Optimising Personal Productivity Course

Organisational psychology. Equip your mind for business.

COVID-19 update: arrangement of our courses

We are now delivering courses online and in-person. Please check the delivery format of each class before enrolling.

Please note that course materials (excluding prescribed texts) are shared electronically within 48 hours of course commencement. Printing is not available.

This personal productivity and efficiency course will help you increase your valuable personal output and bring you closer to achieving a well-lived life.

Studies show self-esteem increases when we produce or create things of value. Yet in the digital age, the challenge isn’t lack of time. The challenge stems from an overload of inputs and expending valuable mental energy prioritising those inputs.

The solution – be clear on what is important, develop good habits and systems, and eliminate distracting inputs.

This course provides all three solutions and covers three primary objectives. First, to help you get clear on what is important to you. Second, to develop the right mindsets, skills, and habits to radically enhance your personal output. Finally, to eliminate distracting inputs – clutter – that slow down progress.

We will pay particular attention to your technological and digital lives –phone, app, computer, and software spaces – and finds ways to optimise those digital inputs.

Aims

This course provides a practical, hands-on approach to increasing personal efficiency and output. We aim to give you the right mindsets, skills, techniques, and habits that enable optimal productivity in the digital age.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• apply the 80/20 principle to focus on what is important
• adopt elite productivity mindsets
• create habit systems for effortless productivity
• optimise e-mail for faster processing
• declutter your digital life
• quickly plan your days and weeks
• practice a concentration exercise and develop focus muscles
• write 300 words in under 30 minutes
• learn how to work efficiently on the go.

Content

• 80/20 efficiency principle
• Deliberate practice
• The latest research on strengthening willpower
• Habit systems/habit chains
• Distraction spaces
• Pomodoro Technique
• Microtask minimisation
• Inbox Zero and email management
• Improved concentration and focus
• Digital minimalism
• Digital declutter – phone and computer
• Living without a smart phone (yes really)
• Transit productivity
• Fast weekly planning
• Fast daily planning
• Exploding personal output
• How to exercise five days a week (and why you should)
• How to read four books a month
• Three stages of endurance work

Intended audience

Analysts, business professionals, managers, IT knowledge workers and lifelong learners looking to master their time, energy, and personal output.

Prerequisites

This course is designed with the beginner in mind. While some participants may have experience in time-management and productivity, the instructor assumes no prior knowledge for all participants.

Delivery style

Explosive productivity will be taught through a series of concepts, examples, group exercises, and in-class knowledge challenges. The material is presented so that participants of varying backgrounds, skills and abilities can all move together in a brisk but comfortable learning pace.

Utilising principles of productivity, efficiency, and time management, the course material and timeline are structured to optimise learning and value add.

Materials

Course notes are digitally distributed before class.

Recommended reading

• Allcott, G 2019, How to be Productivity Ninja (2nd ed) Icon.
• Allen, D 2015, Getting Things Done: the art of stress-free productivity (1st ed) Penguin.
• Clear, J 2018, Atomic Habits (1st Ed) CENTURY – TRADE.
• Erickson, A, Pool R 2017, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (Reprint) Eamon Dolan/Mariner Books
• Newport, C 2019, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World Penguin Publishing Group.
• Newport, C 2016, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (1st ed) Piatkus.
• Silvia, P 2018, How to Write A Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing (2nd ed) APA LifeTools.
• Yacobellis, P 2018, The Dumb Phone Experiment Amazon.com Services LLC.