How to be more productive in everyday life
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 at home, find sources of energy 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
A number of tasks, completed in a spontaneous manner and with a large expenditure of energy, can be turned into routine ones, which will save a lot of time and effort. In this way, you can separate from work putting things in order at the workplace, sending mail, small tasks that you always do not have time to do. It is helpful to include everything on this list, right down to washing dishes and cooking. This is necessary in order to see at least once how many little things you need to do all the time. This will greatly contribute to understanding what we can afford to spend time on and what we cannot. Make several lists: routine at home and at 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 order in the head. The absence of chaos in life removes unnecessary stress from your brain and frees up resources that are immediately directed to useful things, and not the painful reminiscence of where you put the folder with important documents.
Looking for items for hours before you can use them leads to mental stress, frustration and 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 cool and calm environment.
- Prioritize daily tasks
The first question you should ask yourself when you get any task 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 task in order of priority. First do the most important ones, but if all are equally important, you can start with the easiest to "warm up" for the hardest tasks.
- 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 take it into account. Do an experiment: write down a few days in minutes of what you do. The most basic "leaks" will become apparent on the second and third day.
- Set clear goals and objectives
To get somewhere (and do it well, which is important), you need to know where you are going. Otherwise it is like wandering in the dark with all the 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 10 potential customers".
- Give up multitasking
The myth that the human brain is able to control several tasks equally well at once has long been dispelled. Do not do several tasks at once and do not jump from one activity to another. Immerse yourself in doing a favorite (or not very favorite, but very important) task and concentrate completely on it.
- Enter goals in the calendar
Once you've set aside part of your daily calendar to work on your goal, don't assign anything else to it. Everything is simple here. If you have already assigned a case to the calendar, you need to incorporate it into the structure of the day - 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 the work that is visible to colleagues) reading books on self-development, training and important 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 in 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 try 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 talk to the saleswoman. You need to be more efficient and well organized so that you do not feel overwhelmed.
It's not about being stressed, it's best to organize your schedule so that you can also enjoy your day and that everything that is 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 productive. Listen to yourself and decide on the periods. Plan your work day so that the greatest load falls on the hours of higher productivity. For example, if you are more energetic in the morning, leave the basic creative and serious mental tasks to this hour.
- Take breaks
It is impossible to work without interruptions. Our brain is simply 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 simply have too many things to do, you will stop "sawing" yourself. Secondly, when clearing your affairs, you will leave only those that are really important and will 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 in memory the desired and work productively. 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 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 will 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 from each other and share good and bad moments. It is important 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.
