The clock keeps ticking. What are you doing today? The day has 24 hours, how do you manage to do all your tasks with the time you have?
One thing is certain, time will not stop! You don't have forever to achieve what you want. In today's world, one has to be productive if he wants to be successful.
It doesn't matter your activity or specific field, you must be able to perform your tasks in a short period of time or you get left behind. Easy advise to face this adversity? Be more productive!
Yes, you can't have more time, but you can make the best with the time you have.
Find ways to finish your tasks faster so you'll be able to focus on doing more, or take time for other non-professional activities.
To help you out, we've enlisted 45 ways for you to be more productive in life:
45 Ways To Be More Productive In Life
1. Make a list of dispensable and indispensable things in your life. Just get a sheet of paper or open a writing app on your pc/smartphone. In an column insert the indispensable, other column insert the dispensable.
2. Start to cut the dispensable. If you sincerely know that thing doesn't belong in your life, you should just cut it, simple and plain.
3. Measure how your doing in the indispensable things. From all the things you listed, make an assessment on how you're doing on them. Rate them with mediocre, average, good or great.
4. Write goals for each indispensable thing. After measuring it, project your future by writing what you want to achieve in every specific thing.
5. Divide 24 hours of your day for each goal. You need to schedule daily tasks to achieve those goals. Split the day in hours and insert in them each task you must do to get closer to reach that goal.
6. Star to practice daily. It will be hard when you begin. But try it each day and get better at it. Temptations for dispensable things will come, but be committed to the indispensable.
7. Get inspired by small achievements. When you start, progress will be slow, but some small wins can provide you inspiration. Make sure you acknowledge them.
8. See the big picture, always. A daily schedule is great when you start from scratch, but a weekly or monthly is necessary to keep it going. Establish bigger goals for each time period.
9. Compete with yourself. Yesterday you made a task in 45 minutes. Today try to go for 35. Tomorrow for 25, and so on. As you get better at it, it will be easier, by keeping the clock in mind.
10. Organize your professional tasks. Your job is what pays the bill, be diligent about it because there's no way you can skip it. 8 hours to perform it, make sure that those are the only hours taken from your day to do it.
11. Be creative and practical when doing basic tasks. We're talking about your personal hygiene, feeding yourself, sleep and such. Don't spend too much time on them, but make sure you accomplish everything you need in an organized way.
12. Beware of supportive tasks to be productive. If you exercise, eat clean and work on your mind, you can get more energy to get you trough the day. Keep one hour or two of your day to re-energize your body.
13. Don't hang on the past. It's over, why worry and live in it? Keep your mind on the present and starting doing stuff that will assure you a better future.
14. Dedicate one day to clean it all! A clean working environment and house are the stepping stone to inspiration. Make sure one day a week you clean stuff. Also do like the great chefs, after you worked on something clean up the mess right away, don't pile up stuff to clean someday...
15. Also clean your personal stuff. If you have debts, family members or friends you no longer talk with, start to solve those situations. These will help you to keep a clean mind, it's crucial to have no small worries to be productive.
16. Make use of your team. You don't and can't do everything by yourself. Some things others can help you with. Learn to delegate and trust in people that can get the job done. It will free up your time.
17. Keep distractions away. I know it's cool to arrive home turn up the WiFi and get lost in a ton of videos or social media posts. Your losing your precious time in things that will do you no good.
18. Shape your beliefs and values. This is huge when you have to make decisions, if you know well who you are and what you stand for, it's easier to decide when the time comes.
19. Leave the small stuff. People want to gossip, whine about it, give excuses and blame others. Stop playing these games that will take nowhere and make you lose time.
20. Stop worrying about failure. You will fail at some point, can't skip it, but you can learn from it and go at it again. Correct your mistakes, improve your skills and go for success.
21. Learn to simplify. You probably have huge demands and you see complex tasks everywhere you look. Learn to break down huge tasks in small tasks that are manageable and will lead you to your desired end result.
22. Take leisure time for yourself. This may sound contradictory, but some leisure time will make wonders to your mind. Take a trip, visit a museum, engage in a new hobby or such. An expanded mind works better and faster.
23. Stop thinking start to decide. It's good to put things in perspective and plan stuff, but you can't lose time on that. Just decide. usually the first instinct is the correct one, move on.
24. Create a tasks table. This works great with me, better than a daily to-do list, I have an excel sheet with all the days and months of the year. On each day I have my tasks to perform in small squares. Each day I check-mark the tasks I've made and the ones I didn't. It burns me up when I see Xs instead of check-marks on that sheet. It motivates me to do better next day.
25. You'll not be perfect but you most strive to be. Yes perfection can mislead us, but we most try to improve each day with perfection in mind. Find new ways to perform your tasks and get better each day. It's all about personal development, so develop yourself.
26. Watch your company. To be more productive you need to be around productive people. Lazy people can slow you down and drag you to their unproductive ways.
27. Think positive, let negativity alone. We can't erase negative things from arriving to our lives. But we can work on our minds and have a positive approach. If you can see a positive thing in an negative situation you're on your way to solve that problem.
28. Be a problem solver not a problem maker. This is related to the above, as soon as you detect a problem try to solve it. Worrying about it will not solve it, so focus on solutions.
29. Purposes must be your driving force. It's easy to get caught up with feelings, but you can't trust them. The simple way to do it is to have well defined purposes for your life. Your working cadence will increase if you stop and remind your purposes daily.
30. Stop preparing start doing. You're ready right now, the perfect time doesn't exist. You don't need to learn all the information about a specific task to perform it, stick to the basics. The crucial thing is that you execute, take action. Some things you can only know by being in the process, make sure you are fully engaged in it.
31. Pick advises from the wise. Sometimes we are to proud to ask questions to successful people. Don't be! By asking wiser people about a specific issue you can get the answers you need. This will increase you success rate by far, get to know what you need to do by asking.
32. Be grateful for the things you already have. Stress can disturb us, don't hang on it. It can slow you down and make you think that you need time to rest. Best way to avoid it is to be grateful for what you have, count your blessings and go on.
33. Remind yourself that you're stronger than you think. It's easy to slow down thinking we are not strong enough to complete the task. But in your past experience, surely, you had thought that way, but you did it anyway and you managed to get the work done. Keep this in mind, you are stronger than you think. Challenge yourself and rise up to the occasion.
34. Get that motivation up. What do you want to achieve? Use a reverse logic to your success efforts. Envision the desired outcome all the time. It could be a degree, a promotion, a new house, anything that you're trying to achieve. If you know that you're working for something great, you'll be motivated to do it.
35. Understand how patterns and triggers work. A bad habit is sparked by a specific trigger in your environment, that makes you run a pattern related to it. You can be at the supermarket with great intentions to buy healthy food, but you see yourself in the candy section, can't avoid buying some. The solution is to avoid the trigger, don't go to that section. Apply this to your daily routine, focus on the necessary only.
36. Find funny ways to do your tasks. Repeating tasks can bring boredom, that will slowly stop your rhythm. But if you get creative you can find ways to have fun doing it and you'll be willing to do more. Keep an open mind and have fun.
37. Have small breaks. Yes being productive doesn't implies you have to be performing all the time. A small break can make you wonders, it energizes your mind, makes you fresher to get back it and you'll be faster doing it.
38. Notifications are turned off. Don't let an annoying bell or message on your phone distract you. Apps have settings, turn off notifications, if information is really important, it will find a way to reach you, don't worry!
39. Surround yourself with productive memos. Decorate your working space with reminders, get an inspiring quote on your desktop or smartphone screen, have a clock around, use post its with your tasks and so on.
40. Tell others your goals. Make people expect something from you, this way you'll be driven not let them down, and do what you have to do. Also, if you achieve it you become accountable, people will trust you more!
41. Answer mails at a specific time only. Keep half hour, or, an hour (if there's many) to answer people. After that hour, you can only answer next day (if you can of course). This way you won't be distracted and keep focus on more important tasks.
42. If you see something wrong, correct it immediately. It happens with me when I read past posts. Sometimes I detect a spelling error, what I do? Interrupt everything and correct it immediately. This gives me a great sensation, the error is no longer there and I can move on to keep creating.
43. Read and write on a daily basis. Your mind must be conditioned. If you want new ideas and thoughts, best way to do it is to read books and write your own stuff. This will boost your skills and make your mind work faster.
44. Check your progress. All these ways we've talked about, will do you no good, if you don't take time to check how you're doing. See your achievements, understand what's working, revise your goals, set new goals and keep on taking action.
45. Get to work! After reading this post, what's the best thing you can do to be productive? Get to work on your tasks!
Second best thing you can do?
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