Field Guides / Operations

How do I get three real hours of work done a day?

Three hours of focused work that moves the business is a good day. Even a ten-hour day rarely gives you more than three or four. Clear the list with the four Ds and one test (would you want a CEO you paid $150,000 a year doing this?), check email twice a day, keep one list, and put the week's priorities into the diary before the week starts: no more than three hours of above-the-line work a day, with 30 minutes of white space between blocks. Ten minutes saved a day is a working week a year.

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Why does a full day in the office move the business so little?

A full day moves the business so little because most of it goes on work that feels necessary and isn't: email, interruptions, admin, polish.

Most of us are video people who ended up running a business. If you identify as the video guy first, the "right" task will always look like the edit or the quick change for a client. Then come the things we feel we should be doing: social media, a website update, a tweak to a package. What moves the needle is getting leads, having phone conversations and converting them into sales.

The arithmetic makes this worth fixing. Ten minutes a day is 50 minutes a week. Over 48 working weeks that's 2,400 minutes, or 40 hours: a full working week a year. One to two hours a day is six to twelve extra weeks.

In my experience an eight to ten hour day won't give you more than three to four hours of focused, outcome-driven work. Hit three consistently and you're doing well.

How to get three real hours a day: the method, step by step

The method has seven steps: run the CEO test, sort with the four Ds, contain email, keep one list, allocate before the week, schedule it done, and protect the time.

1. Run the CEO test on everything you do. If you paid a CEO $150,000 a year (or the equivalent in your currency) to run your company, would you be happy to see them jumping on an edit to save 300 bucks, or doing their own admin? Or would you want them on sales, marketing, business development and the cash flow forecast? Anything that fails the test goes into the next step.
2. Sort every task into the four Ds. Delete it, delegate it, defer it, or do it. Write your whole list into the four boxes below so the Do box gets the hours. If the delegate box fills up, see Making your first hire.

3. Give email two slots a day and touch each one once. Email isn't instant messaging: it's someone making a request on your time. Check it at 1pm and 4pm, turn off every notification except texts, calendar and calls, and put the slots in your signature. Open an email only to deal with it, using one of three options. When I first did this I had 19,000 emails I hadn't looked at. If the backlog is out of control, select all and archive it: nothing is lost, and the inbox starts at zero (Inbox Zero is Merlin Mann's idea).

4. Keep one list, and only one. Your memory is like RAM: it can only hold so many must-do items. Every task, idea and promise goes onto one list, on paper or in an app. One list removes the mental weight of carrying it all, and you rarely miss anything.
5. Allocate before the week starts. Take the three to five goals for the week (they come out of your quarterly priorities, which is what planning your year produces) and give each one a day before Monday arrives. Block out what's already fixed first: a shoot day, the prep the day before. Themed days help. When I taught this, mine ran Monday content, Tuesday calls and community, Wednesday and Thursday sales, Friday free.
6. Schedule it done, with no more than three hours of above-the-line work a day. Above-the-line work is strategic and deliberate: three calls with three clients, researching a company before tomorrow's meeting. Below the line is checking email, sending an invoice, anything that doesn't move you closer to the goal. Put each above-the-line task into the diary as a timed block, keep 30 minutes of white space between blocks because something always comes in sideways, and roll anything unfinished to the first block of the next day. Schedule Monday to Thursday and leave a spare day. Done looks like a diary that already holds the week's priorities on Monday morning.

7. Protect the time. Systems will beat willpower every single time, so set it up: noise-cancelling headphones on, and "Could you give me an hour?" to anyone who wanders over. When something interrupts, unless someone is waiting on a thing you promised, ask whether it's a hell yes or a no. A firm but polite no saves you the pile of extra work that "I'll take a look at it" creates.

A worked example: my week of 26 November 2018

My planner from the week of 26 November 2018 shows the method in use: five goals for the week, then one to three a day.

Here's what a day with three blocks in the diary looks like, from an earlier Tuesday of mine (2016):

It's the right amount, because a day can run away from you. I don't work like this every day, but I should, because when I do I get far more done.

The mistakes that undo it

The method fails in five ways.

• Keeping a long list and calling it progress. I used to tick off 45 of 60 things in a week and feel productive. The ticking is a dopamine hit. The question is whether any of the 45 moved me closer to a client.
• Answering the email the moment it lands. Speed of reply rarely means a good reply, especially when it's feedback on an edit and you're feeling it.
• Doing the ten-minute job yourself because it's quick. Hand it off and spend the ten minutes on a call to a lapsed client instead.
• Treating "be fluid" as permission to put things off. Moving a task when the day changes is fine. If the sales calls need making, they go in the diary and get made.
• Carrying the rolled task as guilt. Usually the expectation is one you set yourself. Make the decision, roll the task, and move on.

The rule of thumb for three real hours a day

Three hours a day of above-the-line work, scheduled before the week starts, is a productive day.

The benchmark for the first pass through the four Ds is five hours a week back, then ten.

Hold yourself accountable

Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?

• Your current list has been through the four Ds, and something on it has been deleted for good.
• Email notifications are off, and your signature says when you check.
• This week's goals were in the diary, as timed blocks, before Monday.
• Every task you're carrying lives on one list.

Your one move this week

What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.

Before next Monday, write down next week's three to five goals and put each one into the diary as a timed block, with 30 minutes between blocks. Leave Friday clear for anything that rolls.

One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.

Related tools and guides. How to plan your year (where the weekly goals come from), Getting your weekends back, "I need better systems": where to actually start (for the tasks in the delegate box), Making your first hire.