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Owning a business will bring with it enormous demands on your time. Getting more done in the time that you have is an essential part of owning your business.
Here are 7 productivity hacks I’ve found have helped me get more done while creating my own business as I travel slowly around Mexico with my wife.
Use Templates
Whenever I have an email to send, a letter to write, an advert to pull together. I go to my templates folder click on the most appropriate template and get that email, letter or advert completed in a short period. Utilizing templates stops you from having to think about how you will format a particular email or letter and has helped me gain hours over the course of a week. The time saved can then be used productivity on other high-value activities.
Lists
It won’t be a surprise to anyone to see lists as a way of getting more done. I finish every day by completing a straightforward list. The list is written on paper and consists of three sections:
- To do today
- To do this week
- To do this month
Fill out the 3 most important things that need to be done the following day, the five things that need to get done by the end of the week and the 10 things you need to do before the end of the month. Doing this activity gets you clear on the big things that need to get done and removes overwhelm.
Controlling Your Calendar
Everybody these days seems to have access to your calendar. This has good and bad points. The good being that you don’t have to schedule every activity, the bad that you lose control of your calendar and hence your productivity.
A quick and easy solution which maintains all of the benefits is for you to schedule time in your diary for the activities that you must complete. Doing so then restricts the times’ others can schedule in your diary to the date and times that you have allowed them to do so, hence making you incredibly more productive.
Ditch Perfectionism
The first thing that we all have to realize is that whatever you create will never be perfect. Your products, posts, pages, books, information products, and training courses all must have value, but they will never be perfect. Striving for perfection is just another form of procrastination, you need to ditch perfectionism in favor of getting things done and out the door. Changing your viewpoint from perfectionism to getting things done will increase your productivity and will see you producing more content than you ever thought possible.
Delegate / Outsource
Doing things that you aren’t skilled at will take you a minimum of twice the time of someone who is skilled. You cannot possibly be skilled at everything. If you have employees delegate those activities where you are not skilled, if you do not have employees outsource these activities. Delegating or outsourcing allows you to concentrate on the areas that you are proficient and as such your productivity increases.
Learn to Say No
One of the biggest drains on productivity is saying yes to every request others place on you. Saying no will allow you to concentrate on the activities that you must do instead of concentrating on activities that others want you to undertake. Saying no, particularly to the people you care most about can be difficult. It is essential though and in doing so explain that you cannot do what they ask, explain what you are doing and why it is the activity that you must undertake.
Use the Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method created by Francesco Cirillo. The technique consists of a measured timespan of activity followed by a short break and goes as follows:
- Decide on what activity needs to be done
- Set the timer for 25 minutes (you can vary this time although you should aim for short stints)
- Work on the task
- End the task when the timer rings and take a short break (3-5 minutes)
- After 4 periods of activity, take a longer break of15 to 30 minutes. Then begin again at point 1.
Use these strategies to make yourself more productive and less stressed.
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Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash