0) Parkinson’s Law is the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion
I use a hack so that this law works in my favour. Whenever I get a task, I ask How I can get an outcome close to the expected one, and I can do it 20% of the time?
1) Pareto principle – 80% of your results are produced by 20% of your actions.
2) Carlson’s Law – A task completed in one single stretch will be completed much faster than doing the same task in multiple attempts
3) Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
4) Illich’s Law – Beyond a certain threshold, human efficiency decreases, even becoming negative. It is also called as Law of Diminishing Returns
5) Laborit’s Law – Humans prefer to carry out simple tasks that give immediate satisfaction to avoid stress or inconvenience
6) Hofstadter’s Law – It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
7) Law of biological rhythms – Each person is subject to multiple biological rhythms that must be taken into account when scheduling activities.
8) Law of Inertia – It reminds us that if we’re not proactive and don’t take action, we don’t get anything done – a body at rest will remain at rest. Taking action is the key to better time management and productivity.
9) Hawthorne’s Principle – If we are being watched in our work, it influences the results we get
10) Eisenhower’s Law – If we have a compelling reason to do something, we’re more committed to it
11) Fraisse’s Law – everyone needs certain times to do certain tasks
12) Law of the Economic Value of Time – Establishing the value of each hour of work (hourly cost), determines the loss generated by unproductive time
13) Perls’ Principle – 70% of what concerns us has already happened or will never come to happen.
14) The Planning Fallacy – The optimism bias only affects predictions about one’s own tasks, as when outside observers predict task completion times, they tend to overestimate the time needed, demonstrating a pessimistic bias.
15) Maximize the value of your time – The time-wealthy avoid doing low-value work, not because it is beneath them, but because doing work that is low-value damages their ability to have free time.
16) Invest in time assets – Tools and Technology that save time, like better computers or tools that speed up the programming
17) Planning
18) Organize and Prioritize
19) Do One Thing At A Time
20) Avoid Distractions
21) Delegate
22) Keep Yourself Healthy and Stress-free
23) Learn to say “NO”
24) Make Realistic Schedules
25) One Task Multiple Outcomes
26) Break Down Your Projects
27) Use automation software
28) Pomodoro Technique
29) Earn compound dividends – Multiplying efforts without actually doing the work.
30) Priority Matrix
31) Time Blocking
32) Weekly Review
33) Allow time for the unexpected
34) Don’t over commit
35) Leave time for fun and play
36) Develop routines
37) Decision Bank
38) Stacking Good Habits
39) Discipline
40) Proper Preparation
Vikram Shetty 