A New Year brings new resolutions. And a great way to achieve those resolutions is to become more productive. Productivity, though an overused buzzword, is elusive. And many of us struggle to be more productive.
A lot of issues surrounding productivity involve controlling your attention span, organization (number four on the list), and prioritization.
These seven tips are a great way to be more productive in the New Year. They will help you organize, strategize, and execute your tasks according to your biological rhythms and the pressing demands of contemporary work.
1. Find Your Rhythm
You have a time of day during which you are most productive, according to this Wall Street Journal article. There are roughly three stages of an average day that affect your ability to be more productive: the trough, the rebound, and the peak. Each of these corresponds to differing periods of the day, depending on the individual.
2. Take Regular Breaks
If you want to be more productive, you need to take more breaks. Breaks help you establish rhythm and allow you to size up your project in order to be more productive. Taking a break means actually taking a break, not taking your work with you. This applies to breaks big and small--meaning don’t take your work on vacation.
In this Harvard Business Review article, they write that the Pomodoro Technique is a nifty way to compartmentalize a project into completion. The Pomodoro technique is essentially a method by which your work is broken down into 25 minutes of work with each followed by five minutes of rest. After 4 units of work, you take a long break, then begin work again.
If you want to be more productive, take regular breaks. They enable you to focus on renewal during your breaks, and focus on the task at hand during periods of work. You’ll find using the Pomodoro method that your productivity will exponentially increase.
3. Reduce Digital Distractions
Digital distractions are renown for reducing productivity in the workplace. “Turning off,” a buzzword for reducing digital distractions, means eliminating those instant alerts that beg for instantaneous gratification.
That includes desktop Twitter alerts, Facebook notifications, text messages, and so on. With so much grabbing at your attention these days, it is important to decide where your time goes.
Social media, the Internet, and your mobile phone are the primary culprits. It is important to make a decision as to when to check these digital distractions. Not getting a handle on your usage of these can seriously hamper your productivity as you know all too well.
Being digitally distracted also causes chaos, and chaos is antithetical to a productive life--both inside and outside the workplace.
4. Organize
According to research conducted by the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, clutter is chaos. And it negatively impacts your ability concentrate on the task at hand. And, of course, concentrating on the task at hand is key to being more productive. Using Magnetic-Resonance Imaging and other physiological measurement tools, scientists were able to gauge reactions to clutter. Unsurprisingly, they found, that the more one was cluttered, the less likely it was their subjects were to be productive. This also translates into digital clutter
Organization doesn’t only apply to your physical and digital space, but also to the way you organize your day, of course. Organizing tasks such as checking email, filing reports, and doing other routine work should be grouped together.
Likewise, work that requires mental acuity, such as creative work or demanding reports, should be scheduled at your peak hour as discussed above.
5. Prioritize with a To-Do List
To-do lists are crucial to becoming more productive. One of the keys to becoming more productive is to ensure that your priorities are listed and organized. Using one of the apps can really boost your output and make you be more productive in all facets of your life.
It isn’t enough to simply create a to-do list. You need to prioritize it. According to this article, the best way to prioritize your task list is to know what is urgent and what is not. Then you can tackle the most pressing problems immediately. This also helps beat procrastination--a sure way to decrease your productivity.
Once you’ve narrowed in on your most urgent task, do it to completion. No multitasking. Multitasking is another way to chip away at your productivity. Be more productive by writing down the day’s tasks and analyzing them, ensuring your time is well-spent.
6. Say No
Saying no is difficult, especially considering the demands of contemporary work. In another HBR article, they write that saying no, though oftentimes a wrenching response to a loved one or a colleague, allows you to focus on the things that you matter most to you. That may mean taking a much needed break, or pursuing a project you are passionate about.
Saying no requires resolve and thorough analysis of your priorities. A rather dull, but illustrative, example would be choosing a professional project, which you know will get you that position you want, as opposed to taking a fun, yet unproductive, vacation with a friend.
Knowing what is important to yourself and those who are important to you is key to becoming more productive.
7. Productivity Apps
Last but not least, productivity apps. Nowadays, productivity apps abound. And, you can be sure that there are plenty of apps out there to make you be more productive. Here are a few apps that should boost your productivity:
- RescueTime: RescueTime is a great app for seeing where all of your digital time goes. It also includes a function that enables you to include the time you’ve spent offline as well.
- Evernote: Evernote is an excellent app for storing all of your information. You can file away information according to sub-topics, topics, and meta topics, allowing you to create notes from scratch as well as annotate documents and so on.
- Other Productivity Apps: There are a ton of other apps out there to help you be more productive. Many of them make it easier to collaborate with colleagues and partners through the use of inclusive project management, messaging, and information storage services. This Guardian article lists several more useful apps.
Wrapping Up
Following all of these tips, and knowing when you’re at your peak productivity throughout the day and your lowest will enable you to be more productive in the New Year and achieve your peak performance. Being more productive means engaging in tasks and activities that bring meaning to yourself and those that are important to you.
There’s a difference between being productive and being busy. And it is up to you to differentiate between the two. Your feedback or comments on this post are welcome.