Productivity
7 Super Simple Ways To Increase Your Productivity
They are deceivingly easy but powerfully effective
There are many articles on the internet providing hacks on how you can be more productive.
What does productivity mean, anyway?
Being productive is making continuous efforts towards whatever you may be doing in life. Everything you do to make yourself a better person. It includes not only your productivity in terms of work but also in building a productive environment where you may be helping others.
In a journal published in the ACM Digital Library, researchers found six themes that characterize the productivity assessment — work product, time management, worker’s state, attitude toward work, impact & benefit, and compound task.
You are most productive when you pursue the task in front of you wholeheartedly, be it household chores, pursuing your hobbies, or learning new skills.
Productivity is not just about output, it’s about input with long-term benefits. The output may or may not show instantly depending upon the kind of action/activity and efforts but the input you put into any work can always be assessed that whether it will lead to some productivity or not.
“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” — Franz Kafka
Personal productivity is defined differently for different people because we have different goals and ambitions in life.
To me, productivity means being able to do more things in less time. What does it mean for you?
When I get things done more quickly, I create more free time to do the things I love like spending time with my family and playing with my dog.
Productivity allows me to enjoy my free time much more. I do not spend my free time worrying about what I still have left to do because I finish all my important tasks first.
Due to the fact that there are so many things that we need to get done each day, it may seem impossible to save time. Since we have 24 hours every day, we can’t “save” time but we can decide to invest our time differently.
My brother prefers the idea of the 8–8–8 daily hour distribution: 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of relaxation (including recreation and fun time).
It sounds good in theory, but for me, I usually spend more time working than relaxing. What does your sleep-work-fun daily distribution look like?
What I realize is that the more productive day I have, the more free time will I be able to create and the more I will enjoy my free time.
If you want to increase productivity and get better use of your time, you need to read, remember, and practice these seven super simple ways to increase your productivity.
7 Stupidly Simple Ways To Increase Your Productivity
We will make better use of our time if we plan our time in advance. That’s why the first step to increasing productivity is to create a schedule!
1. Create a Schedule
Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. — Tim Ferriss
If you have too many things to do, you can easily end up doing nothing because you don’t know where to start. The solution to this problem is to create a schedule!
Creating a schedule will make you more productive because:
- You will use your time more wisely and get more things done as a result of thinking, planning, and paying attention to the time you have available
- You will have a better overview of how you spend your time
- You can easily analyze how you use your time and more easily spot space for improvement
- You won’t waste your energy continually thinking about what you need to do and you will be more focused on things you are actually doing in each moment
- You will feel less stressed and finally free up your mind from remembering all of the things you need to do each day
I believe that all of the mentioned reasons are good enough for you to start creating a schedule!
I have prepared for you a Weekly Schedule Template. What you need to do is print it out and spend 10–20 minutes each morning planning your day. Do this first thing in the morning (before you open your emails and get stuck in your inbox).
Another thing that is extremely important when scheduling your tasks is to prioritize them.
If you can’t decide what the most important thing to do each day is, you can use this small trick. Imagine that you need to suddenly travel somewhere and that you only have time to finish a few tasks that day. What task would you finish in that case?
Usually, those tasks are the ones that are actually most important, and you should do them first thing in the day. If you finish with all of your important tasks in the morning, the rest of the day will be less stressful, you will feel much better and it will be much easier for you to finish other tasks.
2. Create a Fast Tempo
Sometimes, great things come from doing things quickly and not overthinking stuff. — Jamie Bell
The second thing that you must do to have productive days is to develop a fast way of doing things.
The only way to do things faster is to analyze activities that you are already doing each day and to think about how you can do the same things faster.
Can you make quicker decisions about what to wear each day? Can you shower a few minutes less? Can you clean your house more quickly? Maybe you can cook every other day and prepare meals ahead of time instead of cooking each meal every day?
President Barack Obama wears only blue or grey suits in order to cut down on non-vital decisions. MarkZuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, also only wears grey shirts for the same reason.To reduce decision fatigue and to be able to do things faster.
When you do things faster than usual, you create new energy and motivation and you become more productive and more efficient!
By constantly thinking about how you can do things faster and better, you will become a good time-manager and you will feel more self-confident, which will lead you to success in both private and business life.
3. Group Similar Tasks
Do not overthink things. Start with one task, finish it, then move on.
The third thing you can do to improve productivity is to group similar tasks!
There are multiple benefits to grouping similar tasks.
It takes a lot of energy to constantly switch between different tasks, so it’s a much better idea to concentrate on one thing, finish it and then do the next thing.
The hardest part of doing any task is usually to start doing it. That’s why it’s a good idea to do similar tasks. You’ve already started one task, so it will be easier to transition to the next.
For example, instead of managing your finances on different days, you can do everything at once (paying your bills, monthly subscriptions, etc).
Instead of buying food a few times a week, you can do all your shopping once a week.
Instead of constantly checking your email, Facebook, Twitter and daily news throughout the day, do all of it at the same time and then leave the rest of the day for more important things.
If you already know that you need to make several phone calls during the day, do them all at once. Do the same with the emails.
I noticed that some very successful business coaches get even more creative when it comes to the grouping tasks and they came up with the idea to create thematic days. For example, they have Finance Friday, Team Tuesday etc.
4. Review
Review your goals twice each day in order to be focused on achieving them. — Les Brown
Another important thing to consider when trying to increase productivity is to do daily reviews.
Every evening, do a quick review of the things that you’ve managed to get done for the day. What things did you do well? What can you do better for the next day?
Don’t judge yourself too hard if you didn’t manage to finish everything you’ve planned. Instead of being angry or frustrated because you didn’t do something, rather focus your energy on thinking about what you can do differently the next day.
By doing regular reviews and thinking about what you can do better the next day, you will significantly increase your productivity.
5. Exercise
The only bad workout is the one that did not happen.
Exercise not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude, and your mood.
With regular exercise, you will have more energy and better concentration. If you are focused and concentrated, you will be more productive.
It can be very hard to force yourself to exercise. If it is too hard for you to even think about exercising, you can decide to reward yourself every time you finish exercising. Then you switch your focus from thinking about a hard thing — exercise — to thinking about a nice thing — reward.
Another thing you can do to increase the chance that you will not miss your exercise is to join a gym and pay the subscription in advance.
For example, you could find a gym that it is as near as possible to the place where you live (so that you don’t have an excuse not to go) and you even pay long-term subscriptions in advance. That means that any time you don’t exercise, you are losing money.
Of course, you can also try to find an activity that you will enjoy doing.
Whenever it is possible I try to do activities which I enjoy doing and which I can do together with my friends.
6. Declutter
Happiness is a place between too little and too much.
— Finnish Proverb
You will be more productive if your house is clean if your working desk is organized and if your inbox is empty.
That is why you need to set aside time to declutter and organize your life.
And not only your life! An even more important thing, what many people are not doing, is to declutter your mind!
In 2005, the National Science Foundation published an article summarizing research on human thoughts per day. It was found that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.
How many of these thoughts are productive? According to research, 98% of your thoughts from today are exactly the same as your thoughts from yesterday.
Some people have up to 80% negative thoughts per day, and since our thoughts are a habit, it is very likely that a person who has negative thoughts today will have negative thoughts again tomorrow.
If you have negative thoughts or if you are thinking too much about the past or future, your thoughts are not productive.
The key to productivity is to be focused on the present moment; everything else is an illusion.
How we can do that?
One of the solutions is to meditate.
Many people live their life with the belief that they don’t have power over their thoughts. The good news is that you can learn how to control your thoughts. It can be very hard in the beginning, and it can take a lot of patience and practice.
What you can do is to practice meditation a few minutes per day. For example, you can find a quiet place, relax, close your eyes and try to sit in silence. Be aware of your thoughts and try to ignore them, especially those negative ones.
If it is too hard for you to ignore your thoughts, you can focus on your breathing. It can be hard to sit in the silence, but the benefit of this exercise is to become more aware of the present moment and to clean up (declutter) your mind from all unproductive thoughts.
If you are really interested in how to be focused on the present moment, you can learn more about a meditation technique called mindfulness.
7. Use a Timer
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
— John F. Kennedy
Another good trick to increase your productivity is to use a timer for your tasks.
The point of measuring time is to become more focused on the task you are working on and to get a better overview of how much time you spend on each task.
One interesting technique to measure time is called the Pomodoro technique. The principle of this simple technique is to work 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break.
These 25-minute intervals are known as “pomodori” (plural of the Italian word for tomato). After every four pomodori, you should take a 15-minute break.
These simple techniques can instantly increase your productivity.
The floor is all yours…
Now that you have finished reading these tips, choose at least 3 productivity tips from this article that you will apply.
What else can you do to increase productivity? Share your ideas in the comments field below!
Which of the above 7 methods are you going to adopt today?
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