Deal With The Illusion Of Productivity.

At the end of your next today look back on what you have actually achieved, balance that against your long-term goals and see how you went. 99% of people will realize that they didn’t achieve much. The first step to overcoming a problem, is acknowledging that you have a problem.

Repeat This: “I have a problem”.

Good, now we can start.

Implement this motto as of today:

Less Screen Time, More Free Time.

The ‘Less Screen Time‘ motto stands for spending more time planning what you are going to do before you start to click away, strictly controlling the amount of time you spend on certain tasks and realizing that checking analytics every 30 minutes will not improve your traffic! This way you will have less screen time while you are working, but also your increased productivity will give you more ‘Free Time‘!

So here are my Top 5 Tips to increase work productivity.

1) Plan Before Typing

• A long term strategy helps. This may take a little while to develop but trust me it will save you days/weeks of work!
• Decide whether the tasks you want to complete today are really necessary to achieve your long term strategy.. and cut them if they don’t

2) Use A Count Down Timer

• Allocate a certain amount of time to each task and then use a count down timer help you stick to it. Its is important to create a thing called eustress. Eustress is a healthy level of stress where productivity is increased and we actually feel good about it. If you feel yourself tipping over to distress then tacke a chill pill.

• Parkinson’s Law states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Having a countdown timer helps to shrink the amount of space a task can expand into. If you only have 30 minutes to write a post then it won’t stretch out into a whole day.
• Remember you are self motivated and need to balance this for yourself.

3) Break Up Tasks.

• Technology is giving us an even shorter attention span. So for most people, the longer they work on a task the less productive they are. So split tasks up and stick to the time frames you set yourself.
• Take breaks, eat, drink and exercise in between – not only will you enjoy yourself you will be more efficient!

4) Create A “Later” Folder In Your Bookmarks Bar.

• As you stumble through your searches tring to find that nugget you will innevitably find other AWESOME things that are irrelevant to your current objective. Learn to store these for revision later, by dragging the links into the “Later” folder. Not only will this help you stay on track, but it will also give you a time to use this other information more productively later.
• Check the later folder at the end of your day. This is for personal entertainment as well as learning new things. Take notes on things you can do tomorrow, don’t bother starting them that night!

5) Kill Interruptions

• Turn off email automatic alerts – Switch alerts to manual. (switching to the lowest frequency may help you transition at first.. trust me you wont miss anything!)
• Turn your phone off during times of high focus/creativity -eg brainstorming or writing your posts.
• If you are that way inclined, work early in the morning when no one else is there to distract you.