In this session of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, I am going to challenge you to work only four hours per day for one week.
“Success is actually a short race, a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”
“It is not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do, it is that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.”
Gary Keller, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
The Take Action Today segment of the show will help you brainstorm on that one thing you can do to make any area of your life or career extraordinary.
In today’s episode, I am going to challenge you to work just four hours a day for one week and show you a step-by-step process for how to focus on the one thing that matters most. You can apply these steps in your career and life if you really focus on doing so. Doing this has forced me to focus on the most important things that I have needed to accomplish and make them super successful or extraordinary.
In this session, I will go into detail on the steps you can take to work less yet accomplish more:
- Review your tasks at night and come up with your Most Important Tasks or MITs for the following day.
- Review your MITs first thing in the morning and delegate whatever you can.
- For the next 15 minutes, take a glance at your e-mail and answer anything urgent.
- Work on your MIT #1 for 45 minutes.
- Take a five-minute break.
- Repeat this process with MITs #2 and #3, taking a five-minute break in between.
- Spend the last 15 minutes answering e-mail or making any phone calls.
Books Mentioned on the Show:
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller
Resources and links mentioned in this session include:
engineeringmanagementinstitute.org
Chicago Goal-Setting Workshop
Photo of the shirt
Click Here for Session #32 Transcription
Did you take the four-hours-a-day challenge?
I would love to hear any questions you might have or stories you might share on how you have applied these steps for working just four hours a day.
Please leave your comments or questions in the section below.
2 Responses
I am a first year PhD student in mechanical engineering. I started to implement the 4 hour work day and here are my comments:
Positive message is very important when starting the day.I find it helps me understand/reminds myself that I can only do so much and shouldn’t worry about what I cannot get done
I find I can/need link 4 hour sessions together in the morning and then later in the day maybe a 4 hour then a 3 hour then a two hour then I am done X.x
I find it difficult to get back to an MIT after a break, which usually ends up lasting longer then 15 minutes. I may need a tactic for picking up the momentum better and staying motivated.
I put my phone on vibrate during the 45 minutes focus period and check only after.
I keep a snack near by. something that is not messy and is easy to eat small portions of, like crackers, mini wheats, or beef jerky
Andrew thanks for sharing – please e-mail me your address so I can send you an EYOS t-shirt.
I found it interesting that it is hard to re-engage but what I would recommend is try starting again with some positive thoughts/reading to improve your focus.
Good luck!