Productivity Hacks

500+ Easy Ways to Accomplish More at Work--That Actually Work!

Emily Price

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781507209608
• eBook ISBN: 9781507209615
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Business General

Improve your productivity, increase focus, and enhance your organizational and time management skills with these 500+ easy tips and tricks for getting more stuff done. We all know about Post-It notes and to-do lists—and now, with this handy guide you can take productivity to the next level! Learn to use technology to your advantage, schedule your time wisely, and organize your materials for maximum efficiency. Some of Productivity Hacks 's easy-to-implement tips include utilizing "do not disturb" features on your phone and computer to avoid distractions, scheduling a specific time to check your email instead of shifting focus again and again, and creating templates for your most-used email responses so you don't need to do the same work twice—and many more!From accomplishing more in the workplace to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, these tips will help hone your focus and time management skills in simple, manageable steps. You'll be amazed how much more you can achieve over the course of a day!

1. Plan your week on Sunday night. You don’t need to come up with a detailed hour-by-hour schedule, but spending a few minutes on the weekend planning what you hope to accomplish during the week can be a great way to set yourself up for success come Monday morning. Divide the responsibilities you have for the week onto specific days. This practice will give you a good idea of what your workweek will look like, and it will help you know whether or not you have time to take on additional projects.

2. Prep, prep, prep. Before you go to bed each night, set yourself up for success in the morning by prepping things you’ll need when you wake up. This can be as simple as laying out your outfit for the next day and putting your workbag by the door, or as involved as planning out exactly what time you aim to do each part of your routine and grinding beans for your morning cup of joe. When you wake up groggy in the morning, you’ll thank yourself for making things a little easier.

3. Start the day with water. Your first instinct in the morning might be to reach for a cup of coffee, but you’re much better off if you reach for a glass of water instead. When you first wake up, you’re often dehydrated because you spent the whole night not consuming any fluids. Add a cup of coffee on top of that, and you’re actually becoming more dehydrated, thanks to the diuretic effect of all that much-needed caffeine—making it even harder for your body to get going. Kick things off with a big glass of water in the morning before making the switch to coffee—you’ll feel refreshed and get your day off to a much better start.

4. Eat breakfast. You know how your mom always told you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? She was right. Having breakfast jump-starts your metabolism and lets your body know that it’s time to get things done. Beyond helping you wake up and ease into the day, a good breakfast will give you the energy you need to be productive in the morning, and it will help keep your mind off food until lunchtime.

5. Keep your alarm clock away from the bed so you can’t hit that snooze button. You may think you’re getting some much-needed extra sleep with those five more minutes in dreamland, but you’re actually resetting yourself to the beginning of your sleep cycle, which means you’ll be even more tired when you do get out of bed. Snoozing also takes time away that you could be using to handle your morning routine. Those minutes could be used for a quick breakfast that you usually don’t have time for!

6. Schedule a weekly or biweekly “maintenance day” where you say no to additional commitments and instead focus on tasks you need to finish for your home. You can use this day to tidy up your home, pay bills, do laundry . . . anything you need to set yourself up to be successful. For instance, you might assign the first and last Sunday of the month as “maintenance days.” When you know you have a maintenance day coming up, it’s much easier to prioritize other commitments during the week without that stress about a home project.

7. Create a visual “chain” of consistency. Back when Jerry Seinfeld was a touring comic, he used a calendar system called “Don’t break the chain.” He marked each day on a calendar that he worked toward a goal. As you mark the days, you will not only track your progress but also appreciate the daily work you have put into your aspirations. After a while you’ll have a long “chain” of days where you’ve completed a specific task or taken another step toward your goals. The aim here is to not “break the chain” by not missing days along the way.

8. Kick-start the morning with exercise. Exercising in the morning can be a quick way to get your blood moving and your brain awake and ready for action. You don’t have to go to the gym for a full-on early morning workout, but even something as simple as a fifteen-minute run around your neighborhood or a brief cardio routine at home is enough to get your heart rate up and let your body know that it’s time to be up and moving.

TIPS FOR EARLIER MORNINGS

---

Waking up earlier gives you more hours in the day and consequently more time to accomplish everything you want to. While you know that you should get out of bed at a decent time in the morning, actually doing so is easier said than done. Here are a few ways to make it happen:

9. Sleep with your curtains open. The natural sunlight will help gently wake you up in the morning.

10. If your bed isn’t in direct view of a window (or you need to rise before the sun), use a dawn simulator to mimic the sun rising in your bedroom.

11. Going from waking up at eight a.m. to waking up at five a.m. is hard. Try gradually adjusting your wake-up time (fifteen minutes earlier each day, for example) until you reach your ideal.

12. Have a schedule of things you want to do once you get up. If you have specific tasks that need to be accomplished, you’ll be less likely to snooze and miss them.

13. Stay off your phone before bed. Going immediately from your phone to bed will prevent you from falling asleep, which means you won’t get all that precious beauty sleep you need.

14. Avoid alcohol before bed, as it can disrupt your sleep and make it harder to get up in the morning.

15. Have a definitive reason why you plan to get up earlier. Will it make you healthier? Give you more time with your kids? When you know the reason for doing something, it can be a powerful motivator in actually doing it.

16. Limit your caffeine intake after lunch so you’re not still going strong late at night when you should be sleeping.

17. Adjust the thermostat in your bedroom to get warmer (during warm months) or colder (during cold months) when it’s time for you to wake up. The change in temperature will make you want to get up and move elsewhere.

18. Set two alarms: one to wake you up and one to get you out of bed. Use the time between the two to reflect and mentally prepare for the day ahead.

19. Create six “big picture” goals for the day. These can include both professional and personal goals. For instance, one of your goals might be to finish a big work project, while another might be to start planning your upcoming family vacation. The idea here is for you to give yourself a “big picture” vision of what you hope to accomplish so you can better steer your daily schedule and yourself toward those goals.

20. Break your to-do list down into small, actionable steps. For instance, instead of putting something like “work on the Rogers project” on your to-do list, break the task down into smaller, more specific steps like “email the Rogers client,” “schedule a call with Smith about the Rogers project,” and “research stats for the Rogers project.” By breaking down the larger item, you’re thinking through the details of what needs to get done. You’ll also feel a lot more accomplished when you’ve knocked off ten items from your to-do list before lunch rather than none because you’re still working on that same large task.

21. Set ninety-day goals rather than yearly ones. Everything can change in a year. While many of us spend the beginning of the year creating goals for what we hope to accomplish by December 31, it’s better to set goals you’d like to finish by March 31 instead. Come April, you can evaluate how close you are to reaching those goals (if you haven’t reached them already) and revamp them—or create new goals—for continued success in the following three months. Even if you haven’t reached your original goal, you’re now o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Setting Yourself Up for Success
• Chapter 2: Staying Productive at Work
• Chapter 3: Being Productive When You Work from Home
• Chapter 4: Productive Business Travel
• Chapter 5: Having Productive Meetings
• Chapter 6: Technology and Tools
• Chapter 7: Maintaining a Work/Life Balance
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright