How to Be More Productive

Whether it is your career, schoolwork, side hustle, finances, or hobbies, there is always a push on finding ways on how to be more productive.

Increasing productivity means getting work done quicker more efficiently and effectively, leaving more time to relax and pursue other interests.

Increasing your effectiveness at work doesn’t mean you need to become a fine-tuned working machine, with the emphasis on regularly working at 100% capacity. Emphasizing efficiency all the time would leave little joy in our lives, but we can use some tips to work more effectively. Leading to more free-time in other areas of your life.

On how to be more productive, try some of the below tips.

How to Be More Productive

1. Do the Most Important Task First

Usually, the most important task is the one we put off till later. The critical activity usually involves the action that puts us most out of our comfort zone, the one that is the most technically difficult, or the one that leads to hard conversations. Do this task first. See this post on how to figure out what that most important task is.

When you complete this task first, no matter what else happens that day, at least the gold-star, priority item was finished.  Steadily completing high priority tasks can also cause a cascade effect where once the critical objective gets taken care of, the other tasks seem more feasible to accomplish and get done as well. Creating a positive domino effect. Doing this every day can get some real work accomplished. 

2. Follow the 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle states that eighty percent of the results come from twenty percent of the effort. In your work, identify what generates the most results. Then focus on doing more of this work. Concentrating on the most value-added tasks will increase the amount of high-value work you generate without having to work extra hours.

3. Find out Why You Are Feeling Un-Productive

Sometimes we feel unproductive because we are crippled by a long to-do list (see here on how to keep a better to-do list), other times we feel unmotivated, and other times we lose sight of why we are even working on these tasks in the first place. Identify what is causing the indifferent feeling. If it is the to-do list, cut it back and pick one priority and two major tasks. Eliminate the to-do paralysis by eliminating everything else.

If you are feeling unmotivated, try working on the task for five minutes. See this post on how to motivate yourself every day. If you don’t remember why you are working on this goal, ask yourself what the benefit of doing this task is, and remember the long-term goal you are working too.

The above feelings aren’t an exhaustive list, but you can apply a similar methodology to any unproductive attitude you are having. Sometimes, you even just need a break.

4. Work with your Circadian Rhythm

The circadian rhythm is the internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. In humans, everyone is a little different and there are different times when people are naturally more creative or analytical. For instance, I do my best analytical work in the morning, and in the evening I am at my most creative. Walter Isakson, the author of Leonardo, writes from 9 PM-2 AM (when I am well into having my brain shut off).

Everyone is different, find when you are naturally at your best in each area and work with your body.

5. Plan the day out 

The entrepreneur recommends planning the day with priorities. Sid Bharath even plans out his day to the hour, scheduling work time and breaks. Experiment with finding a system that works for you. It can be as loose as having a handful of tasks to get done, all the way to planning every minute.

Also, plan out the next day the night before. Studies have found that by planning out the next day’s goals, the brain works on the issues while you are sleeping. Sleeping on what tasks you have provides a primer for when you wake-up that helps you tackle the day more effectively!

6. Keep the Larger Goal in Mind

Break out larger goals into smaller ones. Breaking goals down makes impossible tasks more attainable. Writing ten blog posts a week can seem like a daunting task, but that is one post a day, with two on Friday-Sunday.

A drawback is that in this broken out schedule, we lose sight of the larger goal. Keep the larger goal on a sticky note or somewhere visible to you when you are working. When you begin to slow in your work but want to keep being productive, look at the goal. Take time to think about how good it will feel when you achieve that goal. With this renewed vigor, get back at tackling the work.

7. Establish a sense of flow

Flow is, “the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.”

Being in a state of flow means working both effectively and efficiently while simultaneously enjoying the activity. By cultivating a sense of flow, work will get done without it seeming like a chore.

8. Take Breaks

Working long-stretches of time without a break can lead to stress and exhaustion. By taking breaks, it replenishes the mind and provides mental relief from difficult work. Taking breaks can also increase creativity and boost productivity.

 The Pomodoro method is effective because of this. It focuses on 25-minute “sprints” of work followed by a break.

9. Use the five-minute rule to beat feeling unmotivated

If something is causing you stress about doing it, set five minutes on your phone and do it. Plan on nothing more and nothing less. Just work on the task for five minutes. At the end of the five minutes, you can stop.

Often, people will find that they are already about to enter a flow state and will continue to work past the five-minutes. The reason we delay in starting is that our feelings of how unpleasant the task will be are greater than how the tasks actually are. Once you start, you realize it isn’t so bad and continue working.

10. Identify your time thieves

Life hacker recommends recognizing the time thieves. These are often things that we either know or don’t realize that take a lot of time from us. These time thieves can be social media, excessive planning, or anything in our daily routine that takes time away from work.

There isn’t anything wrong with these activities, but these kinds of distractions should not be done in tandem with our work, even during breaks because they suck us into a mindset we find it difficult to break-out. Save these as treats for after the work is completed.

11. Stop multi-tasking

Multi-tasking makes it impossible to enter a flow state because our attention divides between two different tasks. This division prevents us from focusing on either of them. Pick one activity and do it well, then move onto the other one.

12. Have Fun

Working on our goals can be a fun and fulfilling part of our lives. Instead of just viewing work as an endless list of to-dos. Focus on what meaning it provides you, what skills you are developing, and how others benefit from your work.

Even tasks we don’t enjoy doing, from making PowerPoints to folding laundry can benefit others and build valuable skills. See the benefits these tasks create to avoid the feeling of burn-out that comes from this repetitive process.

13. Be Patient

Learning to be more productive take time. Some days you will even fall back into unproductive behaviors. That is okay too. Just focus on continuing to develop more productive routines and habits and incrementally improve.

Slowly over the months, you will realize you are getting more work done, of better quality, in a shorter time.

Main Take-Aways

• Being productive can be achieved by reflecting on what times we are at our best, and knowing which work produces the most positive results.
• From there, it is about rearranging our schedule and putting away distractions, to maximize the time we are working on these high-value tasks.

Action item

What are the top three things you need to get done in the next three days? Plan out the days with the above tips in mind and maximize your chances of getting these tasks done. Reflect on what worked for you and take these practices into the next month. See how much you can get accomplished!