How to Optimize Your Workflow to Get MORE Done in LESS Time
10Optimizing your time to get as much done in as little time as possible is the best way to balance your schedule. Not only does being productive on a free schedule fight laziness and procrastination, but it also means you're able to actually accomplish those goals you keep talking about but never do.
In this video, I share with you 7 things I do to be able to keep up with 4-5 different tasks every single day while on tough deadlines- yet somehow not only MEET but SURPASS the deadlines AND offer more results than expected.
1. Don't Jump the Gun! (Double Check):
Double checking your work and making sure they work before sending in the final eliminates the need to redo the work again. Often times in animation and filmmaking, there is a long process known as "rendering", where the user must step away from the computer for several hours/days while the computer puts everything together. If something wrong is discovered AFTER this process- the rendering process MUST be repeated- leading to several days wasted!
2. Boring tasks first:
Should I decide to do the fun tasks first: animating a fight scene for 2 months, then do a boring task: animating a fishing conversation scene; I could end up giving up halfway through if I'm not determined enough to finish it. Let's say I give up the fishing animation after 2 weeks because it's too boring- I haven't wasted 2 weeks, I've wasted 2 MONTHS AND 2 WEEKS.
Likewise, if the order of events were reversed and I still gave up after 2 weeks, I would have only wasted 2 weeks. Alternatively, having an exciting, fun task ahead to look forward to could inspire me to get over this boring task ASAP.
3. Have a clear path:
Always be at 3 steps ahead of where you're currently at. This eliminates the time needed to stop at what you're doing and wonder what to do next, it also gives you a contingency plan to fall back to should what you're currently doing fall apart.
4. Always have something happening
There are only 24 hours a day- if we take the time necessary to sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, etc. and assuming we're working literally any other time we're not doing that- we'd get to a total of 9-10 hours of down time with 14-15 hours of work time.
If all our work is being done within this 14-15 hours, there are 9-10 hours being wasted NOT on work every single day! That adds up!
Allocate your tasks wisely so that things like Rendering are done in the down time where you personally cannot be doing anything. Render, upload, compile, export- all of those: do those OVERNIGHT!
5. Remove distractions
A task that takes 5 minutes of waiting could be enough motivation to go to something else for 5 minutes and come back, for me, that "something else" is Facebook. Unfortunately, I find that I get stuck on facebook for 25 minutes instead! That's 20 minutes wasted!
Find a way to block these tempations and distractions until you're 100% done with your work. Something I can recommend to Google Chrome users is the "Forest" extension that blocks sites like Facebook in 25 minute intervals to allow your brain to stay in that flow state and get more done!
6. Be a Sprinter, not a Marathon runner
If you have 30 days to do a task that takes 60 hours- Don't distribute 2 hours every day- finish those 60 hours ASAP. You could probably get that done within 3-4 days, leaving you with 27-26 days with nothing to do. Instead of doing "nothing" use this extra time to PERFECT your work. Not only does this mean you don't have to rush a deadline, you can also OVERDELIVER with quality as you've had plenty of extra time to touch it up.
7. Take the appropriate breaks
Overworking exists and it's important to know our limitations. That being said, our minds break far earlier than our bodies. We should stress our mind as much as possible and push ourselves to the absolute limit. Health and illness is not an excuse to get away from work unless it's something that truly inhibits working.
Remember that free time is earned and an illness or mental health does not magically grant you free time.
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