Top Tips for Becoming Highly Productive
Friday 16 September, 2011
Do you always have the feeling there aren’t enough hours in the day? Are you working to your optimum productivity? Here are a few of our favourite top tips for becoming a highly productive new you! Even if you implement just a few, you will be surprised at the amount of time you’ll be able to free up – and feel you’ve completed a fantastic day’s work. Good luck!
1. Do less and do it better – do not over promise and over commit to yourself or others in your team.
2. Focus on the urgent FIRST – next focus on the highest impact and highest income producing tasks.
3. Spend some time at the start of the day getting organised and simplify tasks into manageable chunks – be sure to take regular breaks to keep your brain sharp.
4. Develop a daily, weekly and monthly routine and stick to it – add the routine to your calendar in the same manner you would add your appointments.
5. Take baby steps – start small and make small steps daily. Once it becomes habit then add more steps little by little.
6. Eliminate clutter – schedule time, once a week, to eliminate clutter and piles. Get yourself organised and then stay that way!
7. Find yourself a coach or mentor – gain support from someone who will help keep you on track and moving forward with your goals.
8. WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS and TASKS daily. Be sure to review and re-prioritise them as needed, they are not set in stone! Unclear goals and priorities = lack of clarity = low motivation and productivity!
9. When writing a ‘To do’ list, separate tasks into categories:
Urgent (due today) – keep to a maximum 3 to 5 tasks. Ask yourself a simple question when evaluating what is Urgent vs Not Urgent. Will you have to work late tonight to complete this task?
Highest impact – this includes very important meetings, planning, review, development of strategies, tactics and ideas.
Highest income – these are revenue generating activities. Anything that will bring in money now, or in the near future.
In the future – these are tasks you review every week/month and move into the higher zones if/when necessary. Keep these out of sight until your weekly review, because having long to-do lists creates adverse psychological effects, resulting in procrastination and wasting time.
10. Focus on progress, not perfection – always have room for review and tweaking. Obsessing over perfection leads to results of analysis paralysis = going nowhere.
11. Do it or Delegate it – don’t try to do it all, especially things you are not good at. Why not outsource to a VA?
12. Defer it – you don’t have to carry out tasks as they come in. An example would be not to answer every email immediately. Set aside specific time during the day to review these and respond if necessary.
13. Delete it – this goes hand in hand with eliminating clutter. Some tasks have a short life span and lose impact over time.
14. Use a simple task tracking system – do not use multiple systems to organize your to-do list (e.g., sticky notes, notepad, laptop, BlackBerry). This can lead to conflicts and confusion.
15. Eliminate distractions – when you really need to get something done, turn off your phone, email alerts, instant messages, lock your office door and tell people you do not want to be disturbed.
16. Be mindful – everything that is urgent and important to others, may not be urgent and important to you. This relates to setting your priorities. You don’t need to attend every meeting or meet everyone else’s demands. You should not answer the phone just because it rings or reply to emails, Skype or any other distraction if it’s going to take away from your productivity.
17. Finally, but just as importantly - Learn to say NO!