The 4:1 Week — A routine for high productivity
Summary
She highlights that famously gifted and creative people such as Freud and Beethoven optimised and structured their daily lives to ensure success (another article adds Einstein, Darwin and Stephen Hawking among others to the list). To highlight a couple; Ken Brokaw (writing for Forbes) discusses the advantages of a strong morning routine, and Murray Newlands gives five reasons to keep a consistent schedule in this HuffPost article. In the example of the sales team, a supporting activity might be ensuring that all records in the CRM system are well-maintained and accurate — undoubtedly an important task but with definite potential to divert attention from clients. Setting aside one day of the week specifically to deal with smaller, ad hoc tasks that would otherwise continuously interrupt progress on primary activities has a number of benefits that will ultimately lead to a more productive team. In order to ensure that timescales are compatible with the 4:1 routine, you may find it beneficial to break down larger tasks into smaller units of work that can be scheduled individually.
