How To Be Productive – 7 Simple Ways To Step It Up A Notch
Want to know how to be productive? Here are 7 simple ways to step it up a notch and be more productive every single day.
Let’s chat about how to be productive.
I want to start by sharing one of my favorite quotes about productivity by Paul J. Meyer who said:
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.
Many of us think the thing that gets in our way the most is a lack of time.
But the truth is time is constant that exists exactly as it does.
Everyone is limited to 24 hours each day – 60 minutes in each hour and 60 seconds in each minute.
To say you don’t have time is a pretty crappy excuse because ALL YOU HAVE IS TIME.
Only you can make the most of the time you have each day.
So ask yourself now: how well do you use your time?
How much do you accomplish each day?
Do you waste it or use it wisely?
I want you to imagine now how your life would transform if you were significantly more productive.
If you worked smarter, not just harder.
If you focused on being productive instead of just busy.
How would that affect your bank account and your life overall?
The great news is the power to be more productive is within your grasp:
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 1 – Know your goals.
It’s hard to be productive if you’re not 100% clear on your objective.
That means you really need to know what you’re trying to accomplish over the next hour, day, week, month, year, or even several years out.
What’s your plan?
Remember success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.
Each time you decide how you’re going to spend your time, you’re either making progress toward something important or you’re not.
Have you made the choice to use your time wisely?
And if you ARE making progress, are you sure you’re making progress in the right direction?
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 2 – Have a plan.
Try a little experiment.
For the next week, avoid going to bed until you’ve made a fairly detailed plan of what you’re going to do the next day.
I want you to plan out your day instead of waking up in the morning and trying to figure out what you want to do just randomly.
Give it some thought!
- Once you implement this idea, I want you to notice how much more you get done. Was there an increase in your productivity once you knew exactly how you wanted to spend your time?.
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 3 – Stop wasting time.
When you sit down to work for an hour, how much time do you actually spend working?
Is the full hour or a little less?
- After you subtract out the time you spend daydreaming, checking your phone, reading an email, using the bathroom, getting a drink, staring out the window, and having a quick chat, there’s a good chance you are probably doing a lot less than an hour of work.
- Set a timer for an hour and decide to spend the entire time working.
- Nothing else; no distractions. I’m guessing you will be super surprised by how much more productive you are with you set that intention ahead of time.
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 4 – Get help.
Is it possible that your productivity is hindered by the fact that you can’t physically do it all yourself?
If so, you need to know that you don’t have to do it all alone.
Feel free to delegate and ask for help.
You can get a lot more accomplished with another set of hands helping you.
This isn’t something you need to be embarrassed about – it is a smart move to ask for assistance when you need it.
- Be especially motivated to ask for help with things outside your area of expertise. You can save a ton of time this way and perform at a much higher level.
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 5 – Get an early start.
The most productive people tend to get up early and get busy early.
Therefore consider getting out of bed earlier and accomplishing something worthwhile while the rest of the world is still asleep.
- The momentum this creates is pretty amazing. It makes you feel like you have already gotten a head start on the day. Even though it isn’t easy to get out of bed earlier, it is definitely well worth the effort.
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 6 – Improve your ability to focus.
Staying on task is an important skill because a lack of focus leads to wasting time.
Don’t stress if this isn’t a strength of yours yet.
You can only become good at focusing if you practice.
Practice by setting a timer and focusing on the task at hand 100% for 10 minutes.
Once you can do that consistently well, shoot for 15 minutes.
See how much you can improve over time.
HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE
TIP 7 – Identify the most important tasks.
Here’s another thing: you can be working on a task but still fail to make significant progress on your goals.
This is because some tasks are much more effective than others!
Make sure you are spending your time on the most relevant tasks.
In the end, productivity is all about using your time as wisely as possible.
This requires knowing your goals, creating a plan, and focus.
Make a decision on what you want to achieve ahead of time because decision making frees up more hours than you could have ever imagined.
Identify the most important tasks based on your goals and spend most of your time doing those things each day.
Start where you are, use what you have and do what you can.
If you want to be more productive, you will need to become the master of your thoughts and your minutes.
As Stephen Covey so wisely said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Francis Of Assisi
Before You Go…
– See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE
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I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.