Distributed to Productivity

How I Structure My Life for Maximum Productivity

It’s easier said than done, but the road to success isn’t an easy one

There are 24 hours in a day, 18 if you get at least six hours of sleep, which then narrow down to about 17, if you subtract the hour a day the average person spends eating.

As a teenager, I always struggled with time management. Now, between University, my part time job and the usual obligations of a 22 year old, balance and organisation are of utmost importance — this is why I try to make every hour count.

Don’t get me wrong, 17 hours can be plenty, but once you factor in work, chores and time wasting activities, such as liking photos of kittens on Instagram or binge watching the latest tv show on Netflix, you are left with little to no time available to work on yourself, learn new skills or develop your passion — in the long run, only the latter will allow you to improve and become the best version of yourself that you can be.

If there’s one thing these past two months in lockdown have taught me, it’s that no matter how much free time you have, it will never be enough unless you use it well.

British historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson puts it this way:

“It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

This is better known as “Parkinson’s Law”. You can find more about it here — in summary, it means that if you have x amount of time to complete a task, you will most likely utilise all the time available, even if the task could’ve been completed much sooner.

This is why I’d like to share with you 4 tips that might help you stop wasting your valuable time, so that you can take full advantage of your 17-hour day:

1. Create a schedule

If there’s only one thing you can take away from this article, let it be this: plan ahead.

This may vary according to your needs and lifestyle, but whether you can plan two weeks ahead, one week ahead or even only one day ahead, do it. I personally stick to one day. It doesn’t take much time: set aside 5/10 minutes every night, before going to bed, and lay down a schedule for the following day.

Try to include everything you have to and want to do, while being as realistic as possible — at the end of the day, it’s much better to have a short completed to-do list than a long half-finished one.

Planning ahead is great for two main reasons: not only does it massively improve organisation and time management, but by writing everything down you also have a visual representation of every task for that day, allowing your mind to free up some space and focus on what really matters. This leads me to my following point.

2. Write things down

Whether it is on your phone or with pen and paper, freeing your mind from ideas or recurring thoughts that you may get throughout the day will massively improve your productivity.

Having a clear headspace is crucial if you want to be as efficient and effective as possible — writing things down allows your brain to declutter and free up space for more important tasks.

This is in part why creating and laying down a schedule is so important, you don’t have to keep thinking about what you have to do if it is already written down somewhere.

3. Sleeping is crucial

As I said in the beginning of this article, sleeping takes a good chunk of time out of our day. It might seem counter-intuitive since while you’re asleep you’re not being productive, but as I’m sure you all know, getting enough hours of sleep every night is not only good, it’s necessary.

Whether it be 6 or 8 hours, getting enough rest is crucial if you want to perform to the best of your abilities the following day.

This might seem obvious, but more often than not people neglect sleep in order to do as much work as possible, not considering the long term health effects it has.

4. Stick to your schedule

Again, something that seems extremely obvious but often gets ignored. Having a schedule is the most important thing you can do when it comes to good time management, but it becomes useless if you don’t stick to it.

We often get a sense of achievement just by writing down a to-do list for the following day, which can have a positive effect on our motivation, but it can also hinder it — once part of the job is done, often times we end up neglecting the remainder of it, or part of it, which in this case is completing the tasks themselves.

Since life can’t be all about productivity, efficiency and work, something that will help you stick to your schedule is planning out off time or maybe even some off days here and there. As I said, sleep and rest are crucial, so don’t forget to take some time off — by putting it on your schedule, you are able to rest as needed while staying on track.

These 4 tips have had a massive impact in my life when it comes to performing well, but I find that they all are held together by what one may call long term goals.

Defining at least general long term objectives is extremely important, they are the binding glue to any productivity system, since they give you a sense of direction and keep you motivated to actually get things done.

Hoping that you find at least some of these tips useful, I’d like to leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

“You only get 24 hours in a day. We all only get 24 hours in a day. It’s what we do with it that makes the difference.”

- Eric Thomas