Productivity is about achieving maximum output, getting Stuff done, and not wasting any time. And the output and transformation that you experience as a result of your increased productivity is a lagging indicator based on the repetition of doing the steps we’ll talk about in this article, day in and day out.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a working professional or starting a business, productivity will play an important role in your ability to reach new levels.
How often do you look back at your progress for the day or even the week, or even worse the year and you wonder where all the time and went and realized that you didn’t get anything done. Well, you’re not alone as this seems to plague a lot of people.
Almost 5 years ago, I had to make a change. I was working my 9-5 while, juggling a family and starting side businesses to make extra money. I had to find ways to maximize my output if I wanted to achieve my financial goals in life. I was being pulled in so many directions, that if I didn’t find ways to be more productive, then something would have to give.
How can I be more productive?
There is no hack or shortcut to be more productive, it will ultimately come down to creating new habits, that we can implement to try to be better, each day. By executing on the daily habits every day, your output will compound on itself, and you’ll see same amazing results when you review your progress.
So lets jump right into this, here are some productivity tips that, If applied, can not only increase your output but the results can even spill over into other parts of life.
And well break this down into the 3 pillars of productivity.
The first thing we want to do is adjust some habits that may not be serving us well. So let’s start with the most obvious one and that’s.
- Habits
- Health & wellness
- Apps & tools
Habits
Remove Distractions
The biggest thief of your productivity is going to be distractions. You will need to eliminate anything that stops you from being productive. We all know that social media is stealing a lot of people’s attention. I’m not saying stop it completely, but set a time in the day, where you put a time limit, like 10 or 15 mins to spend time on social media. Also, what I do is turn off notifications on my computer and mobile devices during peak focus hours, which we’ll talk about a bit later.
The next habit we should stop doing to increase productivity and that’s.
We have been programmed to believe that multitasking is a good thing. When it comes to productivity, it can have the exact opposite effect of what you may think.
We all have a limited amount of cognitive bandwidth and your ability to get things done, efficiently, will depends on how well you can focus on one thing at a time.
will lead to more mistakes and less creativity and productivity. Just because you’re moving fast and juggling multiple things at once, doesn’t mean its optimal for the end result of those actions.
According to a neuroscience professor by the name of Earl Miller, when you toggle back and forth between tasks, the neural networks of your brain must backtrack to figure out where they left off and then reconfigure.
The next habit worth adopting to increase productivity is.
This one is huge for me, now I know not everyone will have the ability to implement this right away, but you can start working towards it. I personally delegate everything that is a simple repetitive task to my virtual assistant.
Look at the repetitive things you are doing every day and see how you can assign those tasks to someone else. Obviously if you are working a job, then this may not always be an option. But if you can apply it to your situation then it is an absolute game changer.
The more you delegate the more time you get back to focusing on high level things, that can make a significant impact on your finances and life in general.
The way we set it up, is by our next habit and its…
When you realize that you are doing something repeatedly, start documenting the process on how you can get it done step by step to completion.
There’s an app I use to get this done which we’ll talk more about when we get to that section.
But ultimately this process is what you give to your assistant or VA to follow to get the tasks done that you may not have time to do, So, that you can focus on those bigger items that need your attention.
The next habit that’s helps me stay productive is.
I organize my day, by difficulty. So, what I do is organize my day into 2 sections. 6am to 12pm i’ll focus on only the most complex and hardest issues that need my attention. During this time, I am 100% hyper focused, notifications are turned off, no phone calls or texts.
And from 12 pm to 4 pm, ill focus on the lighter stuff, that may not need as much mental energy. This would be like recording these videos, meetings, emails and taking calls. From around 4 -7 Pm I start focusing on what leads us into our next section of productivity and that’s.
Health & Wellness
There’s a few that I feel is worth mentioning. We know that without your health, it would be very difficult to be productive. Which would put this section at the top of the list of things to do to ensure productivity.
Drink Water – during the day I carry a jug of water, and it shows me how much I’ve drank, and I have it marked every hour, to make sure that I’m drinking plenty of water throughout the day, and not trying to catch up at the very end.
And this is important because water has been proven to help by improving attention, concentration, and short-term memory.
Next, we want to.
Eat Clean and exercise – I do this Monday through Friday, and it helps with my energy and overall health. When you feel good, you simply work better. Certain foods can make you feel sluggish and weighted down. It’s important to set yourself up for success and follow a clean eating and exercise schedule. I won’t stay on this topic too much as I’m sure you all know this already.
Sleep– is very important in your cognitive health. The amount of sleep you get can effect your attention and concentration. Sleep also has a major effect on your memory, problem-solving skills, and creativity.
This is an epidemic now a days, it’s important to find a baseline for your emotions and regulate your needs to chase a hit of dopamine. This can be social media, alcohol, substances and even food. It’s the pleasure-seeking system that can be detrimental to your ability to remain productive.
The reward part in your brain releases dopamine in response to pleasurable experiences, which is also linked to motivation. It would be helpful if you could rewire yourself to feel those hits of dopamine when you did more productive activities vs things that steal your attention away.
In these instances, become self-aware and take physical action when you see that its affecting you. So, for example, if social media is a dopamine hit for you, when you find yourself wanting to get on it and catch yourself mindlessly scrolling, lock your screen and force yourself to put it faced down and get back to business.
The next section to the 3 pillars of productivity is.
Apps and tools
I wanted to put this last, because everything else before this is based on actions, we should take ourselves and be accountable for. The tools and apps will simply help magnify what we are already doing to be productive. So here are some of the apps and tools I use, not only in my business but life in general.
Slack
Slack is basically a messaging app that connects the people on your team with information that is needed. So, you can add anyone to your slack channel and communicate directly or in groups. You can easily share documents, tables, and most importantly you can use it to automate some of your daily tasks by using it with.
Zapier
Zapier lets you connect all your apps into automated workflows. This allows everything to communicate together and gives you control on automating almost anything.
Airtable
Airtable which a CRM that I use, and Google Calendar and google drive.
I house all my files and folders in google drive. This way if I even needed to quickly share a file, I can access online and send it over via slack.
To document the processes and systems, I use a app called scribe. This basically lets you turn any process into a step-by-step guide and then allows you to share it as a link in slack or as a downloadable pdf.
So, if you find yourself doing a repetitive task, you can use this app to record each click, screen and add detailed instructions as well. You can then assign this to a VA and buy yourself more time to be productive in ways that will serve you even better.
There’s another way to achieve absolute hyper focus and was coined the term monk mode.
This is where you stop everything that is taking away from your mental focus and mindfulness.
It’s the deliberate elimination or scaling back of social interactions, dating, unhealthy habits, and time-wasting activities with the purpose of focusing solely on a self-development goal.
