In our busy technological world, it is common for a whole day to go by with no real work getting accomplished. Instead, your day gets filled with “busy-work” of answering e-mails, trolling Facebook and shuffling papers from one pile to the next. It happens to the best of us. Get in control of your productivity with these five helpful tips.
1. Start Your Day with a 5 Minute Meditation
The reason to start your day with a 5 minute meditation is to help you gain clarity on what task is the most important and requires your immediate attention. Often, there are a number of things we need to do during the day but if you wake up feeling scattered, you can bet that your scattered state of mind will continue throughout the day. Meditation gives you the opportunity to purge all the messiness in your head. Chances are, when you take 5 minutes to meditate, your mind will start to race with all your to-dos. This is the purging process. Just stick with it and allow this to happen. Eventually, it will create space and clarity in your head to recognize what your first task should be.
2. Set an Intention of What you Want to Accomplish
An intention is akin to a purpose. Having a purpose for your work day will keep you inspired and motivated to stay on task. It will help you stay committed to your project instead of veering off course. Be explicit in what your intentions are; for example, there may be a one specific client or document that needs immediate attention. Whatever it is, set an intention at the start of your day that you will finish one specific thing. Often, projects have many steps that need to occur before it’s complete which can be overwhelming to think about. However, it is certainly feasible to finish at least one or two steps in a day. Set out to do specific tasks daily and you can ensure that your project gets done in a timely manner.
3. Get off Facebook.
If Facebook is a tool you use to connect and market your business, then you need to allocate specific time slots to conduct business otherwise, you could get caught up in reading posts, commenting, liking, etc. and waste a better part of your day away. Allocate time slots when you are not at your highest peak potential. Energy is a precious commodity and your peak energy should be directed towards your most important task. Later, when you’ve tackled your most important to-dos and your energy dips, that would be the ideal time to get on Facebook or any social media forum. If for strategic reasons, you need to post at certain times, you can always look into scheduling posts with social media tools such as Buffer or Tweetdeck. Make a commitment to allocate the most energetic time of your day to your work. Facebook can wait.
4. Turn your Phone Off.
Whether it is a cell phone or a land-line, turn off the ringer. You may not be able to get away with this all day; however, you can do this for at least an hour and often that is all you need to get a lot of work done. Phone calls, text messages and notifications are annoying distractions and it can take up to 20 minutes to get you back on track.
5. Create Time Blocks.
A time block is a specific set of time that is set aside for a specific project. The human mind is not meant to work for 8 hours straight, that’s when “busy-work” takes over, and meaningful work hits the curb. Our brain works best in 60-90 minute intervals of focused work. Afterwards, go outside and walk around the block, stretch for a bit, or go to the lunchroom and enjoy a drink. Getting away from your desk helps clear your mind. I personally advocate stepping into something active, even if only for 5 minutes, as it will help your brain re-awaken and give you a new found spurt of energy to enter your next time block of dedicated, focused work effort. I can tell you from personal experience, that if you employ these strategies you will be amazed at how much you can accomplish. When you need to get things done and want more free time to enjoy yourself, follow these 5 tips and double your productivity today.
