5 Ways to get MORE out of your day!
Have you ever reached the end of the day and thought, "OMG... what did I even do today? Did I accomplish ANY of my goals? Nope!" And I think we've all been there and I can tell you that I still have days like that myself. But I want to share my 5 productivity hacks that you need to start doing on the daily to make sure you get more done each and every single day so that you don't get to the end of the day feeling like you accomplished nothing and wondering why it felt like a rat-race!
SO HERE ARE MY 5 PRODUCTIVITY HACKS!
1. The first thing that you need to do is make sure that your diary isn't running your life and your schedule but that you're the one in charge of your life and your schedule. Days can be completely swallowed up by phone calls and meetings, but when you look at the week or two ahead your diary is completely full and you have allocated zero time to do any of your work or focus on projects. I find the best way to work around this is to plan ahead and block times out in your diary so that you know when you are actually free for meetings, conferences, etc.
2. Plan your day - every day! There are going to be days when you are traveling all around the city, or you'll be in back-to-back meetings but you still need to have a plan for the day and start the day thinking about how you want it to look. Plan it the night before or the day of, whatever works for you but just make sure you have a plan.
3. Find a scheduling system that works for you. You don't need to use the hottest gadget on the market at the moment that everyone is talking crazy about, just use whatever works for you and your business. If you're a pen and paper person and you like to write a to-do-list - then go with that! If you like to use your project management board (like Monday or Trello) then go with that.
4. Cut yourself some slack my friend. This is a massive one for so many of us because as humans we think we are capable of getting every single thing done, and the truth is that it ain't always the case. Let's say that you set yourself 12 goals today but you only managed 4. Instead of dwelling on all the reasons why you didn't get to do the other 8 just be happy that you got 4 off your list which is more than you had when you woke up this morning and you can do the rest another day. Life is crazy enough as it is and being hard on yourself doesn't help you get anything done - just makes you feel crap because you didn't get it ALL done.
5. Separate your work life from your personal life. Now this can be a tricky one if you're like me and you work from home - but if you try and get everything done and scramble it altogether it's going to be very hard. Here's an example of what Thursday this week might look like for you: At 10am you have your son's Easter Hat Parade at school, you also need to see the dentist, you need to arrange a meeting with a client and you still need time to write a blog. Try and schedule your dentist appointment after the hat parade (this way the personal things are done in one hit), then you can switch to business mode and get that meeting and blog writing out of the way. I know not everyone reading this is a parent but this still applies to you because you have a life outside of work and things you need to get done in your personal life.
It's all about balance.