t focus on U.S. citizenship, only the number of residents per county and state.
Hence, Democrats can gain a 20-seat advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives by continuing to flood our nation. This ploy is precisely why Biden and company have brought lawsuits against border states seeking to protect themselves.
The drugs, the crime — the murders — and the bursting budgets of towns and states trying to cope with the onslaught of illegals should never have happened in the first place. Daughtry knows what needs to be done, and done immediately.
Reversing Biden’s Reckless Agenda
Daughtry will go to work on restoring our nation, dismantling Joe Biden’s reckless agenda for America. She understands that Biden’s policies towards China in particular, and the bribes he has taken, have been nothing less than devastating for hard-working Americans and for our national security.
Most notably, she is firmly opposed to the Chinese Communist Party and their representatives who are seeking to buy farmland throughout North Carolina as well as every other place in the United States.
Biden’s out-of-control spending has particularly hurt North Carolinians. Farmers have taken the brunt of the punishment. The unending inflation that we’ve faced for 38 months also has dealt a crushing blow to North Carolina small business owners and families in general. One of Daughtry’s first agenda items will be to help steer our country back towards fiscal sanity, which in turn will have a direct impact on the cost of groceries and gasoline.
Americans First
Like President Trump, Daughtry understands the importance of putting Americans first and of safeguarding or voting procedures, elections, and indeed what it means to be an American citizen. Of note, she has no misconceptions about the differences between men and women and will work to stop the malarkey that the Left imposes on us every day, with their “56” types of genders.
Daughtry is a soft-spoken woman and in her quiet way, gets things done. If Donald Trump had an army of Kelly Daughtrys, the country would be on firm footing in relatively short order. She knows what hard-working Americans want and need, and is exactly the type of politician that North Carolina must send to Washington D.C.
It is not an exaggeration to say that in Wake, Harnett, Johnson, and Wayne counties in North Carolina, as well as the entire state and entire country, the 2024 election will be the most important in our lifetimes. This has been said about other elections at other times, but considering the damage that the Democrats have wrought on America, the time is now to reclaim our great nation and, with the likes of Kelly Daughtry, we can.
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Life
Provocative Questions to Get You Moving
What would make you pause and think about what’s really important?
Suppose I asked you four questions to make you pause, think about what’s really important, perhaps take some action steps, and get you moving in a positive direction. What might I ask?
Here are four such questions:
* What would you do if you truly only had six months to live?
* What would you read if you could only pick six books for the rest of your life?
* If you could return to any age what would it be?
* If you could live anywhere other than here, where would it be?
By way of example, here is each question with my own answers to help stimulate your thinking:
What would I do if I truly only had six months to live? I would visit everyone who ever mattered to me one more time; visit all my childhood haunts; visit three or four tourist destinations in the world that I’ve wanted to see; eat like an incredible pig; parcel out my assets carefully and accordingly, safeguard my daughter’s financial future and well-being to the best of my abilities; and donate many items to charity.
If I could only read six books for the rest of my life, they would probably be The Timetables of History, Childhood’s End, The Call of the Wild, The One Hundred, From Dawn to Decadence, and The Culture of Celebrity. Runners-up would be The Demon-Haunted World, Crime and Punishment, Moby Dick, MacBeth, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and The World of Our Fathers
If I could be any age what would I be: 38, because at that age I had the optimal mix of capabilities and faculties, unbounded potential, and unbridled enthusiasm. My career as an author was beginning to bloom and amazingly I hadn’t yet been on my first of 45 cruises.
If I could live anywhere other than here, where would it be and why aren’t I there? The places I could settle include Asheville, NC; Austin, TX; Monterrey, CA; Sausalito, CA; Tucson, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; Vancouver, British Columbia; London, England; Paris, France; Vevey, Switzerland; Montreux, Switzerland; Bruges, Belgium; Helsinki, Finland; Gothenburg, Sweden; Stockholm, Sweden, and any place where it is spring, birds are chirping, and large lakes invite you to swim.
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America No More…
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America’s Unjust Justice System
With Representatives Like Kelly Daughtry, We Can Take Back America
Why East Coast Workers are Blurry Eyed on Monday Morning
The Rise of Mark Robinson and the Benefit to North Carolina
