Productivity guideline for youths

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What is the perfect productivity guideline for youths?

Productivity guideline for youths – A journey towards growth…

At the height of the pandemic, there was a 300% increase of “how to get your brain to focus” on Google search. Everyone wants to maximize their productivity, especially in the post-pandemic era.

With each passing year, as the world becomes more unpredictable, it leads to increased distractions and burnout. Distraction is the productivity enemy, so the best productivity guideline for youths must be one that prioritizes focus. And that is the Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity guideline for youths to streamline focus levels. To eliminate days when nothing meaningful gets done, to eradicate overdue deadlines.

Before you learn more about the Eisenhower Matrix productivity guideline for youths, it’s best to understand how focus and distractions can improve productivity.

Distractions can be positive?

Do you know, you should be able to always see your nose, but your brain filters it out automatically. Why? Because your brain needs to focus on so much more going on around us. This phenomenon is – inattentional blindness.

Inattentional blindness leads to greater focus, but sometimes greater focus on an object is counterproductive. Take a minute to watch this YouTube video to understand more.

This video is an excellent demonstration of attentional blindness from Daniel Simons. I recommend going through his YouTube channel for other examples.

Did you see the gorilla, if you did, then you can focus, while still observing irregularities? If you did not see the gorilla, you understand how easy it is to miss the obvious when your hyper-focus.

Too much focus on a task leaves you blindsided on other activities which could be of equal importance. Focus is like a macro lens camera. It zooms into one thing thereby picking less information about everything else.

Productivity guideline for youths in the post-pandemic must involve a technique that improves focus and lets youth prioritize their time amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic. — ***Image credit:*** https://bit.ly/3sBScY6.
***Hyperfocus on a task can lead to less productivity in other daily tasks.***

The key to productivity guidelines for youths is the balance between focus and distractions.

The myth of multitasking

Multitasking means doing several tasks at the same. And contrary to popular belief, it is impossible to multitask. For example, if you were driving on a very familiar road, you can be on a phone call, because driving is automatic.

But if a car was to lose control in front of you, then you would need to put all your focus on driving and away from the phone call to avoid a collision.

When you multitask, you switch from a complicated task – to finding a new task – then to engaging in this new task. This leads to a waste of time and hinders productivity.

Productivity guideline for youths: The myth of multitasking — ***Image credit: https://bit.ly/2UD2NFI***

Being productive when multitasking must involve budgeted time for tasks, so that multiple tasks can be done in the time it takes for the first task to finish. To avoid inattentional blindness affecting productivity, you must create an advantage out of multitasking.

Choose to be productive instead of busy

To create an advantage out of multitasking, you must avoid juggling multiple tasks.

A day spent attending Zoom calls while creating website templates, writing reports and exercising sounds hectic and busy but not productive. Because we sometimes prioritize time-sensitive tasks over any other task, regardless of the long-term payoffs.

Productivity stems from saying no to non-urgent and unimportant tasks. When you focus too much time on urgent tasks, you neglect the important ones on your to-do list. Thus, getting stuck in a cycle where you are constantly prioritizing the wrong task, robbing yourself of the opportunity to work toward your goals.

Productivity must begin from day to day planning and time management.

Productivity involves intentional action toward a goal, however small

Being productive involves prioritizing tasks and executing small actions done consistently over time Instead of chasing instant success, focus your efforts on the long game, taking one small action every day to move closer to your goals.

Productivity guideline for youths – the Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity guideline for youths that aids time management by dividing tasks into important, not important, urgent, and not urgent. By splitting tasks, into four, it shows which one ought to receive the highest priority and which one should be discarded.

The Eisenhower Matrix distinguishes between urgent and important tasks, so your time and energy can be focused on tasks that matter the most.

In the upper left quadrant (important, urgent). This quadrant is your highest priority for completion. It will contain crucial time-sensitive tasks, that require your immediate attention.

In the upper right quadrant (important, not urgent). This quadrant is for long term tasks and activities which do not have a pressing deadline. (e.g. long term planning, projects, research paper, etc.).

In the bottom left quadrant (not important, urgent). This quadrant is for tasks that interrupt away from the main goal.

Finally, the bottom right quadrant is the (not urgent, not important). This quadrant is for tasks that are distractions.

As a productivity guideline for youths, the Eisenhower Matrix adds and prioritizes tasks, to help you identify priority tasks, so you do not over commit yourself to non-urgent tasks.

The Eisenhower Matrix helps engineer your workflow for ease and progress.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey

To improve your focus and productivity, daily notes of tasks to accomplish set you up for a productive start the next day. This is done by creating a rough outline, setting aside time to concentrate on one task all at once instead of doing it throughout the day, which would then develop into a more extensive outline.

As productivity from scratch does not work. Productivity involves planning. What works is taking small steps and enjoying the resulting sense of progress

In the end, what sustains productivity is discipline. Being disciplined is what pushes you through inspired and unmotivated moments.