6 Simple Ways to Boost Your Productivity

Also check out Part 2 of the Belief and Action interview with Danny Iny, and 15 Bloggers Reveal, a post about mindset that features Danny Iny (among many others), by Timo Kiander, the author of today’s guest post.

For some people, productivity seems second nature.

They get lots of stuff done and move toward their goals in giant leaps and bounds (whether in business or personal level).

At the same time, other people struggle with their time – they feel that they are busy, but they still don’t get as much done as they wanted.

I used to be like the people in the latter group. However, by making some simple changes to my working habits, I have been able to achieve much more than I did before.

By applying these tips, you can get much more done too and feel energized and good about yourself.

1. Sleep enough

A good night’s sleep builds a strong foundation for your day. Not only does your body need physical rest from your day’s work, but sleep also reloads your brain to tackle demanding tasks the next day.

If I don’t get 7-8 hours of sleep every night, I’m not able to function properly. I can’t remember things well, I’m unable to focus on my work and even the simplest tasks seem to be overwhelming.

Once you start sleeping enough, you will feel much better the next day and get much more done than you would if you were tired.

2. Work in small chunks and have breaks between them

Working in small chunks and having a small break between the sessions is a good way to refresh your mind and gain more energy for your work.

Normally I work between 25-45 minutes without stopping and between the work sessions I take a 5-10 minute break. I feel that while working in this way, I’m able to focus on the task at hand much better than by sitting two hours in front of my computer without any breaks at all.

Also, my mind gets refreshed between every 25-45 minute session by doing something completely different than anything work related stuff. By doing this, I might get new ideas that carry my work even further forward.

3. Use a timer to focus better on your work

Splitting your work into smaller sessions and having a break between them is a good way to improve your focus and productivity. However, if you want to improve your focus during those sessions even further, you could do that by using a timer.

The beauty of timers is that once you turn it on, you are working against a clock and you want to get as much done as possible within a certain timeframe. This way your working sessions become much more effective, and your productivity increases.

I have used software called Cool Timer on PC, which works fine for this job. For Mac, there is software called Alarm Clock 2 (however I don’t have experiences on that one). You could also set the alarm on your mobile phone, or use more traditional equipment, like an egg timer.

4. Get rid of distractions

In a perfect world, we could work without any distractions (our productivity would certainly be much greater than it is now!). Unfortunately, the reality is that the amount of distractions is increasing rather than decreasing.

Well, you may not be able to eliminate the distractions, but you can manage them, so that they cause you as little disturbance as possible while you work. Here are some things that you can try:

a)      Try to have a work space, which is dedicated to nothing other than work. If you work in a separate room, close the door when working. If you work at home, let your family members know that you cannot be disturbed.

b)     Clean your desk. The more stuff you have on your desk when you work, the more distracted you will become. Try to have just the essential things on the desk that you need for your work and nothing else.

c)      When you work, make sure that you really do work – and nothing else. Turn off email notifications and instant messaging clients, and mute your phone.

d)     Listen to music. I know that this sounds strange when giving advice on how to minimize distractions. However, I have done this many times when I’m in an office environment (I don’t have my own room). Especially when working on a mundane or repetitive task, music makes the task more enjoyable than it otherwise would be.

By implementing these tips, you can reduce the distractions that could interfere with your productivity, and do a much better job of focusing on the task at hand.

5. Be accountable to someone

If you want to give your productivity even a bigger boost, you should make yourself accountable to someone else.

When you hold yourself accountable, you want to keep that promise in every possible way and you don’t want to let anybody down by breaking that promise. This will keep you motivated to work hard to finish the task within the timeframe that you have set.

There are many ways to hold yourself accountable. You can talk to your business partner about a task, mention it on your blog, talk about it in your mastermind group meeting, or in your next session with your coach.

6. Focus on the right tasks

It doesn’t matter if you work hard – it only matters that you work hard on the right things. For example, you can spend hours tweaking your WordPress blog or fine-tuning your Facebook Fan Page, when you should really be focused on deepening relationships with your customers, providing valuable content to readers, or networking with other members in your niche.

Write all of your tasks down on a sheet of paper and decide which parts of your business you should really be focusing on – the ones that are important, and require your expertise and personal attention. The rest of the tasks should be automated or outsourced if possible.

This way you will be able to focus on the things that matter most for your business, without wasting your valuable time on secondary stuff (or at least wasting less of it!).

Conclusion

By taking these simple steps, you should be able to improve your productivity and feel good about yourself.

You don’t have to try every tip at once – instead, you should start out by implementing one tip at a time and see what kinds of experiences you get out of it.

So… where are you going to start? Leave a comment and let me know…

Timo Kiander is a part-time online entrepreneur who blogs at TimoKiander.com. His motto is “I help people develop themselves first and their business second”. He believes that people can improve their businesses by applying the lessons of personal development in their business.

Tagged as: productivity, Timo Kiander