10 things you can learn in 10 minutes that will change your life

You’re probably short on time reading this, and I don’t blame you. Life moves fast. It seems impossible to keep up with hundreds of tasks being thrown your way every day, especially at the office.

In fact, more than two-thirds of employees reported being overloaded at work, according to Cornerstone’s 2014 State of Workplace Productivity Report. And 84% think the overload won’t be letting up anytime soon — it’s increasing.

In light of this reality, you’re probably searching for the best productivity hacks the internet has to offer, but you don’t have a lot of time to apply them.

So here’s a solution: Learn one of these 10 things in the next 10 minutes, and you’ll be more productive for the rest of your life.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. The Pomodoro Technique

Time management is huge for productivity. I’ve found the Pomodoro technique to be one of the most effective ones. It requires you to design your daily tasks in 25-minute intervals, forcing you to be extremely focused. — Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster

2. How to improve your average

Take five minutes to look up Dr. Stan Beecham’s philosophy on elite minds, and then take the remaining five minutes to commit to improving your average. We tend to focus all our time on improving our peak performance while improving our average performance can have a much more dramatic impact on overall progress. — Douglas Hutchings, Picasolar

3. How to plan ahead

I learned this recently from the Stagen Leadership Academy. Weekly planning and setting appointments with myself for the following week (and then keeping those appointments) ensures I give my priorities the appropriate amount of attention. It’s so easy to get distracted by what everybody else needs. This methodology ensures I stay on target with my own projects. — Corey Blake, Round Table Companies

4. How to meditate

In 10 short minutes you could easily learn a meditation practice that you can take with you the rest of your life. Meditation helps calm your mind, ease stress, and bring clarity to your everyday life. My productivity increases whenever I meditate consistently and noticeably declines when I fall out of my routine. Watch a YouTube video or read a quick blog post on how to meditate. It’s easy. — Andrew Thomas, SkyBell Video Doorbel

5. Memorization techniques

If you think of your brain as a set of computer folders, then you can see that forgetting is not really possible. If you forget something, it’s either it wasn’t saved to begin with or you put it somewhere hard to retrieve. Concentration and recall are what makes memories. Focus in order to concentrate, and test yourself in order to recall. “Backspace” new info by using a pencil and eraser. — Cody McLain, SupportNinja

6. How to triple your reading speed

I read at least one book per week while driving, and I have a really short commute. How? Audiobook apps (like Audible’s) often have a feature where you can listen to a book at three times the normal speed. It only takes about 10 minutes for your brain to adjust, and then you’re good. — Jesse Lear, V.I.P. Waste Services, LLC

7. How to take responsibility

Too often people try to come up with reasons why they can’t get something done, why a project is over budget, how an accident happened, etc. Learning to take responsibility for your actions will make doing business much smoother. It’s easier to solve a problem when you aren’t spending a ton of time getting to the root of it. Take responsibility and move forward. — Drew Gurley, Redbird Advisors

8. How to organize critical versus important tasks

Piling things on your to-do lists feels productive. Eventually, though, the list gets too massive and all the tasks suffer, since you don’t have enough time and energy to allocate to each. While you can delegate, it’s easier to divide the mix of critical tasks (tasks that you need to do now to improve the business) and important tasks (tasks that you can do whenever to improve the business.) — Kenny Nguyen, Big Fish Presentations

9. Shoulder, wrist, and arm stretches

Putting in long hours typing at your desk is bound to lead to health problems if you don’t learn easy, quick stretches to counteract the strain. Simple exercises to prevent carpal-tunnel syndrome and back pain take less than 10 minutes to learn, but save you hundreds of hours you might have lost otherwise. Just five to 10 minutes a day is a good start to protecting your health and productivity. — Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

10. How to delegate time blocks

It is so easy to fall into the daily distractions, forcing you to play catch-up the next day. Time blocking is such a huge part of my day that keeps me on track. I schedule a time frame where I am responding to emails, and then I block the next hour for meetings. I would recommend everyone break time into segments. — Jayna Cooke, EVENTup

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