Speaker 1: Welcome to before breakfast, a production of I heart radio.
Speaker 1: Good morning, this is Laura. Welcome to the before breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try the three hour rule. Schedule
Speaker 1: a three hour chunk of time on at least a
Speaker 1: few days per week to focus on your most important work.
Speaker 1: No meetings, no email, no phone calls, no notifications, no interruptions,
Speaker 1: just you and your most important task. I know it's
Speaker 1: not always possible. I know not all work allows for this,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it might and it might mean getting a
Speaker 1: lot done. Today's tip was suggested by a reader and
Speaker 1: I talked about it a bit in my latest book,
Speaker 1: tranquility by Tuesday, nine ways to calm the chaos make
Speaker 1: time for what matters. You could say that the three
Speaker 1: hour rule is the inverse of the two minute rule.
Speaker 1: This is the popular productivity guideline which states that if
Speaker 1: you could complete a task within two minutes, you should
Speaker 1: do it as soon as it comes up. The thinking
Speaker 1: is that it would take longer than two minutes to
Speaker 1: make a note of what you need to do and
Speaker 1: then return to the task later and complete it. So
Speaker 1: just get it done. And I do think there is
Speaker 1: some wisdom to the two minute rule. It's good to
Speaker 1: save time where we can for other things, but I
Speaker 1: find that this rule doesn't always work in practice. The
Speaker 1: problem is that it's easy to spend your whole work
Speaker 1: day doing two minute tasks. There seems to be an
Speaker 1: endless supply of them. After what feels like a day
Speaker 1: full of accomplishment of two minute tasks, you may realize
Speaker 1: that you haven't even touched your big projects. The three
Speaker 1: hour rule is a counterbalance to the two minute task.
Speaker 1: It ensures that you carve out time for what calnewport
Speaker 1: calls deep work first, before you make yourself available for
Speaker 1: the myriad demands on your time, even those that seem
Speaker 1: like you could get them done pretty quickly. So what
Speaker 1: this reader of mind did was start the day by
Speaker 1: scanning her email and calendar and then, at nine a
Speaker 1: m diving into her big task for the day. She
Speaker 1: would aim to be pretty close too, unreachable, phones silenced,
Speaker 1: in box closed and so forth. She would stay at
Speaker 1: it until noon. That's three hours. By lunch time she
Speaker 1: would generally have accomplished something pretty important, and then she
Speaker 1: could spend the afternoon attending meetings and handling routine tasks.
Speaker 1: The three hour rule allowed her to do the deep
Speaker 1: work that she needed to do and do all her
Speaker 1: shallow work instead of pitting one against the other. Now,
Speaker 1: I know not everyone has the autonomy to be unavailable
Speaker 1: for three hours every morning, and I also know not
Speaker 1: all work works like this. Health care providers, teachers, retail
Speaker 1: workers and others operate in an entirely different manner. But
Speaker 1: for those who are in information professions, consider that you
Speaker 1: have probably been unreachable for three hours at some point
Speaker 1: in your life, on a plane during a root canal.
Speaker 1: If your office kept humming along, then most likely people
Speaker 1: can learn to keep doing so. Even if three hours
Speaker 1: doesn't seem right, maybe you could do ninety minutes or
Speaker 1: maybe three hours twice a week if it helps. You
Speaker 1: can make exceptions for calls from Your Kids, school and
Speaker 1: your spouse, and maybe one designated work person for true
Speaker 1: work emergencies, but start from the assumption that your sole
Speaker 1: priority for the allotted time is the deep work that
Speaker 1: you've identified. Let your manager and your colleagues know what
Speaker 1: you're doing and share what you accomplish. That might help
Speaker 1: bring them along for the ride, because you were probably
Speaker 1: not hired to do two minute tasks, or at least
Speaker 1: not only two minute tasks. You were probably hired to
Speaker 1: do challenging projects that demand your deepest attention. So try
Speaker 1: the three hour rule and see what you can get
Speaker 1: done in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on twitter, facebook and Stagram at before breakfast pod.
Speaker 1: That's B e, the number four, then breakfast P O d.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at before breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at I heeart media DOT COM. That before breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart radio. For more podcasts from
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