Do you start your day with the best intention? Every day you think that you will slay the to-do-list that you have been compiling and bring home some major wins. But every day, it just doesn’t happen.
Every day, you find yourself lagging behind and the hopes of catching up just seem impossible. You begin to feel like a customer, who is standing at the end of the queue, and by the time you will get to the counter, it will be closed. Yes, life is like a tornado and you have to be ahead of this storm to win!
If you want to give your peak performance and utilize your days to the fullest, empower yourself with these amazing hacks. Let’s call them productivity hacks. Some of these are pretty obvious while others are slightly counterintuitive. These hacks will help you maximize your time and will save you tons of hours. Tag along!
Maximize Your Mornings
The most important and productive part of your entire day is morning. Utilize your morning hours to the fullest because with the fresh mind at the start of the day, you can give your maximum performance. Prepare yourself intellectually, physically, and spiritually to deal with the hassle of the entire day.
Feed Your Mind and Heart
Reading is vital for the mornings. Skim through select blogs, podcasts, and books. You wake up with a creative and fresh mind. So, reading will work like stockpiling ideas for inspiration.
Move Your Body
Just as the adequate amount of sleep is important, the importance of exercise is also clear. Working out regularly is essential to your productivity. You will function better mentally, physically, and professionally if you work out regularly. So, make sure you hit the treadmill every morning!
Have Clarity about Your Goals
While getting ready for work, revise in your mind your tasks and goals for the day. This will improve your focus and will prepare you to achieve them. It will also give you the confidence to decline obstacles, which come your way.
Say No To Multitasking
Let’s get this straight. Multitasking is a lie. It is not humanly possible. So, if you are trying to multitask at work, between writing an important email, reading mail, and answering calls, you are just increasing the time for all three things. You need to start working in focused batches. Divide your tasks based on priority. Fix time batches for major tasks and smaller projects while managing maintenance tasks somewhere in between. You can work more efficiently by segmenting similar tasks. And then, assign yourself deadlines. This will motivate you and boost your productivity.
Stop Answering the Phone
Answering unimportant calls while you are working on something important will only increase the time you spend on that task. Phone calls are a major distraction. You should never take calls while working with the exception of planned and emergency calls. It would be a good practice if you can have a buffer between yourself and anyone who wants your time. It can be a human such as an assistant or even technology like voicemail. This will help you save yourself some massive interruptions. And you will also be able to connect if it’s really important.
Turn Off All Notifications
Ask yourself, what does matter more? Work or all those random interruptions? You don’t want to go home with unfinished tasks and stressed nerves because you had 30 pop-up notifications on Facebook and 15 on WhatsApp. While you have muted the incoming calls, all these dings, buzzers, and pings also need to be turned off. They are major distractions. Especially those from social media. You open one thing and another and another only to figure out that you wasted good 45 minutes in that useless browsing. And you get back to your work with distracted concentration. You can’t afford that especially if you are working on deadline-based projects. Turn off all such notifications immediately.
Never Say Yes Immediately
It is hard to say No. but while you are at work, you have to learn to say it. Think about all the yeses, said in courtesy and the time that they have costed you. Therefore, if it’s hard to say no, then learn to say things like “maybe” or “I’ll consider”.
Kill the Lights
This is pivotal to your performance and productivity. Without an adequate amount of sleep, you will unable to perform well at work. So even if you have Spectrum Internet availability and it’s easy to Netflix and Facebook the night away, DON’T. If you end up sleeping less than 6 hours, you are killing your productivity. Instead, kill all the lights, including your gadget screens, and sleep tight!
