Unless your circle of friends is composed entirely of the idle rich, it’s likely the you and most of the folks you know are swamped with work these days. I had to face a similar workload in my own life, so I decided to get the most out of every day I had available to me. These are the techniques I found most effective.
1. Don’t Short Yourself On Sleep
When you’re young and foolish, the easiest way to cram more productive hours into the day seems like it would be to cut down on the amount of time you spend in bed. This isn’t actually effective when you’re college-aged, and once you get older it becomes positively torturous. Getting a proper dose of sleep is vital to staying productive.
For me, a regular eight-hour sleep cycle is absolutely vital during the working week. I find that rising early is helpful, too. If you feel that turning into an early bird is too challenging, try taking it in gradual steps. Set your alarm a little earlier day by day (15 minutes is a good increment) until you’re accustomed to waking up early.
An early wake-up call doesn’t make for a healthy ration of sleep if you can’t get to bed on time, though. I used to toss and turn for a long time before finally falling asleep. I’ve had great success using an app called Relax Melodies (available for both Android and iOS) to create a soothing sound environment when I’m ready to sleep.
2. Stay Focused
Climbing the biggest mountain still boils down to taking one step at a time. The best way to make useful headway on major challenges is to subdivide them into manageable bits. John Summers who works on behalf of Tubzvendingfranchise suggests you don’t worry about your pace when you’re just starting out; be happy that you’re making forward progress!
Another useful way to keep moving forward is to vary the intensity of your work. This is easier than it sounds. I like to take my most challenging tasks and tuck them into the middle of easier tasks on my to-do list. This gets context on my side and makes tough goals easier to achieve.
3. Love Your Lists
Speaking of a to-do list, I consider this to be one of the most fundamental and useful productivity tools in the world. There’s nothing better for keeping you on track and ensuring that you’re working effectively. Personally, I make use of Wunderlist for all of my task-tracking. It’s a robust little app that offers vital extra features like collaboration with other users and reminders.
4. Master Your Email
If your work environment relies heavily on email communications (and more and more of them do) you may have cultivated some unhealthy inbox habits entirely by accident. I know far too many people who see the magical state of “inbox zero” (all messages read) as some sort of holy grail. There are more intelligent ways to make use of your inbox than constantly cleaning it out like a busy stable.
Hexigo is a terrific little tool that helps me identify and track the really important conversations running through my inbox. This too is a collaborative program, so it helps me and the people I work with at the same time. By highlighting the threads of critical email chains Hexigo helps me avoid the threat of “corporate Amnesia” and maintain full ownership of my most important decisions. Hexigo works with both Gmail and Outlook.
5. Don’t Work Continuously
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the most productive people aren’t those who work constantly for hours on end. Stepping away to give your attention to entirely non-work-related cares provides you with much-needed mental rest and allows you to return to work sharp and confident. Besides a standard lunch break, I also like to get out from behind my desk for a 30-minute dose of ping-pong on a regular basis.
