14 TIPS FOR A BETTER PRODUCTIVITY

1- Cut down on the Clutter in your life

Physical clutter in your spaces—whether it be your office, your home, or wherever you work—leads to a cluttered mind, and a cluttered mind will not be efficient.
I’m by no means a minimalist, and I don’t really think you need to throw
everything out that doesn’t bring you joy. If you roll that way it’s cool though.
But messes are bad. Messes are negativity in physical form.
Clean off one surface a day and throw out things that you don’t need or
don’t have space for. A clean space = a clear mind.

2- Today will never come back.

Set a timer and make yourself be productive for a certain amount of time.
Tomorrow set the timer for longer than today. Every day work toward having the kind of day that will make you feel good about yourself when you go to bed at night.
Make a challenge for yourself and look at your goals. How much of those goals did you accomplish in the past month? Now set aside time each day in the next month to work a little on one of those goals every day, and at the end of the month, compare your two months.

3- Look back to one year ago and where you were in your life. Did you grow? Did you make the changes you wanted?

This kind of goes along with number 2. Look back a year and see what all you actually accomplished. Did you get any of the goals done that you
wanted? If you did, great moves, keep it up! If you didn’t, why not? What kept you from getting those things done? Did you map out a plan? Did you set aside time just for those goals? Did you have so many goals that you couldn’t focus on just one?
Since goals don’t just accomplish themselves and fall into place and make you the coolest cat out there, make a plan for one of your goals. Just one.
Make a plan for that one and start doing it. Once you have had a good start on that goal, make a plan and start mapping out the next one.
I would encourage anyone to only have 3 or 4 big goals in a year.
Consistently working on those goals is the only way they will happen.

4- Be disciplined, not motivated.

Not to say motivation is a bad thing; but the thing with it is that it tends to fade. We can be motivated to clean out the basement and once we’ve fully assessed the complete mess it is, that motivation can be completely dissipated and we leave the basement as it was and unmotivated.
If we are motivated to clean the basement, see the mess and feel like
giving up but go at it anyhow, that’s using discipline. Discipline will help us to finish things that motivation made us start.
Discipline yourself to achieve what you want in your life. Discipline
yourself to get up every morning before 7:00. Discipline yourself to work on your goals a little bit every day. Motivation is good, but discipline is what will get the job done in the long run.

5- Get rid of distractions.

Be able to recognize when you are distracted and immediately throw that out to the alligators. This can be on a large scale such as becoming distracted from a big project you were excited about when a completely different new idea came up that sounds more exciting. Or it can be on a smaller scale, such as when you quickly check your social media accounts and get distracted by memes or online window shopping binges.

6- Don’t try to multi-task.

No matter how good you think you might be at multi-tasking, you are not. When you multi-task, you cannot give both projects your full attention and therefore, both will be done in a mediocre manner.
Now, if I’m doing a mindless task such as washing the dishes or folding
laundry, I do like to listen to something on my phone like a podcast,
YouTube video, or audio book. And that can be a good way to learn things even when your hands are busy.
But talking on the phone with a client or relative [GM1]while you are
busy typing a business email is not a good idea.
It is better to do one thing to the best of your ability than to do two things in an average fashion.

7- Stop waiting for Friday to come.

Stop waiting for Friday to come. Be excited that it’s Tuesday morning
and the weekend is far away. You have so much you can do before Friday, why sit around waiting for the weekend to come?

8- Sleep is your friend.

Sleep is your friend in more ways than one. No one should sleep less than 7 hours per night. Without enough sleep you will be moodier. You can also get sick more easily, and chances of heart issues and cancer increase. You become less focused, your memory suffers, and you develop more wrinkles, loose skin, and uneven skin color than the person who gets 7 or more hours of sleep.
So with all that morbid information, start winding down a little earlier and get those 7+ hours of beauty rest every day.

9- Go for a walk in nature.

There is something extremely calming about the outdoors. If you ever
feel especially unproductive, go out and find some woods or a field and go for a walk. Focus on the all the sounds around you. Listen to the crickets and the frogs and marvel in God’s amazing creations.

10- Don’t overschedule yourself.

If you aren’t sure how much stuff you should be putting on your to do
list, go over your list and block out time for each one. When you have figured out a sufficient amount of time, add 10 extra minutes to that to make sure you are allotting enough time. Have at least one hour every day for which you do not have anything planned.
When I’m planning my week, I try not to plan anything for Saturdays that I couldn’t do during the week because other things almost always come up. This allows me to have some chill time with my husband or go out for fun activities.

11- Pull your thoughts together by writing them down.

Nothing else in the world will enable you to get your thoughts together as well as writing them down. This is a productive thing to do every day when you are planning your day or journaling. Even if you don’t plan or journal, try to take time to write down some of your thoughts each day.

12- Brighten your creative flame by freeing your mind and writing down all your inner craziness.

Sharpen your creative side by doing the opposite of number 11. There I
said to pull your thoughts together by writing. Here I am telling you to let your thoughts free and unzip your bag of crazy by writing down everything that pops up.
This can be whatever zany thing floats into your mind. Write it down and laugh at what you wrote once you are finished.

13- When you’re feeling unproductive, give yourself two hours to just be a complete bum and then get up and WORK.

Sometimes we just have days where we don’t feel like doing ANYTHING
and would rather sit, eat a pile of junk food, and binge on our latest favorite show.
Let yourself be a bit of a bum if you feel you CAN’T snap out of it. But
once the time is up, get out of your nest and start doing the things. If you
don’t know what the things are, work out, clean, and do your hair.

14- Don’t neglect the most important things.

The most important things in your life and everyone’s lives will always
be the people. Your family, your children, your husband, your friends. Don’t put the people in your life on the back burner.