To be productive means to get the results you want with less time and effort. When you’re trying to understand how to be productive, you’re really seeking a way to achieve your goals while having time to spend on what matters.
How can we become more productive and improve our time management skills to have more successful and enjoyable lives?
No matter how hard we try, we sometimes can’t help but get distracted by everything around us.
Here are some great productivity tips to help you get things done faster.
1. Plan Ahead
The stress of a busy work week is something we can all relate to. It’s the worst when you’re in bed on a Sunday night thinking about everything you have to do in the coming week.
However, if you plan ahead, you will feel more in control of your life.
If you plan ahead of time, you will be less stressed and more able to enjoy the present moment. You will also miss fewer meetings and forget to send fewer emails.
An effective plan helps you stay accountable.
If you’re not clear about what you need to do in a day, you’ll probably feel busy, but you won’t be productive.
If you want to be more productive and have a smoother life, start planning your days in advance, even the night before. You’ll get more done in less time and feel like your life is more worthwhile.
You should plan your day the night before to make the most of it.
2. Set realistic goals
We all have different goals that we want to achieve during our lifetimes. Some of us want to be wealthy, others want to be famous, and still others just want to be happy. Whatever our goals may be, we usually have to work hard to achieve them. Often, we have to sacrifice our time, energy, and resources to achieve our goals. Many of us go through life with one or more goals in mind. For some, wealth is the ultimate goal, while others may prioritize fame or happiness. Achieving these goals often requires significant effort and sacrifice.
Goals provide a general direction for life, as well as milestone achievements that bring satisfaction along the way. Once you reach your goals, you will feel a sense of accomplishment.
In 1980 the largest survey ever undertaken regarding the link between goal setting and productivity was carried out by researchers at the University of Maryland. Locke et al described in the abstract for the article:
Studies that have been both in a laboratory and in the field have shown that when people are learning or performing a task, they do better when they have specific, challenging goals rather than easy goals, goals to just do their best, or no goals at all.
The results in terms of the goal setting were outstanding and it went on to state:
The main way goals affect performance is by changing how much attention someone pays, how much effort they put in, and how much endurance they have. Additionally, goals can inspire people to come up with better strategies.
We can learn that it is beneficial to set goals and work towards achieving them early in life. Our lives will be more rewarding and substantial if we do this. Additionally, it is never too late to begin working towards goals.
However, the basic premise is the same. It is best to set goals using the SMART concept, which has a few variations, but the basic idea is the same.
S – specific, significant, stretching
M – measurable, meaningful, motivational
A – agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
R – realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
T – time-based, timely, tangible, trackable
Your goals should always be S.M.A.R.T.
It is important to be clear in what you want to learn, rather than having a general goal. Specifically, learn how to conduct a business meeting online, rather than just learning a new skill in general.
Be realistic in your goal setting by using resources that are available to you now.
You can’t achieve a goal that would take three years of full-time dedication in two years while working full-time and raising a family.
If you set easy goals for yourself, they are not really goals. You should see goals as a challenge that requires your time and effort to achieve.
Set a goal that is just beyond your current abilities. This will challenge you and help you to achieve more than you thought possible.
They also need to be important to you and something you really care about. The goals you set for yourself should give you a sense of achievement, and be something that is important to you and that you care about.
When you set goals, you will be more productive because you will be worried about reaching them. This will make you stay focused and consistent in your work.
3. Track and limit
Do you ever wonder how much time you spend on certain tasks while at work, and how long each task actually takes to finish? You might be surprised to find out how much time you’re wasting at work.
Although we might believe we are good at knowing how long we spend on tasks, research indicates that only a small minority of us are actually able to estimate time spent doing things accurately.
You can improve your time management by implementing a tracking system to monitor your tasks and the time they take to complete. This will help you understand if you are using your time effectively and efficiently, or if some tasks are taking up too much of your time.
Why is it important to track your time? Well, by doing so you can better understand where you’re getting distracted and spending too much time.
Identifying the things at work that repeatedly throw you off track can help you become more productive. Some of the examples given include meetings, interruptions, and unplanned tasks. If you can learn to recognize these patterns, you can make adjustments to your routine and hopefully achieve greater productivity.
If you track your time, you can see which parts of your workflow are taking a long time. You may be able to improve your workflow by automating some of the steps that are taking a long time.
Recognize if you’re someone who feels energized and ready to start the day as soon as you’ve had your morning coffee, or if you tend to be more productive in the afternoon.
If you start tracking the amount of time you spend working on tasks each day, it will be easier to identify which hours you are the most productive.
This means you will be able to better control how you use your time and how much energy you put into each task.
Work that requires deeper focus can be done when you’re feeling most productive, and other tasks that don’t take as much energy can be done at another time.
4. Be proactive, not reactive
Reactive people do what they’re told and don’t take initiative.
Proactive implies that you are always ahead and do not need to be told what to do.
Proactive people take action and don’t wait for things to happen. They make things happen. Reactive people wait for things to happen and then take action.
To-do lists don’t work. Calendars are your friend. You need to be scheduling time for thinking. You need to remember three main things to become more proactive.
- Ask yourself what is likely to happen and make sure you have a way to deal with it before it happens.
- See the big picture and implement the necessary steps to take ahead of time.
- Be on top of your game and make sure your energy is too. Doing something you love helps with being proactive as you will genuinely want to be the best at what you do.
5. Do the hardest thing first
When it comes to making a to-do list for the day, the hardest question is determining where to start, according to Hive’s CEO John Furneaux. He suggests that when you come to work in the morning, you should start with the task that you least enjoy.
The best time to focus on difficult tasks is early in the day when you have the most energy and the least distractions.
It’s also good to start your day by tackling your hardest task first.
If you want to stick to your routine, cut out all distractions. This means no checking email, your phone, or social media until you’ve completed the hardest task of the day.
6. Review your week every Friday
Some people go to bed at night with a lot of thoughts rushing through their minds. They hardly have any time to process what they have just done because they are stressed out about what is ahead of them.
Elaborating on his productivity quote, Farquhar says he sets aside a block of time each week to sit down and go over the previous week so he can answer three crucial questions:
1. Did I achieve what I wanted to achieve?
2. Did I need to be there for everything I attended?
3. Could I have achieved the same in a shorter timeframe?
This is a powerful way to figure out if you are using your time in a productive way.
7. Identify your most productive time of day
Most people have a time of day when they are more focused and creative than usual. For some people it is in the morning, for others it might be after lunch or in the evening.
According to Smith, he is most productive in the morning and early afternoon.
This means that he has started to plan his meetings for later on in the day, so that they do not take away from his most productive time.
He usually skips lunch so that he can get more work done without any distractions.
He also schedules and prioritizes so that the tasks requiring the most attention and creativity are placed near the start of his day when he has the most capacity to work on and complete them.
8. Start with just 5 minutes
Procrastination can prevent you from being productive, and we have all done it at some point in time.
Systrom states that he fights procrastination by vowing to do five minutes of whatever he is avoiding. However, by the end of the five minutes, he usually ends up sitting and doing the entire thing.
It is better to take action than to do nothing. This is because it is often difficult to get started on something, but once you start taking action it becomes easier.
In many cases, it is more beneficial to do something immediately rather than wait, as this can prevent additional work from accumulating in the future. For example, if there are dirty dishes in the sink, it is better to wash them right away instead of letting them pile up.
9. Understand your priorities
Vanderkam’s research shows that most people have more leisure time than they think they do—it’s just that they don’t use it effectively. The biggest takeaway from Laura Vanderkam’s book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think is that most people have more leisure time than they think they do, but they don’t use it effectively.
She states that it is not the amount of time you have that matters, rather it is how you elect to use that time.
When you have this mindset, you are in control of your day and your life. This empowers you to take control of your life and make the decisions that are best for you. You no longer have to follow someone else’s schedule or dictates. You get to make the decisions that work best for you and your life.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything you have to do, focus on your top priorities and do those first. The other things can wait.
10. Set boundaries
You know the feeling: you sit down to start your to-do list for the day, but then find yourself getting sidetracked by answering questions and random messages on slack for hours.
Before you know it, it’s lunch time, and you’ve been picking up and dropping so many different tasks that you don’t know where to focus next.
It’s frustrating when you haven’t even started your own to-do list yet.
Karen Edgar reduced unnecessary interruptions and distractions by setting boundaries with her coworkers from the start.
Do you want to set aside certain hours for your own tasks? Should people come to you with questions during a specific window of time?
If you want to be more productive, you should set some boundaries and communicate them to people effectively. This will help manage expectations and improve your productivity.
11. Isolate yourself from distractions
If this has happened to you, you’re not alone. Have you ever had your concentration interrupted by friends messaging you on Facebook or by emails being synchronized to your phone? If you have, you’re not the only one.
When you’re intensely focused on something and get distracted by things that don’t require your attention right away, it can disrupt your focus seriously.
McKeever said that she puts her email and social media notifications on mute whenever she needs to spend a few minutes (or a few hours) working on a project. She has no chance of being distracted by them if she isn’t receiving notifications.
This is a suggestion that you could probably follow with great success, especially given the amount of things that compete for our attention every day. Your email probably doesn’t need to be dealt with right away, and neither does anything else that wasn’t scheduled for the next 1-2 hours.