Today I thought I'd write a blog post about productivity. I know many of you will be going back to University, starting school or even just heading back to work and if you're anything like me, you're probably very good at procastination! That means, doing anything apart from the work you're meant to be doing. When I need to be, I can be ridiclously productive but usually, it takes me a while to find my stride. I've written a number of blog posts with similar topics, including top tips to inspire and motivate you, as well as my top tips for freelancers. Some of these tips definitely overlap but I hope they'll help you whether it's an assignment you need to finish, a job you're trying to get off your to do list or you're just generally trying to be more productive in your day to day life, here are my top productivity tips and I'm hoping these tips will make you your most productive!
Wake up early - One thing I am not good at (because I go to bed too late), waking up early. When I do wake up early, I am SO productive. I cannot believe how much I can get done before anyone else is up and before the day properly starts. I check the clock and I've already whizzed through my to do list.
Go to bed on time - It's a simple one but in order to get up early, one must obviously go to bed on time. I'm really bad at getting to bed on time and definitely need someone to pry my phone/any distraction away from me as I just scroll and scroll until hours have passed. Ultimately, the earlier you go to bed, the more you're going to get out of your days because you can wake up earlier. Read my top sleep tips.
Do the big tasks first - I personally find that doing the big tasks on my list first is the best way to tackle my to do list. Whilst it's nice to get all the annoying, small tasks ticked off, I do think we should prioritise our to-do lists and figure out which tasks really need dealing with first. The bigger the task is, the harder or more time consuming it usually is so it's probably best for your stress levels and for yourself, to get that tackled first.
Breaking tasks up - In my final year of University, I knew from the get-go that I had my dissertation to do. Rather than leaving it until the last minute or putting it to the back of my mind (which would have been easy to do as it's such an important and daunting piece of work), I faced into it head on and broke it up into bitesized chunks. If you break harder tasks up into smaller chunks, for example, 'I am going to write 500 words of my 20,000 word essay per day for the next month', it makes it seem so much easier and mangeable and you can reward yourself along the way too. I didn't even find my disseration hard because I dealt with it this way, rather than seeing it as 15,000 words, I saw it as 15 1000 word essays.
To do list broken into priorities - This takes me nicely onto our to-do lists. I love my to-do list and as I spoke about in my how to lower stress blog post, if you break your to-do list into real priorities rather than just adding things for the sake of it, you'll get the things that need doing, done. I find myself writing timings at the side of my to-do list or days, I then break it down into things I need to do before I go to the gym for example. It's really up to you how you handle it but it helps me smash through my work and see what's really important.
Power hour - I talk about a power hour a lot but it's because it's an important one. If I set an hour timer on my phone and give myself only an hour to get something done, the time pressure makes me work harder, faster, more efficiently and, I'm more focused too. I find in the gym for example, if I go one hour before closing, I always push myself harder because I know I can't waste anytime. It's also a great thing to do if you are spending too much time on something, for example, I could spend all day doing my emails but instead, I now do a power hour in the morning and then one before the end of the day, that way I'm not letting emails consume my life.
Lock phone away - I really do find locking my phone in another room maximises my productivity. I sit and aimlessly scroll and before I know it, hours of my life = wasted. If you are struggling with productivity, put your phone away, out of reach and I promise, it will help your productivity levels.
Pre-prep meals - I absolutely love cooking but do find I spend so much time doing it. If you are in a rush or know you've got loads of work to do, pre-prep your meals so you can grab them, renourish, take a step back from your work and then get back on it.
Out of office on if you’re working on something big - I have found putting a simple 'out of office' on my emails takes so much pressure off me, it just means I don't feel the pressure to reply instantly to emails and I'm letting people know that I'm busy or away from my desk.
So there we have it, a few of my how to be more productive tips, please do comment below with any of your tips for productivity!
Don't forget to follow me on bloglovin! to stay up to date with my posts!
I would also love it if you could subscribe to me on YouTube here!
No comments:
Post a Comment