avatarC C Farley

Summary

The article provides productivity tips for maintaining motivation, including waking up earlier, creating to-do lists, managing time effectively, minimizing distractions, finding role models, and ensuring adequate sleep.

Abstract

The article titled "Productivity Hacks For Staying Motivated" offers insights into how one can efficiently manage their time to pursue personal interests amidst a busy schedule. The author emphasizes the importance of waking up earlier to capitalize on quiet hours for personal projects, such as writing. The use of a To-Do list and calendar is recommended to track deadlines and goals, with a personal anecdote highlighting the author's success in writing for Vocal Media. The article also suggests planning a week ahead to avoid last-minute rushes, minimizing distractions like television, and looking up to role models who inspire productivity and focus. The author advocates for consistent sleep patterns to ensure a refreshed start to the day and acknowledges the motivational impact of reading about successful writers on Medium. The piece concludes with a call to action for readers to subscribe and support the author's work.

Opinions

  • The author believes in the effectiveness of rising early to enhance productivity.
  • Creating a To-Do list is considered a key strategy for meeting deadlines and achieving goals.
  • Spreading out tasks over the week is recommended to avoid last-minute stress.
  • Minimizing distractions, such as avoiding television, is seen as crucial for focusing on personal projects.
  • Role models, especially successful Medium writers, are deemed essential for maintaining motivation and focus.
  • Adequate and consistent sleep is viewed as a prerequisite for a productive day.
  • The author values the Medium community for its supportive role in a writer's success.

Productivity Hacks For Staying Motivated

Find the time to do all the things you want to do, and more!

Photo by Fitsum Admasu on Unsplash

There are so many things to do and so little time to do it. If you are trying to juggle a career, family life, and other things, I am sure you find you don’t have time during your day to do the things you love: like writing, going to the gym, or going shopping for a much-needed vacation.

What I did that helped me a lot is do a few simple things to jumpstart my day.

  1. Get up earlier. If that means going to bed sooner, go for it. I find that I am able to get my writing projects completed when no one is around and things are quiet. I used to get up early for my regular day shift, but when I left that company to retire, I found that I was getting up later and later.

I soon realized that I got a lot of unfinished business due to the late start to my day. Each day, I made a mental effort to get up earlier by 20 minutes. After a few days, I kept rising earlier and earlier, til I am now able to get up as early as 6:30 am!

2. Create a To-Do list. I use a calendar and mark down things I need to be done by a certain date. This keeps me on track so that I don’t avoid missing out on deadlines for writing contests.

I also write for Vocal Media, which I found is a wonderful site for giving aspiring nonfiction writers and poets the opportunity to take part in writing challenges that pay out some cool prize money. I started writing poetry, thanks to the opportunities presented by Vocal Media. See my article here:

3. Spread Your Week And Manage Your Time.

By doing this, I am a week ahead with one of my online courses. I spent almost an entire day doing this course so that I would not have to speed rush the course at the last minute. Instead of going out with acquaintances one Sunday morning, I chose to stay home to work on the course for a few hours.

This allowed me to free up the rest of the week to do other things, like writing for Medium or playing my musical instrument, or doing other projects.

4. Minimize Distractions

I once talked to a classmate a few years ago, while taking a night school film course. He proudly told the class that he had his Youtube video go viral. I asked him how he found the time to make videos because he also had a busy life.

He told me something profound but it was something I knew intuitively. He didn’t have Television! Now I know for sure this would never work for our household. Some households require the distractions of Television to reduce the stresses of life. I made it a personal policy to only watch TV when I have finished all my projects. If there is a good movie that is on in the afternoon, I will not watch it, but choose to record the movie for later use.

5. Role Models.

Role models are people that help you stay on track to keep your dreams and goals alive. We are lucky because Medium has plenty of positive role models and great publications like this one, to keep you productive and focused.

I love to read about successful Medium writers because they are always free to give tips on how to be successful on this site. Even when I feel that no one will read my articles, Medium writers like David Perlmutter is always there to underline my stories and probably yours, too, and by doing so, helping me believe that my article is worthwhile. David, how do you find the time to do this and be productive with your other projects?

Reading about other successful writers keeps me motivated and focused on keeping my dreams alive. Which writers on Medium do you prefer to read?

Jenn Leach always has interesting articles and motives me with her viral video article and her success with other ventures, such as Medium and other income streams.

6. Get Productive Sleep.

If you don’t have enough sleep, you will wake up feeling tired and unproductive. Try to go to bed at the same time every day. My friend tells me she does housekeeping at one in the morning. Don’t do that!

Make sure you get enough sleep at night to wake up refreshed and ready to go!

That’s all I have today.

And here is a shout-out to Shereen Bingham Please check out her cat story here.

I truly hope you enjoyed this article.

If you missed my most recent story, get it here.

If you are on Medium, please subscribe to me via email here to get my latest articles.

I humbly ask for your support by following this publication, following me, or commenting and clapping. If you are new to Medium, please join here, and support writers like me make it as a writer. Thank you in advance.

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