LIGJET E BIZNESIT
If you’re asking yourself how to be productive, you’re not alone. Most of us aren’t always very productive people. While many have started working from home, you may feel there are many more distractions throughout the day, especially with how social media is constantly trying to grab our attention.
You might think you should be able to increase your productivity within a day. Getting more out of your day can be challenging, just as it is to make any change in your life, especially when that change requires you to put in more effort.
The following 10 productivity tips may help you become more productive and efficient.
Create Manageable To-Do Lists
Trying to keep track of everything you need to do in your head is distracting, and according to a 2011 study, it can actually reduce your chances of accomplishing everything. Instead, writing your to-do list ahead of time can help you better organize your weeks and days and prevent you from wasting time and focus.
Plus, there’s something inherently satisfying about checking off tasks. But that doesn’t mean you should try to fit your whole list into one day.
As life and career coach Lisa Petsinis says, “Resist the urge to create a massive daily to-do list, as this often leads to frustration and guilt. It’s more rewarding to start with high-value activities and then add a few ‘bonuses’ if you have time.”
Break Up Your Day
Working to break down your goals each day can make what seems like a mountain of tasks much more manageable. Time spent making the rest of your day more efficient is time well spent and will pay off in the long run.
Break down what needs to be done each day and set when you’ll do each task. Many people have used the Pomodoro Technique to help them stay focused on specific tasks. This technique requires you to choose a task to complete and focus for 25 full minutes. After the 25 minutes are up, you can take a break and move on to the next task.
This type of time management is the right mix of effort and order. The idea is to have a starting point for a full and certain plan, not necessarily to execute it perfectly.
Focus and Prioritize One Task at a Time
Hopefully, creating and breaking down your lists will help you prioritize the important tasks you have at hand. You can also try the Eisenhower Matrix, a productivity technique designed to help you prioritize tasks rather than assigning the same sense of urgency to everything.
Eisenhower consists of four quadrants:
- Urgent and important tasks that need to be done ASAP
- Not urgent, but important tasks that need to be scheduled for later
- Urgent tasks that can be delegated to others
- Not urgent or important tasks that can be completely removed from your to-do list.
The goal is to identify what really matters and act on that knowledge.
“There’s this perception that doing lots of things makes you productive, but the opposite is true,” explains Success and Leadership Coach Christine Hourd. “Using prioritizing tools like the Urgent-Important Matrix to decide on the one task you need to focus on for a set period will result in increased productivity. Then, with the help of boundaries, you’ll feel more accomplished by the end of the day.”
Identify and Leverage Your Productive Hours
We’re all familiar with the concept of being a night person vs. a morning person.
Each of us has hours during the day when we are more productive, awake, and focused than at other times. Identifying these critical hours and using them for maximum effect will make a big difference in your overall productivity and energy levels each day.
Systematize Your Day
Create systems that work for you. For example, if you need a specific time for fresh air, plan a walk into your schedule.
You don’t have to run your life on a bootcamp-style schedule. It’s impossible to maintain maximum productivity all the time, but having some structure to organize the chaos of your day can make a huge difference.
Systems don’t need to work perfectly and won’t make everything easy, but they offer consistency and a framework to accomplish productive tasks.
Take Breaks and Reward Yourself
Don’t be afraid to take breaks, but always stay on plan. You’ll be able to stay focused better if you have pre-planned breaks and rewards. A break without an end in sight could turn into a break that never ends or at least lasts much longer than necessary.
Use breaks and rewards proactively instead of reactively. This might require some trial and error, but make breaks and rewards part of your daily systems.
Plan to take a 20-minute break after that morning rush, then plan exactly what you’ll do next and when you should start so that you stay on schedule for the next break.
Take Care of Yourself
No one likes working when they’re tired. It’s not a new idea that we become less productive when we’re fatigued, but this doesn’t stop us from disrupting our sleep schedules and eating poorly in search of more time.
Working for one hour with energy and focus is productive; working for two hours while exhausted is just miserable.
Don’t Wait for Inspiration
Don’t wait to be inspired to start whatever you want to do. Chances are, if you ever get inspired to do something, it’ll be from starting and doing it.
Waiting to be inspired enough to begin something just leads to distractions and time wasted. It’s always better to work to get things done efficiently and effectively rather than waiting for the “right” time.
Break Down Tasks
Take large tasks and break them down into smaller, more manageable steps. People are goal-oriented, so if your task is too large, you won’t ever get it done because of how far away the result feels. Create small goals that focus on the tasks at hand with small rewards to keep you moving in the right direction.
Just Start
This is the hardest one because moving from doing one thing to doing another is much easier than going from doing nothing to doing something.
This is also the most important tip of all, because once you start, you’ll find out what works best for you. One of the few things that every large or small task has in common is that someone, at some point, has to sit down and begin. (Yourtango)
