Four Power Hours Rule – How To Use It For Productivity?
Are you concerned about your hours of waste browsing YouTube videos, Facebook suggestions, Insta reels, TikTok videos, gaming content, and things that won’t allow you to pay attention to your work?
This primarily affects online workers, freelancers, and social media managers. The four power hours rule comes into play and helps in such situations.
My Personal Experience
It happened to me many times while I was working on a client’s Facebook or Instagram page. I just noticed a random funny clip in my suggestions feed. I clicked on it, and I spent more than 2 hours just browsing Facebook suggestions.
It once caused serious concern for me because I was not paying attention to my projects in the queue. As a result, I lost many worthy clients and faced project cancellations, bad reviews, and much more.
I usually keep 5 to 6 orders in the queue. These projects only take 3 to 4 hours of my daily routine. I started my career as a full-time freelancer and blogger four years ago.
I was fed up with its harmful impact on my whole work cycle. Once I calculated that I spend 6 hours daily browsing the internet without getting anything out of it.
Wasn’t This a Serious Problem?
Yes, It was. I had a few psychology books in my little library. So I picked “The Road Less Traveled” by Morgan Scott Peck. I started reading it to find some psychology hacks to get rid of procrastination.
It was probably the 6th page of the book where I found the title “Delaying Gratification”. M.S. Peck shared fantasies of his clients having procrastination problems. This subject and the whole book helped me a lot in enhancing my mind motivation and productivity skills.
We all know that the effects of procrastination are harmful. But, unfortunately, this is what most of us face all the way through.
What Are Four Power Hours?
The thought of four power hours is mind-blowing. Hundreds of social media sensations are ready to distract you in this digital era, and your productivity will decline to almost zero.
The same I experienced as outlined above. In such a situation, you miss your concentration and go through strange irritation and frustration.
You feel fatigued and get exhausted while doing any work. This all happens due to procrastination and delayed gratification.
If you struggle to get rid of this, the four power hours rule can ultimately help you. These hours are not specified; they can vary from person to person in different situations.
Why Are These Four Power Hours Important?
A common attribute in successful businessmen, entrepreneurs, and millionaires is excellent time management. Task scheduling is essential, but their accomplishments matter also.
Unfortunately, it is hard for many of us to focus on critical projects, areas, and specific things due to continuous distractions. The four power hours theory helps you in figuring out the appropriate solution for it.
Example
Assume that you unintentionally woke up at 4 a.m. and started your work; your productivity will increase three times.
Because there will be no WhatsApp messages popping up, significantly less distraction, and a quiet atmosphere around you. That day’s power hours can happen between 4 am to 8 am.
If you keep your phone aside and focus on work, you can wind up your whole day’s work in these four power hours, which is the best productivity hack.
You have the whole day ahead to meet friends, give time to family, shop, watch movies, browse the internet, and interact with social media.
In my case, “The Road Less Traveled” helped me a lot. I keep my cell phone on vibration for 24 hours. I have muted notifications from all social media apps. I put my phone on charge or in the drawer when I start my work.
Explanation of Four Power Hours Theory
Set Your Priorities
Most people get stuck in situations that they should or not do. In this confusion, they spend their worthy time and effort on useless or less important tasks. Even if you are doing all this in four power hours, it is an entire waste.
The first notion for your growth and productivity is rewinding, restructuring, and setting up priorities. Then, you can set this year’s goals to be accomplished, which will create a big difference.
This rule is also effective for good learning. For example, you have decided to master your marketing skills. Then, when you give four dedicated hours daily to this particular subject, you will feel the change in yourself and your command of the subject after a couple of months.
Division and Implementation
Being productive refers to the term result-oriented. It is not about just spending four hours of immense concentration and work; it is all about results.
The four hours can be ingested in one run, or you can divide them into two or three parts. You can focus on a specific task in a two-hour window early in the morning and the rest of two in the evening or night.
Just Get Started
In “The Road Less Traveled”, I read about a girl who had issues with her complex tasks. She had a habit of doing the easy tasks first and then the tough ones.
But in the end, she just got stuck in these challenging tasks and couldn’t finish them. Such delaying gratification yields nothing but anxiety.
She spent the most potent work hours on ordinary tasks, and she got exhausted when there were difficult ones, resulting in a psychological disorder.
The correct answer to this problem was to do challenging tasks earlier in your work schedule when you have the maximum energy level, then go for the easy ones.
One more thing I individually experienced was starting a problematic and complex task. It took a few minutes to find out the way, and then it was so easy to do—the thing you have to focus on is to get started.
Add More Power Hours
In the early morning, usually, your mind is sharp, and you possess more work strength, which reduces slowly. Four power hours are just for theoretical and conceptual purposes.
There is no standard limit to power hours. It may start with one and up to 8 or 10 hours a day.
Assume that you completed the ten distracted hours of work in four hours. What will be the growth if you double up your power hours? It means your growth and productivity will take flight.
Although it is not an easy task to do, adding a power hour weekly can work. For example, if you add one hour to your work, you will have four more extra power hours at the end of the month.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do You Focus When Procrastinating?
The four power hours theory is the best solution when someone is going through the severe effects of procrastination. One can manage the work easily and in very little time.
How Can I Be More Productive?
Productivity is not something sticking to work 24/7. Basically, it is referred to as smart work. You can enhance your productivity by following the below steps.
1. Focus on one task at a time
2. Do the most important work preferably
3. Stick to the 80/20 rule
4. Make a list of your distractions and reduce them gradually
5. Make short-term and long-term goals
6. Take a short break from work after some time
Why Do We Procrastinate?
Whenever we try to do work that seems difficult, challenging, and unpleasant we procrastinate. Our mind always encourages us to do easier things first. And we spend most of our energy on easy tasks.
When it comes to hard tasks we have already drained most of the energy, here starts the procrastination, the delaying gratification.
Conclusion
Power hour is simply converting an ordinary hour into a dedicated, focused, and extraordinary one. You can utilize your power hours to do demanding tasks that are difficult to accomplish in a routine.
Before implementing the four power hours rule, you need to sort out the peak working time—the issue with distracted hours is they did not pay off. They are mainly utilized to do high-value projects or tasks.
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