Top 5 Productivity Hacks
Do you want to find out some ways to be more productive? To have a little extra time? Imagine what you would do with the time gained. Productivity measures our effectiveness. It’s our ability to accomplish as much work as possible in a certain time span with given resources. Let’s take a look at an example:
Person A.: Messages 10 Clients an hour.
Person B.: Messages 15 Clients an hour.
Person C.: Messages 20 Clients an hour.
They all use their office computers. One can say that person C achieves a higher output with the same amount of input. Person C is more productive. What could be the reasons?
1. Get The Right Amount Of Sleep
In order to be productive, it is useful to be well rested. Let’s say A and B went to a party yesterday and hit their beds way past midnight. Now C as the only rested one has an advantage.
If you want to perform well, you should be well rested. In his TEDx Talk Dr. Matthew Carter, PhD, and Sleep Specialist said:
“You’re able to get more done on a good night’s sleep, not less.”
A recent study testing approximately 100 adults between the age of 22–60 found out that
“sleep duration (both short and long), insomnia, sleepiness, and snoring were all associated with decreased work productivity.”
When you get tired during your workday, Power Naps between 10 – 25 Minutes can be helpful. Try not to sleep longer than 30 minutes or you might enter deep sleep. Waking up during deep sleep makes you feel groggy. If you do want to take longer naps go for 90 minutes, which is a full sleep cycle.
2. Avoid Distractions
Actually, person A, who messages 10 people per hour, is very experienced. She has been at the job for 8 years. But since she has a lot of experience her colleagues keep asking her questions and her phone doesn’t stop ringing. Thanks to that she gets interrupted every 10 minutes. Person B is waiting for news and keeps checking her Mails ever so often.
What are Person C’s strategies to avoid distractions? What distracts you and what could you do to avoid the distractions? What causes distraction?
Fellow sat down with Nir Eyal, a time management expert and the best-selling author of Hooked and Indistractable. Nir Eyal explained distractions as follows:
“External triggers are what most people think about when they think about distraction,” says Nir. “But what turns out to be the much more common source of distraction… the number one source of distraction… is not what’s happening outside of us, but rather what we find is that distraction begins from within. If you look at what distracts people throughout their day, it’s not things outside of them. It’s what’s going on in their heads. It’s boredom, loneliness, fatigue, anxiety, uncertainty. It’s these feelings that we seek to escape from.”
What Could You Do Against Common Distractions?
Your Phone
I think my phone is my number one distraction. Not only is my messenger calling, my social media, but just looking at it distracts me. My solution: out of sight out of mind. While I work, I put it somewhere I can’t see it. At least for a couple of hours. Don’t want to be that drastic or need it for calling? I think there is a don’t disturb button somewhere or you can install an app.
Being Hungry Or Thirsty
Before you start working get your snacks and drinks ready, so you don’t have to get up while working. And while you are at it make sure you have all the materials you will need. Check Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to find out why food is ESSENTIAL to your Motivation.
Colleagues
My number one productivity hack is to come to work early. At work you get constantly called, e-mailed or people come to your office. When I start work at 6 a.m. I have 2 hours of very productive uninterrupted time. If you work online make yourself unavailable for a certain time. Let people know you don’t want to be disturbed and that they can reach you via e-mail.
Here is a post on how to stop using So Much Social Media:
3. Create Templates
Person C has yet another strategy. She created a list of standard sentences she can use for the clients. For each pitch, she can combine premade sentences. She also tracks which sentences work best and which sentences failed to get a positive response.
Templates can simplify your workday vastly. Where could you use templates to simplify your work process? Or even your daily life? Find out patterns and create templates.
Here are some examples:
- Business letters
- Project proposals
- To-do lists
- Blogpost templates
- DM Templates
- Sales Templates
- Shopping Lists
Write down 5 tasks where you could use a template. You can find many free templates online or you create your own template.
4. Decide on your Priority
Choose the number one task that if achieved would make the biggest difference and commit to working at least 10 Minutes on it. Even if you don’t achieve the rest of your list you will feel like you accomplished something big.
The 80/20 Rule is the perfect tool to prioritize your tasks. Check out the post to learn more about the rule and how to apply it.
5. Try Standardization and Automation
Your to-dos consist of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. often, they are similar or the same. On occasion, you have to do something you have never done before. But most often tasks are repetitive. If you find those patterns you can standardize them.
This means you do the same task each time in the same way. For example, if you write a post you start with research, think about the heading, write an introduction, write the main body, write the conclusion and let someone review.
You always follow the exact same steps and if you realize something is missing you add it to the standard.
You optimize the process and get faster and faster. And you can easily teach someone the task.
With standardization, you spend less time on tasks that are repetitive and boring and have more time for creativity and innovation.
Wrapping Up...
Let us know which Ways to Be more Productive we Missed
There are many different types of productivity hacks. You have to pick the methods that fit best for you. Today we introduced 5 ways to be more productive.
Enough Sleep
Eliminating Distractions
Using Templates
Prioritization
Standardization and Automation
Let us know what methods you use down below in the comments. Also, check out our latest posts:
- Try the Pomodoro Method for more productivity. Here are our favorite youtube timers.
- Here is a Simple Productivity System that guarantees more productivity.
Lovely tips for when we need to be productive; I definitely need to make sure I get rid of distractions so it was a good reminder to see that listed here.
Hey 🙂 Distractions are definitelly the worst productivity killer for me.