This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever recommend products that I have personally used and loved. Thank you for your support!
Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, yet few people manage to reach a significant amount of productivity in that time.
It’s time you become one of those productive boss babes!
From this point on forward, you will end the days of procrastination and ineffectiveness and instead embark upon an era of productivity.
I’m sure you are eager for the tips, so let’s get into it!
Read also: 15 Ways To Spend Your Time Wisely
1. Put your phone out of sight
I am quite unusual concerning my phone usage. My average daily use is most of the time below 30 minutes a day.
However, I know that their phone is the number one distractor for many people and therefore deserves to be mentioned on this list.
I recommend putting your phone out of sight and turning it silent.
And with out of sight, I mean completely out of sight into a drawer or the like.
You want to forget about it so that it doesn’t tempt you to break your work session.
For that, it is also crucial that you don’t spend your breaks in between each session on your phone.
Once you open up your phone, it will take ages to get off of it and regain your original focus.
So really try to forget about it. You are going to be surprised how much more time you will have at hand.
2. Use the 5-second rule
When a task doesn’t excite us, we have have to put effort into convincing ourselves to do it anyway.
We start listing arguments in our minds about why it should be done now rather than later. However, while we do so, we also have time to feel into the temptation of more thrilling activities that promise short-term satisfaction.
So, in the end, the longer you take to get started, the harder it will get.
We aim to beat our mind to it before it starts providing us with all the reasons not to do this right now.
Mel Robbins calls this the ‘5-second rule‘.
You basically count to five, and then you start the task without any further ado.
I’ve noticed this rule at work in various scenarios in my life.
Recently, for example, I purchased a microphone for recording my podcast.
Now, I had thought this through a day or two earlier, so it wasn’t a spontaneous decision (which rarely end well for me).
However, the longer I spend on Amazon actually deciding on which one I should buy, the more I felt the doubts creep up on me if this was such a good idea after all.
Yet only an hour earlier, I had been utterly sure of the idea.
So noticing the direction my thoughts and feelings were going in, I decided to quickly take action. I purchased the microphone that felt most aligned with me.
The same thing happens with recording my podcast episode. Since this is a new task for me, I am still very much outside my comfort zone.
The more I think about if I should record one now or later, the more uncomfortable I feel about it.
As a solution, I now jump into it as fast as possible as soon as I get the chance to do so.
What about you? What tasks do you delay? Try using the 5-second rule on them.
3. Know your kryptonite
Mine is easy. Are you ready? I’ll tell you in …
3
2
1
FANFICTIONS!!!!
My obsession with fanfictions comes in waves. There is a period when I am not or barely reading any, and then there is the time when I am craving to read them in every free moment of my day.
Recently I had one of those latter phases, and let me tell you, I quickly spend an hour reading fanfictions when I had planned to only have a 10-minute break in between study sessions.
After that happened a few days in a row, and I got annoyed at my lack of productivity, I decided it was time to discipline myself properly.
So I gave myself the rule: No fanfictions before lunchtime. (Because I always get most of my work done during the morning).
It was immensely tricky at first. To make it work, I didn’t even open my typical fanfiction websites, and I turned my laptop off as soon as possible so it would take more effort for me to open up those sites.
Sure enough, after three days or so, the obsession phase was broken, and now I’ve had multiple highly productive days in a row.
So, what is your kryptonite? I imagine for many people, it’s Instagram or TikTok or YouTube. Perhaps it’s the book that’s lying on your nightstand.
Set a strict rule and give your best following through on it. Promise yourself a reward if you are successful. And to increase the chance of that happening, put roadblocks in between yourself and your kryptonite.
Maybe that means deleting the app so that you have to install it again before using it.
Come up with something.
Read also: 9 Proven Ways to Master Self-Discipline
4. Automate
Effective automation reliefs you not only from having to do things yourself but, more importantly, from having to think about them.
We have to make so many decisions throughout the day. Each decision takes up a bit of our energy and ability to focus.
That’s why we want to automate a repetitive task that shouldn’t require our attention.
Once you have done that, you can focus your attention on more vital matters, which will increase your productivity.
5. Digitalise
There are pros and cons to digitalization.
If done correctly, it can help you store more significant amounts of information in a small, portable space neatly organized.
For example, I quickly realized at uni that it would be more time-efficient for me to type out my flashcards so that if I lost them or had to add something to them, I could simply print them out instead of rewriting them all over.
Then I realized that it would be easier for me not to worry about printing the flashcards, so I got myself the Anki app, and now I study the cards on my laptop in the perfectly spaced repetitions.
And lastly, I started purchasing my textbooks as Kindle books so that I didn’t have to type the books’ definitions and problems, but I could simply copy and paste them into my flashcards.
Can you see how much faster my process has become?
This is especially beneficial for me, since contrary to many people, I don’t learn much by creating notes or flashcards. So I might as well do it as quickly as possible, so I can get to the actual learning part quicker.
6. Outsourcing
If you absolutely despise a task, you will find infinite ways to procrastinate on it.
If possible, try to outsource tasks that you don’t like or that you are horrible at.
For me, that means outsourcing my Pinterest Pin creation to a virtual assistant as soon as I have the financial means to do so.
It’s not even that I hate it so much or that I’m bad at it. It just takes so freaking long, and that time could be spent on more critical tasks that only I can fulfill.
7. Task batching
Ah, I love this one!
Often it takes me a while to get into the flow of doing a task.
For example, the beginning of writing a blog post is always the most challenging part. After a few sentences, I usually become relatively quick at writing my thoughts down.
Every time you switch tasks, you break your focus, and it will take you a while to get back into it.
You can use that to your advantage.
Instead of planning to do a little bit of everything every day, you should dedicate a whole work session to doing one task completely and then be done with it for the week or month.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to checking your emails or the like. I’m more thinking about creating content, emails, templates, notes, reading a textbook, and so on.
Task batching can save you much needed time.
8. Clean your space
If my room is even remotely messy, I feel all unsettled and stressed inside.
And I guess I don’t need to tell you that your productivity will suffer if you are not in the right emotional space to work.
So make sure your space is tidy before you start your work.
Put away things that are not currently used. Try to create some surfaces in your room that are empty.
If there is at least a partly empty surface, it almost magically creates the feeling of tidiness of the space around you. It seems to signal that there is plenty of room available if this surface can be empty.
Even if you don’t feel yourself getting annoyed over a messy room or desk, try this one out either way.
You might discover that it makes a difference, after all.
9. Get fresh air
Use your study break to take a walk outside.
If you live in a quiet neighborhood, open your window while you study or work.
Nobody can be at their best in a stuffy room. On the contrary, it will likely give you a headache.
10. Stay hydrated
Same principle here. We need to be hydrated to function at our best.
So have the healthy drink of your choice at hand while you study.
11. Allow unscheduled unproductive days
I get it, it is immensely frustrating and unsatisfying if you planned to have a productive day, but then something crashes into your perfectly laid out plans.
For me, it is mostly headaches, and sometimes it’s a family member spontaneously visiting.
The point is, we have a decision to make in these kinds of situations. Either we hold the leash tightly and forcefully push ourselves through the day in as productive a manner as we can manage.
Or we go with the ebbs and flows of life and let go of our image of the perfectly productive day.
Every time I forcefully pushed myself, I’ve not only ended up with such a sour mood, but it also has negative long term effects on my motivation to be productive.
Nowadays, I allow myself time to relax. I look back at work I’ve done the previous day and the work I’ll most likely be able to do in the coming days.
That calms me enough most of the time to take some unproductive time away from my desk.
I hope these tips will help you to stay more productive in the future.
I hate the feeling of wasting my time, and I am sure you do too. If you learn to master your productivity, you will be startled with what you can do in a day, a week, a month, and a year!
It can truly change your life!
Sophie
