Productivity — “5 successful tips that worked”
We all ever feel overwhelmed with a bunch of work, and sometimes we’re not sure of what to start with.
If you have ever experienced this, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Some days back I had a lot of things to tackle and sometimes I could spend a sleepless night, feeling guilty of unfinished tasks, which always ended up giving me a headache over the next day’s tasks plus unfinished ones. This sounded a bit mind-boggling (You know what I mean).
Later on, I realized I could do something on this situation. I suddenly had a feeling of taking a paper and a pen. Guess what? Something was coming to my way, that wanted to be written down. I came up with some of the tips that I witness they were of a great help, and later on I decided that I could share with you some of them that worked for me, hence recommend you to try them out if you’re somehow like me some days back.
1 of 5: Self Discipline
Motivation gets you going, but self discipline keeps you growing ~ John C. Maxwell
Self discipline seems to be a hard thing to achieve, but good news is that it is achievable and self rewarding. You might wonder in what ways is this aligned to productivity? Let’s see.
Think of those moment yous spend doing tasks that don’t add value to your goals. Let’s take for instance, the check up we often do to our social media in almost all the mornings. We often fail at ceasing ourselves from scrolling through our friends’ social media pages to see what they are up to that day. Trust me, this will take a big part of your time, I therefore recommend to stay away from this productivity lessening habit, get yourself done before the distractions of the world take over. Start your day by realizing that every morning is a new given day opportunity, and you’ve got to make most out of it. Skip that habit of checking feeds on your phone/tablet/laptop (for new emails) early in the morning, instead, wake up and get started with your morning rituals (this might include praying, meditating, drinking water or exercising). You can always check on your friends’ story later on. Once you win the morning, you win the day.
There’s also this habit of giving yourself much tolerance on skipping tasks (procrastination). Set goals and stick on them as much as possible. This will thank you later, trust me.
2 of 5: Procrastinate on Procrastination
There is always this feeling of switching over another task leaving the previous unfinished. This always goes with the fear of attacking one biggest task of your day or on your to-do list.
With no doubts, procrastination ruins productivity. So, we need to procrastinate on procrastination to get ahead with our tasks done. Remember that feeling you had the moment you marked your most important task of the day as Done! What was your feeling that moment? You felt excited to the point of rewarding yourself, isn’t it? Successful task accomplishment are the best feeling I ever had.
Before you procrastinate, think of that joy you are pushing away. This will motivate you and keep you moving.
3 of 5: Relax and Reward yourself
Well, this is something I found delightful to our productivity. I call them 2Rs! “Relaxing and Rewarding yourself” are best ways to keep your motivation upstanding. Conquering small battles is the best motivation secret for moving on to the next goal. Through rewarding and congratulating yourself , you are increasing your self-esteem. Hence, self motivation gets easier and attainable, leading to becoming more productive in all your next tasks.
You might think of travelling to your most preferable place or buy yourself a toffee Ice Cream, or just whatever you have as your most preferred thing that would make you feel proud of what you’ve just accomplished. I recommend to keep it simple this time, to reserve for the next biggest accomplishment.
4 of 5: Time Management
Most people are in the mercy of everything that happens around them
(meetings, commuting — traffic, and so on), and day in, day out they have
less and less control over their daily schedule.
In his book, “The ultimate productivity cheat sheet”, Zdravko Cvijetic mentioned that to get ahead of this, and start taking control, you need to design an ideal day for yourself.
Note: this doesn’t mean you need to map out every single minute, only the
most important items.
“Setting the three most important tasks of the day”, something that I learnt and found it very helpful. This will allow you to schedule high leverage activities, skills and be more focused overall, because you know what you want to do. Sometimes it’s good to divide the big task into small chunks that are easily manageable.
Before this pops in, I used a to-do list. Well, I think it’s one of the most popular productivity and time management tool. I can’t forget the feeling I had before bed time, having those tasks half-ticked! Though this didn’t work for me, it’s still fine for you to use it, as long as you stick to your plans and feel comfortable with this technique, but you’re not limited to trying out this new method and see which one rocks!
To wrap up, there is something that I feel like I can’t go without mentioning it. All the above shall work for you if you keep the consistency spirit. You will need to apply them daily to have better results. The above shared tips helped me and I believe they would help you too.
5 of 5: Take enough quality sleep
A good night’s sleep is as important as regular exercise and healthy diet. Spending a sleepless night will negatively affect your level of productivity, as research shows that poor sleep has immediate negative effects on brain function.
According to healthline, over the past few decades, both sleep quality and quantity has declined. In fact, many people regularly get poor sleep, which points to decreased productivity.
Below are some tips that worked for me:
- Disconnect from your electronic world 1 hour before bed
- Meditate
- Don’t consume caffeine late in the day (Studies show that caffeine stays elevated in the blood for 6–8 hours)
- Be grateful for the day
- Sit and think (allow your thoughts flow freely, with no distractions)
I believe this might help you leg-up your night’s sleep quality.
One more last thing before you go, I hope you enjoyed my first blog (more to come) and I appreciate the time you took to reading it. Henceforth, I would love hearing from you some comments, and I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks a bunch
If you enjoyed the read, this might be also worth your time:
