Productivity Simplified

The Daily Edge: Simple Strategies to Increase Efficiency and Make an Impact Every Day by David Horsager is not your typical productivity book. First off, he's better known for his other book, The Trust Edge, and for speaking about the impact trust has on a company's bottom line. But after incorporating some simple productivity tips he observed from others, and mentioning them in some of his speeches, he was asked to elaborate. This book is the result.

It's a short quick read with many tips ranging from managing your energy to more effective meetings. Every tip ends with one or two relevant quotes, or a quote and a statistic to drive the point home.

Some of the tips I really liked are—

1. excellence is efficient, perfection is not, so do it right the first time and move on;
2. manage your energy and schedule your day according to your natural rhythms so you can get more done;
3. plan tomorrow today so your best time can be spent doing;
4. ditch the multitasking which neither people nor computers are meant for;
5. don't touch anything more than once so decide now if you can do it, use it, throw it away, or complete it now;
6. SEEDS first (sleep, exercise, eat right, drink water, and find your source) which powers everything else;
7. have a "power hour" where no interruptions are accepted at all and you can do your most important work;
8. figure out your DMA (difference-making actions) on a daily basis so you know what to focus on;
9. keep your in-box down to 10 or less e-mails by deleting/archiving, dealing, filing, or flagging for follow-up anything you cannot tackle within two minutes.

Many of David's tips are not new but are expressed well and with pointers on how to implement them, so I'd recommend the book for anyone looking to be more efficient and effective.

What's your favorite simple productivity tip?