Being more productive is often thought of as a complex system that few ever master. But, In my opinion it's often much simpler then most of other blog posts portray it to be. Instead of giving you the top 10, 20, 30 ways of being more productive, I simplified it to just 4 easy ways to get the most out of your time.
Some seem pretty obvious like placing your phone on silent and keeping track of your tasks and how long it takes to complete. While others may seem counter intuitive like spending more time sleeping. If you follow these simple methods I’m confident you will be more productive.
Eliminating Distractions
The absolute most obvious way to improve your productivity is removing things that will distract you when your in middle of a task. Such as placing your phone on silent and going into settings and disabling notifications from all apps except a few of your choosing.
Often we download apps that randomly notify you of things that are really not important or even interesting. Apps are built with knowing when we haven't used the app in a while and notify us to spend more time on the app. Preventing notifications from all except a few apps will help minimize random distractions.
Another way to prevent distractions is preparation. Meaning take time before you begin work to make sure you have what you need like water and/or coffee, your laptop, maybe a pen…etc.
Also cleaning off your desk, keeping minimalist approach to your workspace by having only the essentials. Can help keep your mind clear and uncluttered with things that might distract you.
Going through your schedule can help you determine what is most important and what you plan on accomplishing that day. So when you finish a task you already know what is next for you to do.
Also, go to the bathroom if you think in the next few minutes you'll likely have to go. I say this so you understand that after you prepare and sit down at your desk to begin work, nothing except for an absolute emergency should break your focus and concentration.
The most vital part of your day is the first hour or two, since your brain is most alert in that time frame. Advice from Robin Sharma “devote the first 90 minutes of your work day to the one best opportunity in your life”. So don't let your mornings go to waste.
Another way eliminating distractions is to create a spreadsheet and at the top, add columns for all the ways you get distracted. Such as, social media, chatting with coworkers, randomly browsing the web, checking your phone… etc. Tally up every time you catch your self being distracted.
To get more out of it besides seeing how often you get distracted, create a journal entry with the reason why you got distracted. Like, was it because of a notifications, or was it you feeling anxious. Understanding why you personally get distracted is a great way to identify bad habits that hurt your productivity.
Creating Goals & Tasks
If your like most people you probably think goals and tasks are the same thing but there not. Goals are large things that you want to achieve and tasks are the smaller things you can do to achieve them.
I mention this because a lot of people create to-do list like it's a giant collection of goals and tasks. With most eventually abandoning the list all together, because staring at a large never ending to-do list is stressing.
Sit down and write out only 2 or 3 goals you want to accomplish. Focus on those that are most important to you and would have the biggest impact on your life. Next write out all the things you have to do to complete that goal.
If you don't already have an app in mind to use I recommend trying out Notion or To Do List by Splend Apps.
Keep a list of all the tasks for each goal separate from you daily task list. This will greatly reduce stress! Next, in the morning during your preparation time, go through your task list and pick only a small handful of task that your confident you can complete that day. But, will also have the biggest impact on completing your goal.
Remember if you complete your to-do list early, you can always add another if you have time but this method will help you feel more accomplished, reducing stress and overall keep you moving forward.
Managing how you handle your goals and tasks helps you stay productive when things you want to accomplish seem large and overwhelming. Being more productive really revolves around the concept mindfulness. Being mindful of why certain goals and tasks stress you out often leads you to realizing that what your trying to achieve needs to be split into smaller pieces.
Time Tracking
Keeping track of how you use your time is a valuable way measuring your productivity. Tracking your time can be both the time you spend working on a task and/or the time you spend distracted.
One method that helps manage this is the Pomodoro Technique. Which was created by the developer, entrepreneur, and author Francesco Cirillo. The method has 5 steps:
- Pick a task to work on
- Set stopwatch for 25 minutes
- With all your focus and attention work till stopwatch goes off
- Take 5 minute break
- After every 4 Pomodoros take a 15 – 30 minute break
I would recommend that you add a 6th step, to record how many Pomodoros you complete in a day. In the beginning you'll find your self only getting a few done. Even though you might have been working a whole 8 hours.
Reason for this discrepancy is that you don't realize the time you spend distracted and or just doing things not related to current tasks. That time adds up, through the day. So when your using the Pomodoro technique you have a much more accurate picture of how long you actually spend working.
Another strategy of tracking the time you spend working is either to use a modified version of the Pomodoro technique with varying times or you can just have an active timer running while you work and stop it when you have to take a break. This can give you a better picture for how much you time you spend working vs time spent on break but lacks the motivational aspect of the Pomodoro technique. If you haven't really tried either I recommend trying both and picking the one that works best for you.
Getting Enough Sleep
Yes, you read that correctly. Getting enough sleep is absolutely vital for productivity. Which may seem counteractive considering that you hear people saying that the greats barely slept and worked longer hours with pure focus and determination. Sorry to say this is not true, it's like how older generations tell younger generations that they “ran uphill both ways through a blizzard to get to school…”.
Reality is you need good quality sleep in order to get more done. When your tired you make bad decisions that can lead you to making mistakes that end up costing you more time to complete a task and/or goal. Plus when your tired your attention to detail is hard maintain, leading to even more mistakes. There was a study done of 4,188 U.S. workers found "significantly worse productivity, performance, and safety outcomes".
Now I can't tell you how much sleep exactly you should get. But you can determine this for yourself by tracking the time you go to bed and the time you wake up naturally, and you feel well rested. Some people that might be 6 hours and for some that might be more then 8 hours.
Just make sure when determining how much sleep you need, that you don't consume to much caffeine late in the day or drink any alcohol since this can affect the quality of sleep you get. Which quality sleep is actually more important then how much sleep you get, according to this study. If your wondering what is quality sleep, it's the time you spend in the deepest part of sleep REM. If you don't get any REM sleep, your unlikely to feel well rested.
In the end to be more productive is simple. Remove and prevent distractions, define clear goals and break into small tasks to do daily, track the time you spend working them and lastly make sure to get enough quality sleep.