What Are Your TOP Productivity Tips? (31)
I think we all find ourselves procrastinating from time to time. I have struggled with procrastination for a long time and I think it is probably the biggest and most common block to success people in pretty much any walk of life have. Thus I ask you, what do you do to beat it?
Great idea, but they're pretty freakin' pricy. I'll just stick to slapping myself in the face for now. It should have the same effect.
Build a routine when it comes to working times. Stick to it. Set yourself high but realistic goals to achieve when it comes to monetary objectives.
Dont spend time on FB, youtube or news sites while working.
Originally Posted by urosinho10
This looks like the magic bullet and I'm very tempted to buy this solution. But then I read CBrughmans comment below and it may be more realistic to follow that approach
But getting pain from time to time is still tempting *ggg*
I have a very limited testing budget, for that money I can test like 5 campaigns xD
Originally Posted by urosinho10
Just fucking do it. It's as simple as that.
Step 1: Exercise - cardio, weights or go for a walk
Step 2: http://getcoldturkey.com/ - block everything. Facebook, Reddit, Youtube etc
Step 3: http://trello.com - write down everything you need to do in a check list.
Step 4: http://www.focusatwill.com - put headphones on. Turn up really, really loud.
Step 5: $$$
Seriously. Shia LeBeouf hits the nail on the head.
The same question was asked over at Hacker News (startup central) a while back - some great answers there.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10011531
For me? Checklists, to-do lists written at the END of the business day not the start, frequent breaks, highly optimised workplace (large monitors FTW) and if you're overwhelmed for Pete's sake STOP and plan rather than just barreling on.
Yeah I know but it still could work lol
Morning : 1000mg /taurine
Afternoon: cafeine + L-theanine (coffee + green tea together)
+ focusatwill.com (MP If you want a 10% discount)
@urosinho10 - Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "so don't ask it here". Just adding a big pile of info from another source. This is exactly the right kind of question to be asking on STM, and it's a really interesting thread so far!
Morning espresso (however I would like to get rid of this drug)
+
Skype offline
+
FocusAtWill
=
$$$
Originally Posted by caurmen
My favorite "hack" is to pre-plan each hour of my daily in Excel the night before.
Column 1 the hour, Column 2 What I intend to do, Column 3 What I actually did.
Originally Posted by dr_ngo
Enjoy the process
Lots of interesting stuff here. But since we are in a very dynamic environment our day, even when nicely planed, never ends like we planed it.
I normally segment the day in 3 phases.
1. Routine stuff - Stats, staff meeting, status report.
2. Projects - associated tasks
3. Communication / unexpected stuff - In between - answer emails/communications and associated new tasks and prioritization
The point in segmenting things is that you can't ignore incoming stuff that require immediate attention (even if you're not going to deal with it yourself, when something comes up - opportunity or crisis - it needs to be addressed.
Obviously the facebook and other distracting stuff needs to be turned off, but then that's a discipline.
Your nickname sounds so familiar
My no 1 tip.. dont use Trafficjunky.. the bid management system is absurd.
Originally Posted by urosino
I often see people spending time on experimenting with new "sophisticated" methods to increase productivity , and I've been guilty of this as well.
Anything that's not super simple does not work for me, because I simply stop doing it, especially when in high stress situations.
For example capturing time and trying to have 30 mins then 5 minutes breaks, that stuff never worked for me. I'd often forget to measure it, or just work over when I was into something.
Nor did any apps or programs where I had to plan everything I'd do in detail.
Here is what worked best for me:
- Strong WHY (read psycho cybernetics)
- Clear goals - just five to-do points (trello) I can look at if I'm not sure what to do next , also got long-time goals written down
- Putting myself in situations where I got so much downside if I don't work , that it's not even a question
- Caffeine (coffee)
- Proper nutrition and sports (makes a surprisingly big difference)
- No distractions (shut off phone, no co-workers or people around, no fb twitter skype ..)
- Actually making progress and getting results for a lot of short-term motivation spikes
//
And still I have to admit, if I was a perfect robot, I'd be at least twice as productive. I catch myself all the time having wasted valuable time with some TV series , facebook , or just focusing on something I liked but that was not important to my goals at all.
Edit: And "social pressure" works extremely well. I have not used this so much in a business context yet, but I will. A follow along is one way. Teaming up with a friend is super effective because you will easily give up on yourself - but rarely on your good friend who is depending on you.
Edit 02: Two more
- Moving to a country with decent temperature, anything very hot will drain your energy a lot
- Moving somewhere that's "buzzing with energy" - for example I automatically am more productive in New York than I am in some small town somewhere
Breaking the day into two seperate units.
For example:
1. MIT - Most Important Task: 05am-11am
2. Gym / Sleep / Food : 11am-2pm
3. Task 2 & Task 3: 2pm-till finished
After hitting it hard in the morning, going to the gym and sleeping a bit helps recharging and makes my mind free.
During the afternoon nothing spectaculars happens, but I get some shit done.
A very useful and completely different way to look at procrastination is something I first heard through Cal Newport.
He argues that procrastination is not some negative character flaw.
Instead it’s a very useful feedback mechanism within your brain.
When you procrastinate, your brain is basically telling you that you did not think things through enough.
That you don’t really have a plan and goals you believe you should be spending your time on.
Therefore your brain does not give you any energy.
So instead of trying to “beat procrastination” you should learn to observe when it happens and then listen to it.
More practically, try everything mentioned in this thread :-) but make sure to put it in order:
1) goals + “why”
2) planning / steps
3) execution
Focus and solve a specific task at a time and... don't forget your goal.
thats awesome, motivation now +100!
Old thread, but yea, different routines for different people as one can see.
I like to organize all my projects and tasks (write them out very specifically into actionable tasks) in Excel where I have starting deadlines and ending deadlines for all tasks. Then either the night before or in the early morning I'll move a number of tasks into Trello. I make sure to add a timeline and start with MIT's, so for example "8.00-10.00 Do MIT". It is MUCHO IMPORTANT to know at all times 1) what you have to do 2) how to do it 3) when you have to do it. Declutter, declutter, declutter... and make sure you remove distractions as much as possible!
I try to take breaks, although this is something I have to improve on.. taking breaks really makes a night and day difference by the end of the workday in terms of how you are feeling. Ergonomic workplace solutions help as well and obviously get enough sleep, proper nutrition, workout etcetc.
Originally Posted by craigm
Productivity: Fresh To-Do List Each Day, No Internet, No Checking Distracting Things
Ah, productivity. I've read a bunch of books on it, none especially useful. David Allen's "Getting Things Done" was the best though, particularly for his piece of advice to write things down.
You know how you're going crazy stressing out with a bunch of things you need to complete, trying to remember to do them all?
Write them all down in a list, and you've immediately got them off your mind and can relax a bit.
I took this and extended it to coming up with a fresh to-do list each morning.
I've tried apps like Wunderlist or Evernote in the past and found I always abandon them within about 10 days or so. I'd accumulate these massive lists of all these things I wanted to get done, and then it was just too much work even to read the list so I'd quit the app.
So what I do now:
Each morning, I wake up and open a fresh text document.
I then list 4 to 8 bullets of things I want to complete THAT day, that I'm fairly confident I can complete that day.
Then I start going down the list and gray out the ones I complete.
If I don't finish the list at day end, it goes in the trash can and I start with a fresh list the next day.
This way, I'm not carrying over a bunch of demoralizing driftwood from older lists.
I'll also have a few separate documents for things I want to get done that maybe aren't day-to-day tasks, and one or two days a week I'll try to take a look at those and knock some of them out.
But main thing: fresh to-do list, each morning, listing out the tasks I want to knock out THAT day.
Here's my second thing: I leave the Internet completely OFF until I'm finished at least a couple of items on my list (that don't require Internet).
I just go up to the little WiFi signal and turn it off, then get to work. Then when all my non-Internet work is complete, I go and switch the Internet on and wade into the Internet-dependent tasks.
I do not allow myself to check email, revenues, or anything else like that until I've finished a few major projects for the day. That's because it's easy to stay in a productive head space after you've woken up so long as you're just either a.) reading books, or b.) cranking work out. But as soon as you start doing stuff like checking email or revenues and letting other people or events affect your emotions ("Oh shit, another nasty email from so-and-so, pssh, I don't feel like working now" "All right, we just did 3x our usual revenues! I'm taking the rest of the day off to party!"), now you're having to refocus, fight distraction, and do a lot of other annoying stuff that makes it take 2 or 3 times as long to do whatever it is you're doing than it would've taken you before you started checking those things.
It took me years to get to these rules, but they're what work best for me.
So mine are:
- Write a FRESH to-do list each morning (only tasks you think you can COMPLETE that day)
- Leave the Internet turned off until you've completed at least a few of your to-do items
- You are not allowed to check email, Skype, revenues, commissions, ad performance, etc., until anything requiring zero distractions is complete
And then a few days a week I'll have days where I do minimal stuff in the morning and just take as "admin days" where I check email early and check revenues early and just catch up on managing people and job ads we have out and applicants and sweeping up little fires and making sure the house isn't burning down. But on days where I want to produce (a good 5 out of 7 days of the week at least), these are the rules I follow.
Also, if you need a break, I've found owning a Kindle and having books I want to read on there immensely useful. Instead of taking a break surfing the web and getting sucked into that rabbit hole from which your day may well be lost or (even worse) playing some computer game and thinking, "I'll just play this for a half an hour then get back to work" (suddenly, it's 12 hours later and you're still telling yourself you're going to get everything done today somehow), you open up your Kindle, read a few pages, then shut it, still in a focused mood, but refreshed, and get back to work.
Chase
- Asana for my clients and some of my long-term projects. I can just open Asana and I have my "to do" in front of me. I've started (last week) by splitting up days, now I want a few days a week strictly for running mobile ads for instance and some days strictly for my client/SEO business.
- Trello for processes (i.e. a process for "Client SEO", "Mobile Pops" etc.). I also use Trello for some other stuff I want to keep track of.
- Slack is the main matter that ties it together. It's connected to a few APIs, some RSS feeds, my Pocket account (so whenever I find something interesting online, videos, forum threads etc. I can add it to pocket in Firefox and it will be sent to Slack). I can then read them later at home on my iPad. This is done in IFTTT. Larger projects where I work with others have their own Slack boards.
- I have an email I can forward any invoices to, these are then added to a folder on Dropbox with "date - email subject.pdf"
- I try to do my books every Sunday, so sorting through that folder basically, gathering the missing pieces. Every month I give them to my accountant and make sure that it matches bank and paypal statements.
- All my emails go into different folders. One for client, one for AMs, one for affiliate newsletters, one for invoices, one for paypal, one for my accountant ...
- I also do coffee in the morning, and I've been testing some nootropics (modafinil), but only used them a handful of times.
- Sometimes I like Brain.fm - it helps me get in the zone on a bad day, but it doesn't give me much on a good day.
My main problem now is distractions on my computer, and getting up early is still a pain in the ass.
The above things helps me at least.
I really like the advice above regarding splitting up the day into "zones", and it's something I want to test. I also want to start work out more, as that has been one of my main boosters earlier.
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