If you work hard but still don’t have time to complete many tasks, it is worth considering increasing productivity. This will help you better manage your tasks at work and home, find energy sources and achieve your goals. Productivity is your step towards success and living a fulfilling life. We will give you 15 advices to enjoy the incredible feeling of being an organized person who can turn dreams into reality.
- Organize your day with a list
Several tasks are completed spontaneously, and with significant energy, expenditure can be turned into routine ones, saving a lot of time and effort. In this way, you can separate from work by putting things in order at the workplace, sending mail, and doing small tasks that you do not have time to do. Including everything on this list is helpful, right down to washing dishes and cooking. This is necessary to see at least once how many little things you need to do all the time. This will significantly contribute to understanding what we can afford to spend time on and what we cannot. Make several lists: routine at home and work, every day, once a week, and once a month.
- Be an organized person and arrange your workspace.
Order on the table and in business means the order in the head. The absence of chaos in life removes unnecessary stress from your brain. It frees up resources immediately directed to valuable things, not the painful reminiscence where you put the folder with essential documents.
Looking for items for hours before you can use them leads to mental stress, frustration, and an overall reduction in concentration levels. You should try your best to invest both time and money in your workplace to give a perfect organization and aesthetic appearance that catches the eye and forces you to enjoy the beauty of working in a relaxed and calm environment.
- Prioritize daily tasks
When you get any task, the first question you should ask yourself is: should you do it at all? After the question “Do I need to do this at all?” it is worth asking yourself: “Should I be the one to do this?” This is an effective method of dealing with people who shift their tasks onto colleagues.
The other worthy way is to arrange tasks in order of priority. First, do the most important ones, but you can start with the easiest to “warm-up” for the most complex functions if all are equally important.
- Find time
The recipe for finding time is simple. Everyone has it; it’s more than we think; it’s just that many precious watches are spent every day on something unknown. To understand where time is going, you need to consider it. Experiment: write down a few days in minutes of what you do. The most essential “leaks” will become apparent on the second and third days.
- Set clear goals and objectives
To get somewhere (and do it well, which is essential), you need to know where you are going. Otherwise, it is like wandering in the dark with ensuing consequences. Ideally, if your goals and objectives are quantifiable and qualitatively measurable, where this is not possible, at least clearly outline the task. Not “Sell more,” but “Call ten potential customers.”
- Give up multitasking
The myth that the human brain can control several tasks equally well at once has long been dispelled. Do not do several jobs at once and do not jump from one activity to another. Immerse yourself in doing a favorite (or not very favorite, but critical) task and concentrate entirely on it.
- Enter goals in the calendar
Don’t assign anything else to it once you’ve set aside part of your daily calendar to work on your goal. Everything is simple here. If you have already assigned a case to the calendar, you need to incorporate it into the day’s structure – and it is not necessary to have iron self-discipline. But if this case is not on the calendar, and it is just an abstract dream walking in your head, or a “good idea” in the list of others, you will never find time for it.
Include in the calendar (even in work visible to colleagues) reading books on self-development, training, and essential work on an optional but still necessary project that you have long wanted to complete. This will protect your time.
- Deal with small things at once
When you get the next task, quickly evaluate: if it takes no more than 2 minutes, do it right away. If more – you need to act differently. You have already decided that this is not the time. Just go a little further and ask yourself, “If not now, when?” And when you have time, write this task on the to-do list for the future, and do not worry about forgetting.
- Be prepared for force majeure
Unforeseen situations spoil the whole day and get out of hand for a long time. To prevent them from subordinating all your activities, evaluate them on the list of questions:
- What is its nature?
- Does it threaten someone’s safety?
- How can it affect your customers, your business, and your organization as a whole?
- Does the problem require urgent action or not?
Based on the information you receive, plan your response in order of priority.
Just beware of getting trapped when everyday things start to be perceived as extraordinary events.
- Avoid distractions
If you have a day full of tasks, it is best to be effective during their development. That is if you have to go pick up your children at school at five o’clock, but first, you have to go to the dry cleaners, avoid talking on a cell phone with your mother or a friend, or speak to the saleswoman. It would help if you were more efficient and well organized not to feel overwhelmed.
It’s not about being stressed; it’s best to organize your schedule to enjoy your day and that everything in the background can be done at another time.
- Work “on biorhythms,” find your most productive hour
Everyone has a watch in which he is most abundant. Listen to yourself and decide on the periods. Plan your workday so that the most significant load falls on the hours of higher productivity. For example, if you are more energetic in the morning, leave this hour’s essential creative and mental severe tasks.
- Take breaks
It is impossible to work without interruptions. Our brain is not adapted to this. Choose for yourself a convenient system that will be comfortable for you. You can take an “academic hour” – 45 minutes, like in a school or institute, you can work 25 minutes and 5 minutes rest. The main thing is to organize your work in time.
- Be realistic
If you do not complete all the tasks on your list every day and it lasts for quite a long time (several months or even years), face it: you take on more than you can. How does this relate to productivity? Very simple. First, realizing that you are not a bad employee but have too many things to do, you will stop “sawing” yourself. Secondly, when clearing your affairs, you will leave only important ones and give a tangible result.
And one more piece of advice. If you can’t do it today, don’t think about it today.
- Get enough sleep
With a lack of sleep, you will be unable to maintain the necessary concentration to encode the desired work productively in memory. If you are distracted, and everything falls out of hand, it is worth counting how many hours you sleep. To make the most of your skills, be calm and attentive, do not neglect a good night’s sleep.
- Do favorite things, deal with hobbies, and surround yourself with positive people.
Finding time for favorite things and hobbies is not a waste, but re-charging for higher tonus and better work. The type of people you surround yourself with largely determines how you live your life. Positive persons can keep each other motivated to perform the necessary tasks, discuss better ways to achieve your goals, learn new things, and share good and bad moments. It is essential to choose wisely the people you want to have around you. Try to choose people who will inspire you to do more, not those who will pull you back.