Learning and testing productivity tips or hacks is something that has greatly increased my output and made me more efficient in both my work and personal life.
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done” – Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee even created a philosophy and system of martial arts that involved removing the unessential.
So how do you get stuff done?
Productivity is defined as the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input. Essentially, how much progress you can make in a 24-hour cycle.
This article covers pretty much every productivity hack that I have found helpful in my 15 years working online from home or on the move as a web designer and digital marketer.
Table of Contents
Distractions & Concentration
Constantly distracted? Maybe by social media, notifications, and other unnecessary temptations? It’s time to make a choice and decide if you are going to continue investing so much accumulative time dealing with them or if you want to put your life into a selective airplane mode and cut out the noise.
Stop Checking Your Phone
Phones are one of the main distractions in the digital age so if you expect to get a lot of focussed work done, try putting your phone out of sight.
I tend to keep mine in my desk and on silent unless I have any scheduled calls I am expecting.
Do Deep Work When Nobody is Around
Never attempt to do work that requires you to be in your flow state like when other people are around and going to need your attention.
Schedule this kind of work to be done when you are in enjoying your solitude or in a work-focused environment.
Remove Unnecessary Apps
Finding yourself wasting time staring at your black mirror? Counting your likes or comments? Consider how much time you do this in an entire year.
Remove any games or unnecessary apps that are eating your attention at the expense of more productive habits.
Is the news distracting you? Then delete that. Are you distracted by social media? remove it from your line of sight.
If you want to maximize the productiveness of your day then these things should be purged or at least limited.
I’m not anti-games and fun or anything but in the quest to be your most productive self, cutting them out or cutting down offers an easy win.
Unsubscribe from Email Newsletters
It’s very tempting to sign up for email updates from websites and services we use but ask yourself if they are delivering any value or just making a mess of your inbox?
Unsubscribe from any of the newsletters that aren’t useful or worth the time it takes to read or delete them each week.
With the GDPR in force, people might find they are getting less already but there’s likely still some that you don’t really benefit from or have time to read.
No doubt you have subscriptions and information sources that are still useful and worth subscribing to but if you have too many you might not be getting the value from them because you have low-quality information creating noise.
Try scoring all of your subscriptions and sources of information out of 10 and if they fall under 5 or 6 cut them out completely, if they are above that score keep them.
Apply this same process when reading blog posts too, it’s easy to feel like you are learning by reading lots of content but unless the information aligns with your goals you could be wasting a lot of time.
Live in Airplane Mode
During work-hours either put your phone in airplane mode or on silent and inside your desk. If you have a scheduled call that day, check your phone when that call is due.
The worst thing to happen when you are on a roll and super focused is to have an unexpected interruption.
So make yourself uncontactable when you are in the zone and working on something.
Pareto Principle aka the 80/20 Rule
When deciding what to work on, think about the Pareto Principle, 20% of the work yields 80% of the result, so work out what that 20% is in your business or your career.
Make sure that always remains the priority and that you are conscious of when you are about to start a task that is time-consuming but has a low return on investment.
Compare the time you spend writing long emails that could be much shorter or don’t even need a response with the time you are spending on focussed work.
Yes, some of the 80% is always going to be necessary but the better you can optimize it the more productive you can be elsewhere in your business.
Listen to The Right Music For You
Now music is subjective so I’m not about to tell you what to listen to, but it definitely helps to find the music that helps you get into a flow state while working.
I like a wide range of genres including rap, rock, metal, electronic music, and the old soul classics, but when it comes to music that helps me focus I typically opt for mostly instrumental music with no lyrical distractions to set me off.
What works for me might not work for you, but in my case listening to instrumental hip-hop, electronic music, and sometimes old classics helps me to zone in and get my deep work done.
A great app for this is FlowState but there are also a lot of great playlists on Spotify you can browse. The key is to not just listen to your favorite music but instead strategically plan music that helps you remain focused.
Another option that is popular is brain.fm though I haven’t tried it yet myself a few of my trusted associates have been raving about it.
I like instrumental electronica that’s medium to up-tempo because there are no words for me to think about and it helps set the pace of my work.
Learn to Say No
We naturally want to please everyone and say yes to everything but it’s valuable to learn how to say no.
When a client asks for something that isn’t good for them, you need to be brave enough to say no. When someone invites you to a conference that’s just going to be a day wasted or a meeting to discuss a project with a tire-kicker that’s never going anywhere, say no!
First of all, you can’t do everything for everyone, so don’t try and force yourself to be some sort of polymath.
Secondly, you need to focus your efforts on the work, clients, tasks, and personal commitments that yield the best results. 80/20 remember.
Of course, you don’t want to be blunt and rude about it, you need to learn how to let them down easy by explaining your reasons professionally.
Create a Manifesto
Create a list of things you want to fix or improve to increase your efficiency.
List out all of the regular distractions you are dealing with that aren’t essential to your life.
List out all of the ways you could potentially optimize your time.
Create your own list of the productivity tips or ideas that you want to try from your research like this article for example.
Be completely honest with yourself about it, nobody else needs to ever see it and monitor your progress as you change habits, test ideas create a list of the results to reinforce the progress you are making.
Social Media
Try and reduce the time you spend on social media, very simple, make it a habit to check it less or cut it out altogether. You could start by just purging one or two if the addiction is that strong but I’m personally not that bothered about it so it was easy to step back from it, especially with all of the politics.
Due to the nature of what I do, I still use social media for professional purposes, but I’m seldom on there to be social or browse content.
Close Your Email Inbox
When you are doing deep work, make sure you close your email client or web browser tab and turn off any notifications that are going to distract you.
When emails come in it’s very tempting to find out what’s happening, is it a new client? a happy customer? an angry customer? or something else that’s interesting? but you really need to batch this process into intervals of 2 or 4 times a day and completely ignore it the rest of the time if you want to be as productive as you can be.
The only exception is if you are out and about and you have time to kill and nothing better to do. In this case, it could be an efficient use of your time.
Bad Clients
If you have a client who isn’t good to you or your bank balance, part ways and focus on replacing them with the kind of client you want to work with, the kind that is responsive, polite, understanding, and pays you what you are worth.
I know when you are starting out and every client is precious that the concept of parting ways is scary but qualifying customers and turning some down is a great way to make real progress by working more with clients on your wavelength.
Declutter Your Environment
Have a clean workspace, this includes the area you work, your mind, and your computer. The more organized and tidy your workspace the less you will be distracted by the mess.
Take a Marie Kondo approach to all forms of environment you work in. not just your office space.
Remember, the same goes for your computer, so apply a little Digital KonMari too.
Technology
Technology is both a blessing and a curse as far as productivity is concerned but you can use it to your advantage if you just form a few new digital habits. Technology can either greatly enhance your time or be the biggest distraction in your life.
Use a Clipboard Manager
Use a clipboard manager on your computer. For Windows, I recommend Ditto and Mac users can use CopyClip. These tools allow you to copy and paste as many items as you want, so rather than just be limited to one thing on your clipboard you can refer back to all of the things you have copied lately.
This hack is ideal for freelancers, entrepreneurs, students, or anyone who does some form of data entry in their work. It’s also especially useful when working with programs like Excel or if you are a developer.
Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts
If you use the same software and processes repeatedly it will save you a lot of time by putting some effort to improve your keyboard shortcut game. You can even consider creating auto-hot keys if some of them are hard to remember and get a custom keyboard to launch them. I use StreamDeck which allows me to customize the buttons to turn 3 key shortcuts into a single click button.
Whatever software you use for work you will likely be able to find a PDF or cheatsheet online you can download and save to a folder of shortcuts to help you learn them and get used to using them.
Track Your Time
Now you don’t need technology to do this but it’s a lot easier. Track what you are working on and you will get a better view of how your time is spent overall. Keep track of how many hours and minutes you are spending on each project and create an overview so you can also look at the big picture.
You can use the stopwatch app on your phone but I prefer to use Clockly.me Chrome Extension and connect it to Asana so I log the time spent on each task. Another benefit of this is that it also helps you analyze your time to see where it’s being spent.
Rescue Time is an interesting app that tells you each week where your time was spent online so you can see what your productivity pulse was at the computer over the last 7 days. It’s not perfect but it’s still a useful tool and gives you some good insights.
Web Page Read-Time Estimator
Medium has popularized a neat feature that shows you the estimated read time of the article you are looking at and other websites have adopted a similar approach since.
Try using Instant Reading Time which is a free Chrome extension and will display the estimated read-time of any page on any website you are browsing.
With this installed in your Chrome browser, you can be more mindful when deciding whether to read an article, save it for later or just forget about it and get back to being productive.
Browser Bookmarks
This is a simple one but so many people don’t use it to its full potential by either not using them at all or having them a mess of links across the top of the browser.
If you use a large number of sites on a regular basis, use the bookmarks but start by creating folders on your bookmark bar that are topic specific and organize your links in each so they show as drop downs.
You can do this with as many URLs for individual websites if you need to and if you have a lot of links like me you can also organize them further by using subfolders.
Enterprise Resource Planners / Project Management
As I have already mentioned, I love using project management tools and I pretty much exclusively use Asana and have written about the reasons I use it in this article.
Using G-Suites for Maximum Productivity
Google has come a long way since it’s inception and rather than just provide search facilities and email they now operate a plethora of tools to help your business including productivity tools like the popular G-Suites toolkit.
G-Suites started out as a simple suite of tools to replace Microsoft Office with a cloud-based alternative that is free for limited use and allows you to more easily collaborate with your team and clients and since it was launched they have continued to add new features to help you improve your productivity.
If you are still using MS Office and other desktop publishing tools it might be a good time to give G-Suites a try and see the difference for yourself.
Today millions of businesses and individuals use G-Suites for work and productivity and for good reason. The paradigm shift from desktop to the cloud is arguably the most important transition we’ve seen in modern computing since we first got online in the ’80s and it can dramatically improve collaborative productivity.
Google is constantly improving its suite of different Apps, adding third-party apps to the marketplace and finding new ways to help you work smarter.
Use Automation
It’s very easy to set up different automated processes when you work online. There are tools online like IFTTT and Zapier that allow you to set up a whole host of different productivity automation for things from your social media updates to more complex processes.
You can even set your kettle to turn on when you are 10 minutes from home on your commute by setting up a geotag so your smart home power outlet can turn itself on, but that’s going a bit far if you ask me, even if I do love a cup of tea!
In more practical examples you can set your eCommerce website to record each sale in an Excel Spreadsheet as a new row with all of the data saving you several steps and nicely presenting the data you need access to.
Communication
We are in a state of hyper-connection, with phones glued to our hips and computers never more than a few meters away it’s easy to see how we have become so distracted and bogged down with our comms. These productivity tips are aimed at being more efficient with your emails and meetings so you have time to work on the important stuff.
Batch Process Your Messages
The last thing you want to do if you want to remain productive is to keep checking your emails and messages. Batch these into set intervals during the day by putting an hour aside in the morning and another in the afternoon to address any messages you receive, whether they are emails, Facebook messages or Whatsapp, they are all ways to interrupt your flow state.
Don’t Hit Reply
If an email doesn’t warrant a response, don’t send one. Real simple. If you reply you are inviting the recipient to continue a conversation that might not be worthwhile but will sap away your time.
Write shorter emails
If you are writing verbose emails and going into every last detail – stop! Consider writing as brief an email as possible. Not every email needs to be an essay, I too am guilty of this but I have taken a vow of abstinence!
One trick is to put “Sent from my iPhone” at the end of your email so people don’t think you are being rude when you send a short single sentence email. 😉
Canned Responses
Create email templates for common responses, these are also known as “canned responses” and there’s an add on for Gmail you can use and also other ways that allow you to save emails so you can reuse them and edit them before sending later.
I personally use a Chrome extension called Streak but there’s one you can use in Gmail now and also extensions for popular email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird & the Mac Mail app.
This is ideal for email outreach and whenever you answer emails with similar responses.
Consider Meetings Carefully
Do you really need to take that meeting?
Will it offer anything positive to you?
Can it be more efficiently handled another way?
Consider only taking meetings or calls if absolutely essential.
Inbox Zero
Trying to achieve and maintain Inbox Zero sometimes feels like it must be a myth, that is if you don’t have an efficient system to help you.
If you want to learn more about organizing your email inbox you can read my Inbox Zero Guide. This is the best overall system for managing your emails and still having time to get stuff done.
Productivity Systems
If you want to be a productive powerhouse then you need to adopt a GTD system, that’s a system for “Getting Things Done”.
GTD or Getting Things Done comes from renowned author and productivity expert David Allen and his best selling book of the same name.
There are various ways to increase or improve your productivity that can be better described as productivity systems, that’s usually because they involve a few different components rather than just being a simple tip.
Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro technique created by Francesco Cirillo back in the 80s is a time management method designed to improve output and as his mantra states, “work smarter, not harder”.
The technique involves using a timer to break down intervals of work into sessions of 25 minutes on a single task with short 5-10 minute breaks in-between, then every time you complete four Pomodoros you can take a longer 20-30 minute break.
This approach is said to help your brain process and assimilate what you have learned or worked on before starting another session of work.
Pomodoro means ‘tomato’ in Italian and was the shape of Francesco’s kitchen timer when he was young, so at least to him it was synonymous with time.
If you don’t have an old school timer you can use a timer on your phone or computer and there are lots of websites and apps with Pomodoro specific features!
I have found using this time management system generally leads to better results in my work.
Planning
It’s always easier to start something when the time comes if you have a plan prepared.
When I’m building a website for someone I always build a detailed plan during the discovery phase to ensure that when we get to start the deep work there’s a roadmap laid out already.
This goes for your individual projects and your overall schedule, plan your weekly tasks a month or a week ahead where possible, batch process what you must get done and prioritize ruthlessly.
Also, be realistic about what you can actually get done, if you have lofty ambitions of getting twice as much work done and put it on your diary then it can feel very underwhelming when you are constantly rolling them over to the next day.
Project Management Systems
It’s a lot easier to plan your schedule and track your performance when you use a project management system. I recommend Asana which comes in two flavors, free and premium though the former is perfectly functional for most people’s use.
Asana features a very user-friendly interface and you can learn how to use the majority of the features in just a few hours. Watch their tutorial videos and you will be good to go.
A lot of people use Trello, as did I until I discovered Asana and how much more flexible and user-friendly it was to work with.
Automate Reoccurring Task Reminders
With Asana, if you have a monthly task that you need to do every month on the 16th you can add it on the 16th and set it to repeat on the same day every month. You can do the same with weekly, monthly and yearly tasks, you can also set it to show every Wednesday or every 2nd Wednesday of the month.
I have written about how to create a reoccurring task and other productivity tips for Asana if you want to learn more.
Goal Setting
Setting goals can be helpful, but relying on them too much is not going to get you far. You want to prioritize systems over goals, as James Clear says, goals are great for planning systems are good for actually making progress”.
His article about goals vs systems is well worth a read and is actually an excerpt from his fantastic book Atomic Habits that I also highly recommend.
Reduce Internal Emails
Sure email is a brilliant solution and one of the very few decentralized services we have access to online, and while it’s great for communicating about simple things, but when you are working on something with your own team or freelancers you should switch the conversation over to a project management system or enterprise resource planner.
Asana is what I personally use though they refer to it as a ‘work management platform ‘. Other popular options include Basecamp, Trello, and Monday.
This way you can have separate conversations on each specific task which makes it a lot easier to manage than an email with 10 overlapping conversations and points to discuss with inline replies in long conversations about each different point that was raised.
With tasks, you can also assign someone responsible for the task, attach notes, files and set deadlines.
Less External Emails
If you are working on something that is ongoing, it might be worth creating a project in Asana and inviting them to access it. They will only see items added to that project and you can then set yourself tasks and ask them to leave feedback on each task.
If you are hiring a freelancer on an ongoing basis this would be a great way to optimize how you collaborate and manage everything.
Use Checklists
Checklists are one of the most important stables of my productivity tools. When you are working on a project the best way to make the process run smoothly and to avoid scratching your head is to create a checklist for the task or project.
If it’s a process you are likely to repeat, turn it into a reusable template.
I use Asana for all of my checklists and save them for later use but if pen and paper is your preferred approach you can download templates online or create your own. I highly recommend using project management software though, especially if you are working online.
Not-To-Do Lists
Having a not-to-do list is a good way to avoid wasting your precious time on tasks that aren’t helping you make progress.
Some of these things you will know you shouldn’t be doing but others you think might be beneficial but you have no data to back this up.
In the latter case, you want to start trying t measure your efforts to see what is having the greatest return.
Is the time you are spending on social media making a big impact? or is that time better spent on producing content and doing outreach?
The purpose of the not-to-do list is so you can build a habit of not doing these tasks and checking your list occasionally to remind yourself they aren’t worth spending time on helps enforce these new rules.
Here are 9 great examples from Tim Ferriss.
Lifestyle
Ways to improve your productivity by improving your body and mind.
Eat healthily
Avoid food that will make you feel sluggish and opt for something that will give you the charge of energy you need.
I have more respect for my readers than to be giving any nutritional advice here but everybody knows their own bodies and what foods make us sluggish and which energize us without us crashing shortly after.
So listen to your body and feed it the fuel that makes you the most productive.
Work Out and Get Your Heart Beating
Do something that takes 5-10 minutes and gets your heart beating. Ideal in the morning when your body is awake but your brain is still half asleep. A quick walk, short bike ride or just something you can do in your workplace or home.
It’s obvious I know but even small 10 minute workouts are all it takes. When you get your blood moving, your heart beating and your endorphins are being released it will help you de-stress and make you alert.
Squats or jumping-jacks will more than suffice.
I keep a set of weights next to my desk, they are a constant reminder to keep this habit and I also take short bike rides most days. Your ideal workout could involve Yoga or doing burpees, everyone is different.
If your work mostly involves sitting make sure you are doing enough exercise and also consider trying a standing desk. You don’t have to work all day standing up but intervals of standing will greatly improve your health and productivity.
Give Yourself a Break
This article is about productivity but I would be remiss if I didn’t stress the importance of taking breaks and enjoying some leisure time. You can often work much harder and faster after taking a little time to reflect and enjoy yourself.
Do you ever get stuck with something you are working on, only to have a eureka moment hours later when your mind is idle and you are doing something relaxing like watching a TV show? That is the result of your mind having time to process what you were working on and it often leads to a solution.
Make sure to schedule regular pauses throughout the day and allow yourself some time to unwind and do something fun or relaxing in the evening.
Key Motivator
Remind yourself of your key motivation for doing what you are doing right now. What are you working for? What are you trying to build for yourself? I find this to be the most powerful source of motivation.
You can get inspired by both the little wins and the kind of lifestyle you envision for yourself in the future, or the lifestyle you have already attained and want to maintain.
Meditation
Now I’m neither experienced or knowledgeable about Meditation but I have definitely found trying transcendental meditation even for just 10-20 minutes has a profound effect on my state of mind, balance, and well-being. So I highly recommend trying some form of meditation.
Taking a short time to meditate as you switch tasks and activities can also be very helpful and it also allows your brain to properly think through and absorb what you were previously working on.
Reading Before Bed
For me, nothing helps to end the day like reading a book in bed, but you want to make sure you are reading something you are interested in and enjoy.
Going to bed feeling good will help you feel energized and motivated the following day.
Avoid doom and gloom and opt for something positive or inspiring.
General Productivity Tips
Here are some of the best general productivity tips I have picked up from authors, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, books, and productivity experts.
Avoid Perfectionism
Don’t obsess over perfecting everything, often getting something done and it being good or great is far more important. Even worse perfectionism leads to procrastination, lots of time wasted, and sometimes even prevents people from taking action. This is often known as “Perfectionist Syndrome” and is one of the things that holds most entrepreneurs back from starting.
Confucius said,
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”
Churchill said
“Perfection is the enemy of progress”
and I couldn’t have put it better myself, don’t think, do! You will learn a lot more in that process than hypothesizing.
Document everything
Now I don’t mean document everything, as in every last little detail, but document all of the important stuff. Richard Branson credits his note-taking habit as one of the key reasons why he’s been so successful in his book The Virgin Way.
I jot down all of the pertinent details from phone calls with clients and colleagues, I take notes during a project so I know what was done and I do the same with most ideas when they pop into my head.
Having a good system for doing this and being consistent will definitely help you to make it a habit.
I have 2 written notepads and I use Asana for anything that’s better to keep in the digital ecosystem (Most of my notes fall into this category).
Doing this does two things, 1) It means you have a record of everything and you can always refer back to it later if you need to repeat the process or recall some details and 2) It helps you commit it to your memory after writing it down in simple terms.
As you probably know by now, I take my notes in Asana, but Evernote or a little paper notepad works fine too.
Get Inspired
Another great way to increase productivity is by staying motivated, but what inspires your motivation? Maybe it’s landing a new client, getting praise from a colleague, making an online sale of your product or when affiliate commissions come in, whatever it is you should document these wins.
Maybe even have a mini celebration at your desk when they happen. Remind yourself that this is you #winning and when you aren’t feeling motivated and you’re sluggish, remembering these moments of triumph or going through a journal where you write them down is a great way to remind you of how that made you feel and make you want to feel that again.
So why are you doing what you do right now? Write them down somewhere.
Start Your Day With a Few Easy Tasks
If you are anything like me, you aren’t really in the full flow and don’t quite have the full mental capacity to get straight into what we call deep-work. If this is you, then start your day with some of the easier tasks first, get your mind warmed up without getting overwhelmed before you have even properly started.
A good start often leads to continued progress and productivity throughout the day.
But I am going to contradict this in a moment for people who are already ready to seize the day.
Tackle The Hardest Task First
The renowned motivational speaker Brian Tracy famously said
“If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first”
and while humorous it’s also true.
If you tackle the hardest task on your plate first it lifts a lot of pressure off your shoulders and you can quickly find yourself on a roll as you breeze through the easier tasks afterward.
So even if you need to warm up for the first hour, once you are alert it’s time to roll up your sleeves.
The task you want to do least is usually the most urgent or complex thing you have on your plate and getting through it will make the rest of your day a lot easier.
Brian actually adapted an earlier quote by Mark Train that reads
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day”
No frogs were actually harmed, don’t worry. We’re (they’re) talking about proverbial frogs.
Deep Work
Learn to distinguish the difference between deep work and remedial tasks.
Cal Newport, the author of the book Deep Work, defines deep work as:
“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
His book on the subject is well worth reading if you are trying to optimize your work.
Productivity Tools
There are lots of apps and tools you can use to enhance and measure your productivity, to see more of the tools I use go to productivity tools.
Delegation
Find out what you absolutely must do yourself and then delegate everything else that’s beneath your pay grade. This way you can focus your efforts on the most meaningful tasks in your life and business.
Procrastination
Get out of your own head and take action. Once you start you might find you’re on a roll.
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”— Marcus Aurelius
This is now simply abbreviated to
“Just Do It” – Nike
The Eisenhower Matrix
This is a system that involves you categorizing your tasks into one of the 4 quadrants.
- Urgent and important
- Not urgent and important
- Urgent but not important
- Not urgent and not important
Source: James Clear
This is one of the best ways to gain some perspective on how you are spending your time and how you might want to adjust moving forward. You get to see the big picture doing it this way.
James Clear breaks down the Eisenhower Matrix or Box as he calls it brilliantly and I also highly recommend his book Atomic Habits which was one of the best books I read in 2018 on the subject of productivity.
Multi-Tasking
Try and avoid multi-tasking, when your brain switches what it’s working on rapidly you will be less efficient with your time completing both tasks. You are never fully focussed on the one thing that matters. Try mono-tasking as much as possible and you should see the difference.
Multi-tasking in slow motion, however, if you are working in Pomodoros on different tasks or splitting your day into 3 main areas of work. This can act as a mental break and help you better process everything.
Play Podcasts & Videos at 1.5x or 2x speed
One way to consume content in less time is to speed up the tempo. Most video tools like YouTube allow you to set the speed at 1.5x or 2x the normal speed so you can consume more into the time you have for studying.
Avoid Comparisons
Comparing yourself to others who have already succeeded is a bad measurement for your progress, doing so holds you back, allows you an excuse to procrastinate, and prevents you from progressing.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt
You have to fail to succeed and you have to put in the work and take action, but if you spend too much time comparing yourself to others you will waste a lot of precious time.
Productive Learning
If you want to learn more then listen to podcasts and audiobooks when you are walking, driving, or in the gym, if you are selective they can be one of the best resources to learn from and help you to stay up to date in your industry.
If you are using public transport or traveling then read a book instead. I prefer to read than listen because they help me be more present when I’m learning but I still listen to a lot of podcasts too.
The point is maximizing the amount of learning you can get into times when you can’t be fully productive, is a great way to optimize your time.
Bird or Owl?
Generally, people are their most creative either early in the morning or later on at night, I fall into the night owl category and find the solace and peace helps me be more creative but whichever personality type you fall into, go with your grain.
Spend your mornings or evenings, creating or satisfying your curiosity with personal growth like reading, watching, and absorbing useful information. Use the middle of your day for getting important work done.
Here are some other articles you might find interesting
- Thought Leaders You Should Follow
- Productivity Tools I Recommend
- Email Productivity Guide
- Ways You Can Use Asana to Increase Productivity
Final Notes
There you have it, all of my best tips on productivity that I think have a positive impact on my performance.
The majority of these tips I have picked up from books thought leaders and experts on productivity and mixed and matched what works best for me.
This includes systems you can incorporate into your work or personal life, software, tools, and forming productive habits.
So whether you work in an office or at home, whether you are an employee, entrepreneur, freelancer, web designer, or student you should have plenty of ideas on what you can try next to boost your productivity.
I assume many people will be using some of these ideas already but hopefully, the majority of you are able to take something useful from this list and try it for yourself.
What do you think of my best productivity tips? If you have any tips or tricks that you want to share, you can always do so via my contact page.
If you liked these productivity tips here are some other articles you might find interesting.
