Most of the time I’m probably the least productive person you’d ever know. At the same time, some days I might be one of the most productive people you’ve ever heard of. But what would be the steps to take to actually become more productive in our daily lives?
Make a to-do list
I have tried it in the past and it does work. Instead of waking up every morning and starting your work day thinking what you should do now, and ending your day realizing you haven’t done pretty much anything too useful at all, it’s a good idea to create a to-do list every day for the next day. So that in the morning when you wake up, you know exactly what you want to or need to do. And the to-do list should be as specific as possible, not one vague thing like – work.
Make a plan
For slightly bigger things in your to-do list, make a plan on how to do it and possiblye when to do it, and maybe you’ll even need to create a sub to-do list for some items.
Prioritize
Not every item in your to-do list has the same importance. So you need to prioritize – first do the things that can be done quickly or what you need to get done as fast as possible. Just an example – while ending that chapter in your book might not be that time sensitive, taking your dog outside to so he could relieve himself might be quite time sensitive.
Notice HOW you do things
I’ve noticed that some people, while doing the same things as others, take 3x more time to get it done. It’s because they don’t choose the most efficient way to do it. If you want to buy a lottery ticket, play online lotto, don’t walk to the newsstand to buy the ticket. Walking is good, of course, but efficiency-wise it’s a bad idea.
Distractions
Now there are different versions on how to deal with distractions. Some people say that to concentrate you need to close your email and social media sites, turn off the television, radio and your phone. Not to mention Skype. And for some people these certainly are things to do. But for other people, like me, random distractions are actually good. Neither can I work in silence. I like having some noise around me – thus I often work in cafeterias. Or I have the radio playing, or I have the TV on in the background. I simply need that to concentrate. It doesn’t bother me, rather the opposite.
Multitasking
Don’t multitask. While some people say they are good at multitasking, the truth is that in reality we can really just do one thing well at the time.
Don’t overeat
While this might sound weird – if you overeat for example, you’ll feel tired.
Exercise
You’ll have more energy to do the things you need to do if you exercise regularly. It doesn’t matter what you do – run, go to the gym, even doing yoga might work for some people.
2018 ·