How big is your list of to-does? If you’re like me, it’s probably quite big and you’re looking for ways to reduce it’s size by being more productive.
You can leave your work feeling satisfied with what you’ve done, and all you’ll need is a few “productivity hacks” to get the job done.
Here are some hacks of productivity:
Write down the four most important tasks every day
You don’t want to doubt anything during your workday, it’s a killer of productivity. You should prioritize the day’s top four tasks every morning. Be clear about what you’re writing and write a good clear understandable description. “Research hotels,” for instance, is not good. Instead, use “review and compare hotel prices a, b, & c” to avoid drifting to other tasks that do nothing at all.
Restrict Social Media Usage
You just felt like checking an interesting Instagram post and before you can say ‘what time is it?’ you’ve invested 10 minutes in your friends ‘ status, made a couple of tweets and watched a few cats do funny things on YouTube. Social media is a big waste of time, as great as it is. Use the Freedom App to block your computer and mobile devices from specific social media sites. Set limits for yourself and be more productive in your day with extra hours.
Schedule your email time
Another notorious concentration breaker is email notifications, so giving in to any alert is guaranteed to make any task a challenge. Don’t let your email messages dictate your day. Instead, specifically schedule time for email at the beginning and at the end of the day. Then feel free to ignore it the rest of the time, unless something particularly critical comes in.
First, tackle the must-dos
While it seems logical, many people forget some must-dos in favor of easier, less critical, tasks. But if you don’t allow enough time to get the job done, this can leave you scrambling. To break the cycle, start with essential projects at all times, regardless of what. You’ll be grateful for the afternoon’s diligence.
The three-minute rule – Do it if a task can be done in three minutes
Small tasks inevitably arise all day long, but you don’t need to waste valuable time thinking about whether you should do these tasks. On the contrary, just ask if in less than three minutes you can finish the task. If yes is the answer, do it. It barely costed you any time. If no, then add it below the top four tasks to your-do list.
Perfect is the enemy of good
You probably want to make sure everything is perfect when it comes to your work. But ultimately, perfection can be the enemy, and often doesn’t exist, especially if you continue to push for something already good to improve. Instead, move on to other tasks and accept that good is often good enough to succeed.
Make deadlines for achieving each goal
On the to do list: finish this article…
A note like this means it won’t get executed. I do nothing without a deadline on it. There’s always be other priorities when there’s no deadline. It will never move up to high-priority status. Especially when a task is not really time-sensitive, you need to set a deadline! It’s not important otherwise apparently.
That’s it for now, we will continue with more productivity hacks in a later post (because splitting tasks into smaller parts is another hack)