How do I Increase Productivity?
User Blog #002
Today we’re going to figure out how to improve productivity. And I’m not just talking about keeping your phone in another room while you study, or drinking 5 coffees a day. I’m talking about real, efficient, good old productivity.
First, let’s talk about the importance of productivity. It drops down from the sub-group of ‘efficiency’, which is defined as “performing in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort”. Productivity simple refines it to “performing in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort to achieve a beneficial goal”.
I’ve broken the formula for productivity down into 4 key components:
- Strategy: Creating a strategy/plan for your session, as well as how you plan on completing it. The more detailed, the better.
- Focus: The ability to ignore external distractions. Stems from willpower and self-choosing — it’s up to you if you let someone/something else distract you.
- Productive Choosing: The capacity to select the most crucial tasks to complete and making the right decisions about them.
- Consistency: The capacity for working at constant pace and incorporating all of the other 3 factors into your session every single time.
In order to have a productive study session, all 4 of these components must be present. If they aren’t, the other 3 are likely to crumble.
For example: if you are focused (ignoring everything around you and solely concentrating on your work) and have created a strategy for your session (chosen time you’re going to spend working and what tools you will use to help you understand the content), and you do these 2 things consistently, you’ll probably have a pretty good study session. However, if you haven’t chosen the most important tasks to complete and justified why these are the most crucial ones to complete, then you will not be achieving (to maximum capacity) that beneficial goal we talked about in the definition.
Key takeaway: HAVE ALL 4 FACTORS PRESENT EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Here are some tricks to actually improve productivity (alongside the 4 factors):
- Do the hardest thing first. It’s really just a mental barrier to overcome. It might not be the most time consuming, or your least favourite subject, but if it’s going to be the hardest to do, get it done first. That way, every other task you complete after it seems easier, as you will have already ticked off something that takes more effort to complete, thus creating momentum for your study session.
“If you have to eat a live frog, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long”
2. Identify your top 3 distractions. Get rid of them whilst working. Simple.
Example: Phone (Flora is a good app for this), YouTube (use a browser blocker), Instagram on laptop (also use a browser blocker).
3. Write out to-do list for the session. Every time you tick something off, your brain gets a dopamine hit. It becomes an addiction over time and will incentivise you to work toward getting that tick.
4. Identify your most productive time. Doesn’t matter when this is. Work at that time.
5. Exercise.
Now, let’s quickly create you a productive study session so you can stop procrastinating and get to work.
Step 1: Get your phone out of the room. Non-negotiable (I know, contradicting to what I said at the start of the post). Still, do it. Bonus: also turn Flora on just in case you decide to sneak out and grab it.
Step 2: Complete step 3 and then step 1 of the 4 components. Choose your most important tasks, and create a plan on how you’re going to get them time in a specific time period. (Setting deadlines helps you to stay on task–create some sort of punishment for yourself if you don’t meet deadline; e.g. no dessert if you don’t finish before dinner).
Step 3: Write out a to-do list as part of the plan you create.
Step 4: Just get the worst/hardest done task done. Do it right now and don’t stop until you’ve done it. From here, you’ll find the session to be a lot easier.
Step 5: Just get the rest of your work done. In reality, you can supplement your ability to be productive, but at the end of the day, it really just comes down to sitting at your desk and doing the work. It sucks and it’s boring, but it’s really not that bad. It’s just study.
Step 6: Reward yourself if you have a productive session. This will subconsciously incentivise your brain to want to do it again next time.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably not being productive enough. Now, stop letting me distract you, and get back to work.
