5 Ways to Be More Productive and Get Work Done Faster
As an entrepreneur, you have a ton of work to do. Sometimes so much that it can get overwhelming. Well, the work isn’t going to go away. So your only choice is to do it. The thing is, by increasing your productivity, you can get more work done in less time. Here are our top 5 ways to become more productive.
Find Your Most Productive Time
A lot of people will point out the fact that waking up early make people successful. If you do some research, a lot of the most successful people do wake up early. The thing is, all of us function on different cycles. Maybe you are an early bird and should be up working at 6 am. That’s fine. But, what if you naturally go to sleep late and wake up later? Your circadian clock, may be set a little differently.
We all have certain times of the day when we are most awake and work the best. You have to discover when that is for you. Take note throughout the day of when you feel ready to take on the day. This is the time when you should schedule your most demanding, creative work. You’ll be able to power through it and come out with better results.
On the other hand, you probably have a time when you’re more sluggish and slow. For me, (and a lot of others), that’s right after lunch. These are the times when you want to do your less intense work. A good one for this time is checking and answering emails.
Chunk Your Work
Creating time blocks for work goes right along with our first way. Since you can divide your time into when you are most and least productive, you can section off what work you do when. You can create hour (or however long you need) blocks throughout the day and schedule each task then. But, there is a key to being effective at this.
You don’t want to make your time blocks so small that you’re jumping back and forth between activities. Instead, you want to create nice long chunks when you can work on one thing for a while. So for instance, you could schedule to write all of your blog posts for the week in one 2-hour block. Your mind starts to work on blog posts and can get into the groove. We want to stay in that groove and milk it for all of our work. Then, later on, you could spend another hour scheduling all of your social media at once.
Make Lists
Making a to do list is not new. I’m sure you already have one. However, there are ways that you can make your to do list more effective. First of all, actually write down your list-whether it be on paper, in your phone, or on your computer. The point is that it shouldn’t be a mental list just floating around. You’re more likely to worry about it or even miss something. Next, you want to break it down into as small steps as possible. This way, you know exactly what you need to do and you get a sense of accomplishment each time you cross something off. So, if you are creating a new social media profile, your list should include everything from finding a profile picture to writing an about me-all listed out separately.
Find your 80/20
There’s something called the Pareto Principle that states that 20% of your work yields 80% of your results. So, essentially, there are a few tasks in your business that are so impactful and essential, that they drive most of your results.
As an entrepreneur, you want to find out what those 20% tasks are. Then, every week, you want to make sure you are accomplishing them. If you can’t get anything else done, those are the few tasks that should be at the top of the list. Knowing your 80/20 will allow you to worry less and focus on the most important parts of your business.
Take a Break
A lot of being productive is being focused and effective in your work. It goes to follow that we should be working as hard and often as possible. However, if you work and never take a break, you’ll burn out and will not get as good results.
Every once in a while, need to take a break. This could be as simple as taking a walk at lunch to get away from your work. However, you could also build in smaller breaks throughout the day. The Pomodoro technique means that you work for a certain period of time and follow it with a small break. Usually, it’s 25 minutes of work followed by 5-10 minutes of a break. You can adapt the times based on your individual workflow.
The main idea is that you are taking a break. Taking even a small break allows your brain time to reset. You’ll come back to your work more refreshed and productive for your next task.
These are the top 5 ways that we stay productive. You can modify each one to meet your individual needs. Be sure to let us know if you have any other ways to be productive or if any of these help you with your work!
