Do you want to be more productive? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by making a major life change to reach your goals? Guess what, you don’t have to. Tiny changes can make a huge impact on your productivity. All three of these can be tried quickly and easily and will yield serious results to your day.
1. Write It All Down
How many times have you had several thoughts and ideas swirling in your head? It’s easy to get caught in a loop of thinking through your to-do list, and yet not quite starting any item on it. What if you could feel more calm an organized in just 10 minutes? This simple logical trick will help.
First, take a pen and paper and give yourself 5 minutes. Write down every thought, worry and idea that comes to mind. List form is ok for this and perfect grammar is definitely not necessary. Next, take that list and take 5 minutes to sort it into a to-do list, a worry list, etc. Underline each item and then categorize them. I like to break things down into the following categories:
- Quick items to do – Think of these as tasks that take <10 minutes, like a phone call or email).
- Must do today – These will be your focus items for now!
- Ideas
- Worries – Set them aside and then come back later and mark off the ones that aren’t really worries. You’ll be surprised at how many disappear.
- To do later – Sometimes it’s just as important to know what NOT to focus on.
This works really well just before sleeping. If it’s on paper, you can let it go out of your mind as you sleep.
2. Batch Your Schedule
Do your days feel hectic? Do you rush between tasks or multiask and find you’re not able to concentrate on what’s at hand? This one is for you. I’ve recently been doing this and it really makes a huge difference in the amount of time I have in a day.
To get started, look at all the items you have to do for the next few days or even the next week. Then categorize them. For example, for ProductiveStyle, I want to: write blog posts, draw journal and planner layouts, create a kindle version of my new book – Floral Planner Doodles, draw how-tos for Instructadoodle on Instagram, create drawings for my next book, do photo edits, and do photography for posts. In the past I would draw a post, do the photography for the post, do the edits on the photo and post it. Every time. By grouping activities together you can really have a better flow of work and can get a LOT more done.
Here’s the trick: each time you switch between activities, there’s a period of setup/downtime. Even if the switch is mental, time is taken. For example, when I do photos, I have to set up lighting, a background, etc. When I do blogging, I need to log in to my content management system and decide on a good title, etc. In computer programming, that time is called a context switch.
As busy individuals, we spend a LOT of time context switching. If you want that time back, just set aside blocks to focus on one task. Maybe Monday is a day to put aside two hours to put pen to paper and create journal spreads and Tuesday is photography day.
Think about what that means in your schedule. Can you re-arrange meetings so you have a block of free time to focus instead of half hour blocks spread through the day? Can you arrange to do all of your shopping on one side of town at one particular time each week? How about preparing lunch items for a few days ahead? Once you try this with set of to-do list items, you’ll start to see more and more ways to be efficient with your time.
3. The Countdown Method
The last trick may be the simplest of all, but it is tried and true (just ask my Mom!). When you have a task you dread, count down to the start. In your mind start with 10, or 5 or 3 and count down. On one, take some small step toward it. The hardest switch we have to make in our day is to get started. Once you start, you’ll find that everything just flows from there. Whether you’re trying to get out of bed on time, exercise, or just start doing chores, this simple mind shift is powerful.
Just check out the video below if you have doubts!
