I am naturally lazy. I will never make any attempt to deny that. I enjoy being lazy and while most people would argue that laziness is a bad thing; I will always argue that it is possible to be lazy and stay productive i.e. to get the things that need to be done, done. The first rule of being productive is to understand that being busy and being productive are 2 very different things. If success was measured by our ability to get a lot done; we would all be millionaires. Unfortunately, that is not how success is achieved or measured. Success is determined by your ability to get the most important tasks completed; your ability to stay productive when there are so many less important tasks screaming for your attention.
7 Tips to stay productive
The following tips are incredibly easy to implement, will take just few minutes of your day to prepare and, they will enable you to stay productive throughout the day. That’s my kind of lazy productivity.
1. Plan ahead
Even when you have had a good night’s sleep, you still wake up a little groggy and it can take a little time for your body and mind to fully wake up. If you have a family, there may be a whole range of family-related tasks which you must do before you can get focused on your own day e.g. get the kids ready for school.
When you are finally ready to give your sole attention to your own day, the last thing you need is to have to spend time planning what you are going to do for the day. By taking a little time the night before, you can have a plan ready and spring straight into your first task. When in doubt you can simply revert back to your plan to ensure that you stay productive throughout the day. Even though you may be feeling tired at the end of the day, five minutes spent planning and preparing for the next day will save you many multiples of that time on the day itself. Things to consider when planning include:
- The clothes you are going to wear
- The contact details that you are going to need
- The documents and files that you are going to be using
- The tools and resources required e.g. laptop, etc.
When you prepare these things in advance, you reduce the chances of something going wrong and you stride into the day more confidently and more productively.
2. Get a good night’s sleep
I was recently asked to contribute to an article by Kosio Angelov where he asked 61 productivity experts, including myself, for our 3 favourite productivity tools. One of my answers may be considered to be a little unusual – an orthopaedic pillow. Don’t worry I am not suggesting that everybody should get one but I will explain.
15 years ago, I injured my neck playing rugby. For many years after, I suffered from a lack of energy. Eventually, I was forced to consider a proper pillow as the pain in my shoulder and neck had become unbearable. As soon as I began to use the pillow, my energy levels rose and my productivity increased dramatically. This really hammered home the importance of proper sleep. If you are struggling to stay productive, one of the first things you need to examine is the quantity and quality of the sleep that you are getting.
If you are not getting enough sleep then you need to make immediate adjustments to your schedule. If you believe that you are spending sufficient time in bed but you are still lacking energy, you need to examine the quality of the sleep you are getting by looking at every aspect of your sleeping arrangements. If you want to stay productive, you absolutely must get good quality sleep.
3. Take regular breaks
When planning your schedule, one of the first things that you should schedule is your breaks. It may seem to contradict productivity principles that you would schedule breaks before you have even started but when you know that you that you are going to get proper breaks, you can give your all during periods of work. You can focus solely on your work knowing that you will have sufficient time to rest, deal with non-work related tasks, or just get from work for a few minutes.
If you have complete authority to plan your own day, study how you work best and plan your day to enable you to work that way e.g. I find that I work best in 90 minute productivity blocks. Therefore, I plan my day in 90 minute blocks which enables me to take breaks at the appropriate times and stay productive during work periods.
4. Automate, automate, automate
One of the most important but often forgotten components of productivity is automation. If you can automate a task to be completed to a similar standard, why would you do it yourself? Automation allows you to get more done, in less time, with less effort. Tasks may be automated to varying degrees, e.g.:
- Full automation. Full automation occurs where you set the system up and it runs on full autopilot itself. Once it has been set once, it takes care of everything. For example, my twitter account sends hundreds of tweets every week without me having to do anything. Imagine how long it would take me to type and send hundreds of tweets.
- Semi-automation. This usually occurs when you can schedule something in advance and the system will ensure that the task is performed at the appropriate time. This approach allows you to schedule many tasks at once and can save you a great deal of time. For example, my email autoresponder allows me to schedule emails in advance which will be sent to my followers at the appropriate time.
The above are just 2 examples but if you examine your work thoroughly, you will usually find a number of tasks which can be automated.
5. Know your support team
When things go wrong, and they will, you will not always be in a position to fix the problem yourself. You need to know who you can turn to for help. In many cases, particularly for entrepreneurs, this will involve an email or phone call to the relevant person. You can usually leave the task in their capable hands and move on to something else while they resolve the issue. This is rarely a problem, as long as:
- There is someone for you to turn to
- You know who that person is
- You know how to contact them
Whenever you purchase a product or service, ensure that you know the procedures for support. Check it out thoroughly before parting with your money. It takes a little more time but will save you a great deal of time in the long run. Good support is becoming so rare that it is now seen as a major selling point, e.g. the company from whom I bought my shopping cart encourage people to check out their support forum before purchasing so that they can see just how good the support will be.
Whether you are working for yourself or for a company, you need to have a list of the contact details for the various support services you may need. When something goes wrong you do not need to compound the problem by spending the entire day trying to find out who can help.
6. Focus on importance
I have read countless people who recommend that you start with an easy task and work your way into the day. I have read many more who recommend that you begin with your most difficult task. I do not subscribe to either of these philosophies. I use one question to determine the appropriate task to perform at any given moment:
‘What is the most important task that I can perform with the time and resources available to me?’
Resources may include:
- Technology
- People
- Energy
- Facilities, etc
If you can answer that question correctly and you implement your answer; you will stay productive.
7. Contextualised task lists
Of all the people that I know who keep task lists, most of them keep only one list. If you have a relatively small number of tasks, typically less than 20, one list should do fine. However, if you have more tasks than this, breaking your tasks into contextualised lists will make it much easier for you to stay productive. Contextualised lists are lists which contain tasks that can only be performed in certain circumstances. Some examples from my own lists include:
- @desk – I need to be at my desk to complete these tasks
- @phone – I only need access to my phone to complete these tasks
- @town – I need to be in town to perform these tasks
- @Jamie – I need to talk to my friend Jamie about these items
As you will see from these lists, if I found myself in town, I could just look at the @town list and start to pick off some of the items on that list. If I finished that list, I might consider the @phone list and start making some important phone calls. By having the contextualised lists, I save myself from having to weed through many tasks which I could not perform at that moment anyway. I keep my contextualised lists on a Google spreadsheet as I can access it, and update, at any time or place.
Learn more great productivity tips with The Organised Mind.
If you want to achieve your goals and objectives, and make the most of your life, you need to be able to stay productive throughout the day. To stay productive throughout the day, you need to be able to take the right action at the right time but to be able to do this; you need to be prepared in advance. The 7 tips, above, will ensure that you are in a position to make the right decision at the right time. These are some of the key strategies that I use to stay productive. There are many more strategies that you can implement so please don’t limit yourself to mine.
If you would like to share any tips which you use to stay productive, please do so in the comments section, below.
Image credit: Chance Agrella