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Are you finding it hard to do as much as you’d like with your time? Do you feel unaccomplished at the end of every day – like you know you could do more?
Don’t beat yourself up; we’re all in that boat. It’s something to do with our time management skills.
With a little tweak here and there, you can boost your productivity and do more in less time. Let me show you how.
Easy ways to increase productivity and achieve more in less time
1. Listen to productivity-boosting music
As you work, walk, talk, or get engaged with your day-to-day activities, try to keep your favorite song playing in the background. Such tricks have been proven to help people stay focused, motivated, and highly productive.
Remember how music helped us study better when we were in school?
In a similar vein, music can help us achieve more in our everyday lives now, too. A BBC report revealed that the productivity output of a factory group increased by 12.5-15% when workers were allowed to do ‘Music While You Work.’
Music is known to quickly sway one’s attention away from distractions that may have otherwise limited your productivity.
Of course, you want to avoid that heavy rock or electric music. Instead, go for classical stuff, nature music, cinematic music, or your favorite music.
Since music players like Spotify allow us to loop a song on Spotify. One can keep their favorite song on repeat for the duration of their work.
2. Write out a to-do list the night before
Distractions and procrastination are some of the biggest culprits behind people’s lack of productivity. Having a to-do list prevents unnecessary distractions and procrastination. Without this, you may forget you still have a lot to do, thus wasting time on irrelevant things.
You’ll need two tools to make this ‘To-do list’ trick work better for you. One is a tool capable of creating a to-do list, and the other is a tool capable of sending you reminder notifications. A mind map software would do the former, while a task management software would do the latter.
This way, you will have your to-do list everywhere you go, and you’ll be constantly reminded what next to do.
3. Be intentional about eliminating distractions.
Music can only do so much in the battle against distractions. If you’re serious about staying productive throughout your day, you need to be intentional about cutting out distractions. By being intentional, we mean setting boundaries and sticking with them.
That means putting your phone aside, turning off the television, keeping your pet away, turning off online notifications, avoiding those small office talks, etc.
A real-life example of a case of Instagram distraction
You’re working on the laptop one minute, then an Instagram notification comes in. You pick up your phone to check, and thirty minutes later, you’re still on the app. How did that happen? I bet even you can’t explain. That’s what you get when you’re not intentional about cutting out distractions.
This tip is particularly important for those people who work from home. When you work from home, the distractions tend to be more profound. The only way to beat it is by being intentional about it.
4. Don’t always DIY your tasks
Yes, we get it. Doing your tasks by yourself saves money. However, sometimes, it pays to outsource tasks.
When you consider the number of hours you can save by giving out some of your tasks – hours you can spend doing other things – you’ll see it makes a lot of sense.
For example, imagine you’re an SEO specialist who helps people increase website traffic. It may be wise to handle every aspect of your gigs by yourself, especially if they’re things you can do by yourself. However, you’ll complete more clients’ projects and make more money – in a shorter space of time – if you outsourced small parts of the projects. For example, the keyword research part.
5. Automate as many activities as you can
Why spend the early hours of your morning making coffee when you can have a ‘One Touch Coffee Machine’ do it for you?
Why spend hours writing content to publish on your business blog when you can use an AI content writer to do that?
Why assign tasks to your employees manually when you can automate things with software?
Why spend hours on the road for meetings when you can hold virtual sessions on Zoom?
In short, technology has made the world a better place for all of us. And there’s an app or a tool for every task you can think of. Embrace automation today and watch your productivity shoot up.
Simply look it up online if you don’t know how to bring automation into your workplace, life, or day-to-day activities. E.g., how to automate my laundry business, how to automate my work-from-home business, how to automate my daily workout, etc.
6. Always complete your most dreaded tasks first
There are always those tasks you fear the most. Once you wake up in the morning, make sure you tackle these first.
In the morning, you’re still pumped up and rearing to go. Before that energy zaps out, expend it on your most dreaded task. After that, you can spend the rest of the day attending to the simpler tasks.
Imagine finishing those scary tasks as early as 10 AM; you can spend the next few hours doing the simpler ones. If you’re lucky finish up everything you have for the day by 2 PM. You still have a few hours to do a little extra.
That way, you would have done more in lesser time.
7. Take breaks
Finally, take breaks.
Breaks don’t kill. I know you probably want to complete all your tasks in one go, but that’s technically not possible. Your body isn’t machine-operated. You’re human, and humans need rest. When you rest and relax, you recharge your batteries and boost your energy levels.
Some people complain that they don’t know what to do to relax during their days. If this sounds like you, check out this post on a zillion ways to explore in life. You’ll get some interesting ideas from there.
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