10 Ways to Stay Productive Consistently
You’re struggling with the age-old problem for an ambitious and driven person. You don’t have enough time to get things done.
While you can’t increase the number of hours in your day, what you can do is make sure you use that time well. Here we’re going to go into 10 easy ways to stay productive consistently so you can start seeing growth.
1. Setting daily priorities
Setting daily priorities helps you identify and focus on what you need to work on, . Creating a 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) of the day helps you focus and put emphasis on those tasks which have priority over others. Instead of seeing all of your to-do’s, which can leave you feeling overwhelmed, your daily priorities gives you something to point to and say: If I just accomplish these tasks, I’ll know I had a productive day.
Take Action Now:
Set your 3 Most Important Tasks for tomorrow, tonight before you go to sleep.
2. Creating a plan
Have you ever been lost as a kid, or gotten lost while driving somewhere new? Do you remember how daunting and scary it was to try to find your way out? Well now imagine how much better you’d feel if you had a map to guide you to where you wanted to go.
This analogy is the same when it comes to your time and your goals. When you know what your 3 Most Important Tasks are but have no plan on how to accomplish them, you’re hoping you’ll find a way to accomplish those 3 MITs, like that child wandering around.
If you plan out your day and figure out how you’re going to spend your time (at least the time that you cancontrol), then you’re providing yourself that map. Do task 1 from 10am-12pm, Task 2 is going to be done at1–2pm, and Task 3 at 4:40pm.
When you create a plan for your day, you’re not hoping you’ll find your way … you’re setting yourself up for success.
Take Action:
Identify 1–3 tasks that you aim to accomplish tomorrow. Now find times when you’re going to work on those things.
3. Setting a Timer
Set a timer when you’re working so that you’ll remind yourself to take breaks. Not only will it remind you to take breaks frequently, it’ll also help prevent you from taking un-scheduled breaks, because you can trus tat once your break time comes, you’ll be alerted.
Setting a timer is almost like making a plan for when your breaks will happen. When you don’t think about how long you’re going to work before you take a break, it’s so much easier to choose to take that break now (which leads to that scroll-fest through instagram and facebook…)
Lots of people use the Pomodoro method-25 minutes work, 5 minutes break. I personally prefer a different method- 60 minutes work, 10 minutes break. I enjoy the longer stretch of focus time because that longer time helps me enter that zone of flow and really get the most out of that focused state of mind.
Take action:
Decide how long you want to work and break for. When it comes time tomorrow, just plug those numbers in your phone timer and get working! Don’t check your phone until your timer goes off!
4. Batching low brain-power tasks
Low brain-power tasks are those mundane, annoying things that don’t require much thinking or or focus, that have to get done. You probably wish you could skip emails too, but you can’t.
What you can do, instead of putting them off, is to batch them together so that you can get them done all at once. There’s nothing that sucks productivity and focus than switching tasks all the time. So don’t let your email (or whatever else) become a never-ending distraction!
Instead, park those distractions somewhere and go to them when you’re ready. For me, I check emails 3 times a day-I’ll start the day to see what emails I have, then I close that browser windowso I don’t even get the notifications when new emails come in. Then when I’m ready to check email again, I’ll open that window, answer all urgent emails, then close the window again.
Take Action:
Identify 1–3 things that are low-brain power tasks that distract you during your day. Decide how you’re going to batch those tasks together and how you’re going to eliminate the distraction when you’re focusing on other things.
5. Eat the Frog
Eating the frog is a popular time management technique where you do the most dreaded task first. The reason this strategy is so popular and works, is that
- You’ll know you’ve already accomplished something important first thing in the day — it’s a seriously great feeling
- You don’t have that feeling of dread weighing on your shoulders as you go through the rest of the day.
Eating the frog will make you feel confident, you know you can accomplish anything, and make each day go just a little more smoothly.
Take Action:
Identify the task that you are most dreading (yes, listen to that voice that goes ughh when you think about that task). Then, figure out when you’re going to do it, and commit to it!
6. Daily clean-up
Outer order inspires inner calm- a phrase coined by the bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. What that means is-a cluttered desk = cluttered mind. I’m sure you’ve heard of this before. To prevent your space from ever becoming overly cluttered (making you feel overwhelmed at just how long it’ll take you to fully clean up everything…) do a little bit each day.
If at the end of each day, you spend just 3 minutes putting your papers in a pile and throw out the old, no-longer-relevant notes, then you won’t be faced with that big pile of stuff on your desk.
Take Action:
Identify the main things that contribute to clutter in your workspace and take 5 minutes (you can set a timer) to do a tiny tidy tomorrow.
7. Put the phone away (alternatively: filter calls/texts/notifications)
I’ve always wondered how my friends studied with TV in the background, or constantly checked their phone when it buzzes while writing that paper. I remembered wondering… how do they get any focused work done?
Well, turns out they didn’t (well, more like things just took them way longer than it really had to).
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself-it’s so difficult to resist checking my phone when I see that notification bell pop up on my screen! I get it, so let’s change that.
Put your phone away when you’re doing work-I often put it in my desk drawer. Even turn on ‘do not disturb’ mode so that no notification sounds come through to you. Although, you may want to change your ‘do not disturb’ settings so that important contacts’ calls will still come through.
The saying: ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ has never been more true. When I put my phone away and work, it’s much easier to resist checking my notifications-because it’s not there to constantly remind me to check it!
Take Action:
Set up your do-not-disturb settings tonight. Now it’s ready for you to implement this tip tomorrow!
Originally published at https://wanderamylessly.com on July 26, 2020.
