I quite often wake up in the morning feeling overwhelmed, and I know I'm not the only one. I immediately start thinking about what lies ahead and how much I have to do. But while my life is very busy, I'm also very good at procrastinating, and I put off even the simplest tasks, only to be surprised by how little time they actually take.
One person who knows how to be more productive is success coach and bestselling author Michael Heppell. He has a simple daily exercise to get every day off to a good start. It's called a '17-minute sprint' - and fortunately for us, it's not the kind of sprint that requires running shoes.
The idea of this sprint is to combine urgency with productivity to help complete tasks you're trying to avoid. You set a timer and go full steam ahead during this limited window. It could be anything from emptying the dishwasher to making a phone call, applying for a job, tidying your office, or writing an email.
"It's a quirky length of time. It's not 15 minutes, it's not half an hour, it's 17 minutes," he explained on a recent episode of This Morning with hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard. "So immediately, your brain is going, 'Oh, that's a bit weird, that's a bit unusual'."
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While he doesn’t explain how he decided on 17 as the magic number for productivity, he says that it's just enough time to get "into the groove" of what you're doing, so by the time the 17 minutes are up, you want to keep going.
According to a recent survey, 76% of women report feeling tired in the morning, compared to just under 60% of men. If you do have to get up and moving, this technique is certainly worth trying.
Michael has worked with Davina McCall and Sara Cox, who has reportedly worked with the coach since 2011 but recently thanked him for helping boost her confidence ahead of her new role as Radio 2's weekday breakfast host.
In the segment, Cat also asked Michael his opinion on to-do lists as a productivity tool. Many people write themselves lists but find they create more stress than relief - and Michael tends to avoid them.
"In the morning, you write 25 things. You put a load of things on there that don't need to be on there. You do the easiest ones first. You even put a couple on that you've already done and put a little tick next to them to make yourself feel good. Then, you get to the end of the day and beat yourself up because you haven't done it," he says.
Instead, the expert suggests writing a 'must-do' list, which includes the five most important tasks. "Not the five most urgent - the most important," he explains, using examples of calling family or exercising. "If you only do three of them, great news."
