We all need a productivity boost now and then. We each want to be productive for very personal reasons – to accomplish more, to make more money, to get done earlier, to make more time for our personal lives, to accomplish our goals. Try these five tips, and I’ll give you five more next week.
#10: Take care of your most important things first. Your most important things for the day – the things you most need to accomplish that day – should take priority over everything else. However, we all know that fires come up throughout the day, interruptions through phone calls, email, and people dropping by, new demands that will push the best-laid plans aside. If you put off the most important things until later in the day, you will end up not doing them much of the time.
# 9: Wake up early. Decide what you’d like to accomplish each morning, and build your morning routine around that. Like to exercise? Put that in there. Healthy breakfast? Go for it. Check email? Fine. The mornings are a fresh start, peaceful and free of ringing phones and constant email notifications. Get the tough stuff done early, and the rest of the day will be a piece of cake!
# 8: Reading what’s important. Think about all the information you receive (email, blogs, newsletters, mailing lists, magazines, newspapers and more) and edit through it. You can drastically reduce the time you spend reading by doing this. Remove yourself from anything that isn’t adding value. Now, after this process, you should be left with less to read. I hope you find my blog of value. Editing and cranking through the information you receive can free up a lot of time for more important things — like achieving your goals.
# 7: De-clutter your workspace; work on one thing at a time. The reason for de-cluttering your work space is simply to remove all extra distractions on your desk and on your computer. If you have a clean, simplified workspace, you can better focus on the task at hand. Now, with distractions minimized, focus on the task at hand. Don’t check email, don’t work on five projects at once, don’t check the stats on your blog, and don’t check your phone every five minutes. Work on that one task, and work on it with concentrated focus until you are done. Then celebrate your achievement!
# 6: Get to work early. Need I say any more?
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