In this guide, we break down my top productivity tips and proven ways tobe more productive , whether in the context of work or in your personal life (no judgment here). These tactics and advice come from myself and many of the best entrepreneurs in the world that I have had the opportunity to interview.
How big is your to-do list? If you're like me, it's probably huge and you're looking for ways to be more productive . Apply these: Productivity tips .
This year, my to-do list has grown into a growing mountain of tasks. documents which always seem to lead to something else (of course just as important) which must be accomplished.
Over the past few months, I've taken on more time-consuming projects than ever beforeâŠall at the same time as a move. My to-do list got out of control. As a result, I had to take how I use my time very seriously. I had to become much more productive.
I did a lot more experimenting, testing and finding my own Tricks productivity not only to save more time in my working day, but also to be more efficient with this limited time.
The thing is, if you're like most people, you pouvez find extra time to do the things you really want (and need).
It's amazing how much time we waste in our average day if we're brutally honest with ourselves. Ten minutes checking Facebook notifications when you arrive at work, browsing Instagram for half an hour at lunch, reading the day's news during the afternoon, the list goes on.
At the same time, while you can take pride in responding to every email as soon as you receive it, it wastes a huge amount of time that could otherwise be used more efficiently. That's why today I'm sharing my list of 25 amazingly impactful productivity tips to help you be more productive in all areas of your life.
Disclaimer: Some of these productivity tips will seem obvious, but trust meâŠit's the implementation, the repetition, and the discipline to stick with them long enough to pay off that will be the hardest part.
You wonder why you haven't always taken advantage of a particular productivity tactic. And yet, others might not suit you. In reality, you probably won't be able to use all of these productivity tips at once. It's more about finding the ones that can give you the best return in your situation.
The common thread running through all of these tactics for being more productive is that they are simple and straightforward. Anyone can pull them off with the right level of conviction. The hard part of this process is changing habits and altering routines.
25 Ways to Be More Productive: Genius Productivity Tips from Top Entrepreneurs
Now, in the name ofbe more productive , let's jump straight to the heart of our content.
1. Wake up at 4:30 a.m.
I know many of you will read this suggestion and instantly jump to tip #2. Some of you I know think that only birds and dairy farmers should be waking up this early. However, this might be the most important way tobe more productive. My early awakening allows me to do my most important work early in the morning before other people wake up and ask for my time for their needs. It's a real case of self-discipline leading to results - the definition of what I consider productivity advice.
If you can't stand the thought of waking up at 4:30 a.m., take it slow until you wake up in a gradual process. If you're not naturally an early riser, choosing a 7am departure might be a good first pass for you. Once you get used to this, set your alarm clock an extra 15 minutes each week. Over time, repeat this process until you manage a really early start, so this method of being more productive really pays dividends.
2. Use a wrist vibration alarm to wake you up
Instead of a blaring alarm waking me with a jolt every morning, I use the FitBit's wrist vibration alarm feature to wake me up more calmly. Again, it depends on how easy you wake up early. Some people need a wailing siren from across the room, so they have to physically get out of bed to turn off the alarm.
Personally, I prefer FitBit's more subtle approach to morning waking, and it has the added benefit that your partner doesn't wake up at the same time you do.
3. Don't look at your phone for the first hour of your day
Give yourself permission to be unresponsive with your phone. By starting your day from a place where you have control over what you do and when you do it, you'll free up more cognitive energy to focus on the activities that get you the most out of your workday.
Of course, if you start your day at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., you're unlikely to get many calls in that first hour (unless you're working with colleagues or clients overseas). Just try to resist reading the texts people may have sent you overnight. It's unlikely to make a difference to the other person if you read them now or in an hour.
Your first hour of work will likely be your most productive hour of the day. Keep it uninterrupted or distracted.
4. Limit social media use to 15 minutes a day
We all know how it is. You just wanted to check out an interesting Facebook status and the next thing you know you've pored over your friends' statuses, tweeted a few times, and watched a few YouTube videos. As great as social media is, it can be a huge waste of time.
Use theFreedom app to block specific social media sites on your computer and mobile devices. Set limits and be more productive with extra hours in your day.
5. Seriously limit your phone use
Some of us like to talk. We can spend many unproductive hours just chatting on the phone. It's not always our fault. In the age of mobile, it's amazing how many people call others at antisocial times and expect to be spoken to instantly. Even when people limit their calls to office hours, it can seriously hamper your chances of working productively.
THEmoment app can help you track your phone usage throughout the day, set goals, and get back to doing what you do best, instead of procrastinating. The slogan of their Website says it all: âPut down your phone and get on with your life. »
6. Turn off all notifications on your phone
Is it really the end of the world if you don't reply to that text or call immediately? Take control of when you read and respond to demands on your time.
Just because someone else thinks their request is important doesn't mean it's so important to you that you need to know up to the second. While you're at it, turn off most other notifications on your phone, tablet, and computer. Do you really need a notification that there's a new issue of a magazine you've read once? The only important notifications are for meetings and dates (and probably your partner's birthday if you want a peaceful life).
7. Check your phone no more than once an hour
Reducing how often you look at your phone eliminates a major potential distraction that's keeping you from being more productive. It will take some getting used to.
Since I think discipline and willpower are way overrated, it will be much easier to develop this habit if you use a set of triggers that reinforce good behavior. In this case, do not look at your phone more than once per hour.
I know that if my phone is next to my computer, I'll probably check it regularly. So to help me develop this habit, I physically place my phone out of sight when I'm working. It goes in the top drawer of my desk (on vibrate mode) so I can hear it vibrate if one of my "favorite" contacts calls, which only happens when there's something wrong. urgent to do. Otherwise, anyone I work with on a regular basis knows that I check texts about once an hour and email twice a day. You set boundaries and people will respect that.
8. Use Do Not Disturb Mode on Your Phone During the Workday
This one is for all my co-workers and it goes beyond just turning off notifications. By activating Do Not Disturb (DND) during your workday, you'll take your time off from every distraction, even phone calls â the ultimate life hack that will allow you to be more productive every day.
9. Ask people to call you for urgent needs
If you have an iPhone, add anyone who might need to reach you at a glance (friends, family, kids, school, colleagues, boss and employees) as a favorite so that their call goes through, even in Mode. NDP. This means that any potentially distracting (non-emergency) calls will go straight to voicemail while only those you mark as important to you in your favorites will be able to reach you and interrupt you.
10. Delete messages from your computer
If you have a MacBook, chances are you have messages turned on so that any text or iMessage you receive on your phone also appears as a notification on your laptop. It's incredibly entertaining. You will be much more productive by deleting these notifications as well.
Similarly, you can delete message notifications on a Windows 10 computer in the Action Center.
One of the worst offenders for sending you notifications on your computer is Google Chrome. You can deselect notifications from any Website in the Chrome Settings menu.
11. Schedule a time on your calendar for sending emails
When you decide when to respond to an email, you take control of your time. Naturally, this won't work with all jobs (it's particularly effective with remote jobs where the level of autonomy is high), but talk to your boss and see if you can agree on the scheduling of 2 x 30 minutes or every 1 hour on your schedule each day to read and respond to emails. The productivity gains you'll get from freeing up time will be worth the company's investment.
12. Hide your inbox
Eliminate the temptation to turn to your inbox and be responsive during the workday by installing the Chrome extension, Inbox When Ready to hide your email inbox.
You'll still have access to find, compose, and send emails from your inbox, without seeing your actual inbox or unread email count. It will help you stay focused and be more productive even if you work with your inbox frequently throughout the day.
13. Use a to-do list app
Your day will be much more productive if you complete your tasks in an organized manner, focusing on the most important tasks rather than spending all of your time on the easy or interesting tasks. This is where an app can help streamline your day. There are many managers you can choose from, including my favorite that I've been using for over 6 years: ToDo by Appigo . Other options you should check depending on your goals and workflows include Google Keep , A , Remember the Milk , Habitat , Trello et T .
With Todoist, for example, you can divide your projects into specific tasks, allocate them to set days, and then assign them one of four priority levels. You can even delegate tasks to other people on your team if you can. If you make a habit of updating your to-do list every morning and then focusing on the highest-priority tasks each day, the extra productivity you'll gain will ensure you're always successful in completing the highest-priority tasks. important.
14. Listen to music (and sing) while you shower
Let's be honest. Most of us have sung in the shower at some point, and the singing isn't always of the highest quality. You might be wondering why I'm including this suggestion in a list of productivity tips.
Well it turns out lscience now proves (in English) that singing in the shower gives us many physical and mental health benefits. You may not remember it, but your mother probably sang you lullabies when you were a baby. So when you sing, it takes you back to what was a fundamental learning period in your life. Physically, singing leads to higher immune competence, which means you're less likely to catch viruses. People who sing also have lower cortisol levels, which means less stress and a better heart.
Singing also triggers the release of oxytocin and endorphins in the brain, which further relieves anxiety and improves your heart health.
When it comes to mental health, research shows that singing helps reduce sadness, anxiety, and depression, and has even been linked to improving chronic pain.
However, remember to be kind to your housekeeping, especially if you followed tip #1 and woke up at 4:30 a.m. Blasting your music at full volume at this time probably isn't so good for your health, especially if it wakes up disgruntled family or housemates.
15. Take a cold shower
It's probably best to keep the water temperature low if you're singing in the shower. Scientists have surprisingly found that there are benefits to keeping your showers cold.
Not all of the benefits are directly related to your day-to-day productivity, although they may have long-term indirect benefits. For example, scientists have found that your "brown fat" burns calories to keep you warm, so you lose weight in that cold shower. It also activates your immune system which boosts your immunity and circulation.
More relevant to your daily productivity, cold showers increase your mood and alertness. Start the day with a cold shower and your blood will rush through your body, giving you energy for the day.
16. Smile more often
I bet you never realized that the simple act of smiling would help improve your daily productivity. However, there are good scientific reasons why smiling is good for us.
For starters, smiling helps lower your heart rate, giving you all the benefits of having a less stressed heart. You are less likely to be stressed if you smile. Making a conscious effort to smile more is likely to lower your stress levels.
You are much more likely to complete tasks more productively if you are happy and smiling, rather than worried and upset. This is why people try to bring humor to work.
17. Do a random act of kindness in the first hour of your day.
It's amazing how good helping others can make you feel. As we saw above, just feeling happy can help your productivity. Lots of research shows that being kind to people makes you happier over time. Doing nice things for people improves your mood, increases your relationship satisfaction, and decreases social avoidance if you are socially anxious. It even produces a hormone called oxytocin which lowers blood pressure.
Getting that jolt of positive energy in the first hour or two of your day will set you up for a mentally powerful day.
18. Write without distraction from your computer
If your job involves writing, you need to give it your full attention. It's easy to get distracted by other open tabs and windows on your screen (like when your CRM pings you with a new lead notification). For this reason, several programs give you a distraction-free option.
The most common writing programs, such as Microsoft Word or Google Doc, give you a wide variety of menus and options. These can be very distracting if all you want to do is write.
If you want Create a blog and focus on your writing practice, one solution is to use Hemingway . Bring your thoughts to the screen in Hemingway's Write mode, then use its Edit mode to correct and simplify your writing.
Side note â I have seen Hemingway recommended as a writing aid in many courses in blogging among the best in the world as a tool to help you focus on converting your blog post ideas into actionable published content (which can potentially help you make money blogging ).
Another option is to use the Writer add-on for Chrome. This is a simple and clean word processor editor for Chrome, with a minimalist design that hides all those unnecessary options that more sophisticated programs offer.
19. Prepare your outfit for tomorrow before going to bed
I have already discussed the advantages of operating a to-do list. One of the benefits is, of course, making sure you're organized, focusing on the most important tasks. Unless you sit at home in your pajamas writing or work in a nudist colony, one of your most important tasks each day is getting dressed. Now, as trivial as it sounds, it can be a big stress for people if they're rushing to work and can't decide what clothes to wear.
You might not have to think too much about what you wear if you wear a uniform, but even then you should still find all your clothes each day and make sure they are clean.
Hunting for clothes at the start of the day is not a great start to a productive work day. You want a smooth and easy start, with as few decisions as possible. Save your brain for the really important decisions of the day. I've known people who wear underwear with the days of the week printed on them, so they don't even have to think about which pair to wear.
Your life will be so much easier if you have a routine before bedtime. Prepare your outfit for tomorrow. It's a simple thing that saves you time in the morning by being decisive at a less productive time.
20. Set deadlines for achieving each goal (no matter how small)
Note for my to-do list: End this paragraph.
A simple note like that is the kiss of death for any task for me. I don't accomplish anything without having a deadline or that.
Without a deadline for a job, there will always be something more important. It will never jump to your high priority to-do lists. Even if a task is not particularly urgent, you should still create a deadline. Otherwise, you tell yourself that it is not important.
21. Write down your goals, plans and deadlines
Physically writing down your biggest personal goals will make them more real. However, don't tell everyone about it. Our minds confuse talking and doing.
While creating goals is very important to your success, talking about them is not. Repeated psychological tests confirm this. The good feeling you gain by talking about your goals does not carry over to your actual work to achieve those goals. You're much more likely to work on goals you haven't reported than ones you have.
If you need to talk about your goals, you can phrase them in a way that doesn't satisfy you, such as, âI have to write this report tomorrow. Give me a hard time if you see me surfing the net.
You'll only go so far in life guided by motivational quotes, business books, guides to making money online, and caffeine alone. Make your goals a reality, plan how you're going to achieve them, and create deadlines that hold you to those goals. This is how you will be more productive in the long run.
22. Schedule recordings on your calendar to track progress towards goals
It's a good idea to do incremental checks to make sure your timelines are realistic. If you are lagging behind, ask yourself why? Is it because a goal is unrealistic? What obstacles do you encounter?
Are the obstacles things you can control yourself? If so, determine how you can modify the objective, time frame, or tactic to achieve the desired result as quickly as possible.
You should regularly monitor your progress towards your goals. Set aside time each week, perhaps a Sunday morning, to see how you've progressed and spot any obstacles you've encountered.
23. Use Inbox by Gmail
I get massive mental and productivity gains from finding myself in inbox zero every day. Inbox is Google's left brain on an email program. It works with your existing Gmail account but looks at it in a different way. It groups similar emails based on their purpose.
For example, it consolidates all your travel emails. It highlights each email, so you can see the content without opening it, and you can even see things like flight updates and reservation statuses without opening the emails. It includes a task manager so you can set reminders yourself.
Another major benefit is the ability to "queue" emails, which causes them to reappear in your inbox at a pre-determined date and time. This makes you much more efficient at managing multiple projects at the same time, as you can simply reschedule emails to come back to your inbox (meaning you have to respond to them) when the time is more convenient for you. check it.
I don't waste time going to another To Do app to set a reminder â I use my inbox resurfacing as a cue to respond.
24. Charge your phone outside your bedroom
Knowing myself, I'm much more tempted to check Facebook, read Quora, or scan my inbox in bed while I'm about to go to sleep if my phone is nearby. To completely eliminate this distraction, leave your phone charging overnight in another room.
If you're using your phone as an alarm, turn up the volume to hear it from the other room. Better yet, get a vibrating wrist alarm like the FitBit or buy a cheap alarm clock to keep by your bed.
25. No screen time in bed and for 30 minutes before bedtime
Having a screen-free policy in bed (TVs, phones, tablets, computers and more) will dramatically increase the quality of your sleep and allow you to be more productive during your work day.
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have shown that exposure to light from computer tablets significantly reduces levels of the hormone melatonin, which regulates our internal clocks and plays a role in the sleep cycle. In the study, published in the journal Applied Ergonomics, researchers asked volunteers to read, play games and watch movies on an iPad, iPad 2 or tablet PC for varying lengths of time while measuring the amount of light received by their eyes. They found that two hours of exposure to a bright tablet screen at night reduced melatonin levels by about 22%.
One of the best things you can do (to sleep better) is to use a sleep calculator that will help you find the best time to go to bed and wake up so you feel rested and avoid morning dizziness. The best calculators will let you select your age, what time you want to go to bed or wake up, and you'll have three outcomes to choose from, depending on how many sleep cycles you have.
And now I need your help...
I want to keep my momentum going, so I want to hear from you âwhat is your best productivity tip?
Here are some examples of my own personal productivity tips that I've found most impactful in recent months:
1. Wake up at 4:30 a.m.
2. Charge my phone overnight outside my bedroom, keep it on do not disturb mode, and only check it once an hour
3. Schedule an hour a day on my calendar to send emails
And a dozen other tricks like using the Chrome extension, Inbox When Ready to hide my inbox whenever I'm in Gmail so I can still send emails without seeing new unread messages popping up every few minutes.
Now I need your help.
I want to hear your favorite productivity tip, behavior, or change you've implemented to become more productive in your day.
Comment below, share with meâŠ
