The guide to more productivity

Number one skill you need is to learn to control your attention

The number one stopping point of high performance in the world of work is a distraction.

Being focused is hard nowadays.

It can be difficult to take control and stay focused while we have all the social media buzz distracting us all day long. Like Darren Hardy rightly puts it:

“Your main competitors aren’t other companies; your main competitors are distractions”.

Focused attention is the brain’s ability to concentrate its attention on a target stimulus for any period.

If you spend 20 minutes per day checking social media that amounts to one workday per month or 12–15 days per year. Imagine what else you could be doing with that precious time. Perhaps do some hard work to earn a vacation for two weeks.

However, the sad fact is that people spend on average about 2–3 hours per day browsing social media. Usually checking everyone else's lives.

Double your productivity

As an entrepreneur, I value my time at work and when I’m at home with my family I want to feel that I earned time off to enjoy it with them.

I suggest to block time daily for high productivity tasks and don’t leave it to randomness and distraction. If you want more free time, you need more discipline. Choose projects that must be done this week and block time for them. Complete the necessary tasks to move forward.

Here are 3 very simple techniques for getting things done and to accelerate your results.

1. Get up early

When you get up and get going early, you can get the equivalent of an entire day’s work done before the normal working day even begins.

I’m not a morning person but having three kids gives me a little space to work in the evenings so instead, I get up early and work from 5:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M. and then go to the office around 8:00 A.M. This allows me to accomplish so much more during my day.

2. Compress tasks

Take similar tasks and do them as a group. If I line up an appointment out of the office, I try to schedule all of my outside appointments for that day.

Grouping similar tasks are also why you should only check your email only once or twice a day so it won’t distract you throughout the day.

By compressing key tasks into extended windows of time, I can fly, while everyone else spent most of their time in constant take-off mode.

3. Schedule your day

Scheduling my days is crucial and has accelerated my productivity.

By organizing my day the day before I’m less likely to get distracted.

I suggest obtaining a calendar or planner and focus on three big tasks for the day. To begin you can purchase a planner that helps you get started. I suggest making sure to schedule calls and meetings in the afternoon.

Schedule a time for each task and priorities. I block out time on my schedule to process email, write blog posts, make phone calls, prepare for meetings, and presentations, and even manage my social media. This will make it easier to stay focused.

You can achieve a lot more by being laser-focused during the day. You might even find yourself being able to clear up an entire day’s work in only one hour depending on how disciplined you are.

It took me some time to reduce distraction but after I implemented these 3 simple techniques I’m able to manage my time much more efficiently. This allows me to relax and enjoy my well earned free time.