Part of the guide: Personal Brand
13. Clean!
This one has got to be in the top five of all productivity boosting tip lists. Your surroundings directly affect your thought patterns. If you’re in a dirty room, crap everywhere and dust on the tables; you’ll find it difficult to think straight. It’s the same reason you can’t think straight with blaring music in the background. What to do? Clean everything! Vacuum the floors; clean the windows, doors, tables, chairs and most importantly; don’t leave anything on the floor. Use a bin and you’ll feel A LOT better.
14. Sleep Early And Wake Early
I used to have a big problem with my sleep. Some days I’d go to bed at 5am and wake up at 3pm the next day. Other days I’d fall asleep at 6pm and wake up at 4am. My sleep was all over the place and it wasn’t good for me. Massively droopy eyes and struggling to structure a sentence; I’d fall asleep in the middle of an email. Solution? Sleep early and wake early. I should have put wake early as its own “trick” as really; you almost always feel productive in the morning after an early night’s sleep.
15. Sleep Cycle
As I said I struggled to get into a sleep cycle. Right now I have strict alarm settings that gently wake me up at 7am and tell me to go to sleep at 12pm. always, always get 7 hours of sleep. Most people recommend 8 but 7 quality hours is enough. Once you get into a regular sleep cycle you’ll have more energy, feel a hell of a lot better and be more productive during work hours.
16. No Television
Already mentioned this huh? Nearly everyone knows this, but most people choose to ignore the simple fact. The simple fact that no matter who you are; the brain picks up on even the slightest movements/noises around you and they will stop you from being most productive. Even if you think you can write an article or prepare a business plan when the TV is on; you can’t. So just turn it off, pull it off the wall and toss it into the bin. As really; TV isn’t good for you.
17. Eat A Healthy Snack
This one is more of an energy thing than productivity. But a lack of energy can really stop you from being productive. I actually follow strict meal plans and eat a set number of meals per day. I actually eat 6 small meals per day and even know the exact nutrients in them.
…But; I know most people have terrible eating habits and eat 2-4 medium or large meals a day. So eat healthily, get enough protein, carbs and everything else. You’ll feel a lot better for it. On top of a healthy diet, consume a nutritious snack before you start working and every 2 hours during.
18. Drink A Glass Of Water
Drinking a glass of water helps you concentrate on whatever it is you’re doing. I’m not going to explain why because it’s pretty much common knowledge. So whenever you’re feeling tired or slightly brain dead, drink a glass of water or better yet; green tea.
19. Delegate
Delegating is one of the most important business skills on the planet. In order to be productive, you need to work on what’s important. So therefore… you need to delegate the tasks that other people can do to other people. Unless you absolutely must be part of the task; delegate it to a work employee or hire a VA in the Philippines.
20. Outsource
Similar to delegating, outsourcing is an essential thing you must do in order to be successful in this world. What I mean by outsourcing?
…I mean hire people in the Philippines or India to complete all the tasks you don’t want to. You really should outsource tedious tasks that you don’t enjoy and tasks that don’t directly make you money.
21. Information Diet
Every since I started in business; I’ve had an information diet. Not too much and not too little; just the right amount of information. With the Internet & TV and all it’s easy to go on information overload. Where you’re learning too much information at the same time which makes it near impossible for anything to stick.
To solve that problem, go on a strict diet of information. Choose the subjects you wish to learn about, work out how much time for learning you have and carefully choose the right amount of book, videos, PDF’s and audio courses. As a rule of thumb; you should read at least 1 physical book every 2 weeks.
22. Type Faster (Extra tip)
If someone asked me how they could quickly boost their productiveness; I’d instantly tell them to type faster. Typing is the speed of which you write. In most jobs and businesses typing is a part of everyday life. I’m typing right now and usually do it for a few hours per day.
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If your job/business requires you to write let’s say 4000 words per day and you write 30 words/minute; it’s going to take you 133 minutes to write those words. That’s over 2 hours of your day. What if you could write 60 words/minute, that’s an entire hour/day of your life saved or 365 hours/year.
23. Prioritize Tasks (Extra tip)
Prioritizing tasks is another essential skill every business person needs. When you’re writing your list of tasks for the next day; you need to prioritize them. You need to work out which tasks are most important and exactly how long they’re going to take you. From there you can create a numbered list of tasks in order of how important they are. Of course, you have to take other factors into consideration when making your list; but you get the idea.
24. Take 5 Minute Thinking/Coffee Breaks (Extra tip)
This one is slightly unusual as who’d ever think taking a coffee break could boost productivity? I think after completing a load of work; you need to be rewarded. Ultimately you’re rewarded with a few extra digits in your bank account, but most people need instant gratification in order to stay motivated.
Like most people; I enjoy a coffee break. BUT – I only ever have them AFTER I’ve completed a load of work. Taking a quick break will clear your mind and allow your body to repair itself/prepare for more work. Just don’t go taking 5 minute thinking/coffee breaks in the middle of tasks. I used to do it all the time and it DIDN’T boost productivity!
That’s it; 24 simple tricks for boosting productivity…
In Prosperity,
David Wood
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Comments
Michael Burns, January 17, 2012, 02:05
I agree except that I couldn’t plan my meals for a week. I have no idea what I’m going to want to eat tomorrow, let alone a week from now.
Michael Burns, January 16, 2012, 23:04
I still struggle with this. But I’m working on it.
Mike, January 16, 2012, 22:18
I agree with everything except doing the boring stuff in the morning. I use my mornings when I am refreshed and full of new energy to create or do the things that inspire me. That is where I want my strongest energy to go! So for me, I focus on art, music, and morning walks with nature! However, everyone is different and you have to find what works best for you and this post is full of absolutely wonderful ways to boost your production. Thanks for sharing David! 🙂
Laura Perez, January 18, 2012, 11:45
Thanks for the tips, David! I’ve been struggling with distractions and your advice is really helpful.
Chris Martin, January 18, 2012, 14:32
Great post! Planning my meals for the week has made a huge difference in my productivity. Keep up the great work!
Susan Lee, January 19, 2012, 09:20
Love the idea of cutting off the internet. It’s so easy to get distracted online. Thanks for the tip!
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Tips 19 and 20 assume you already have someone to delegate to. Most people reading this don’t yet — it’s one person doing everything.
Hector raises a point I have thought about a great deal since starting again at sixty one, and I would add a further layer to it: even once there is something worth delegating, there is the separate question of whether a person who spent decades being the one relied upon can comfortably become the one relying on someone else, particularly someone younger and less experienced in the world than they are. That adjustment, I have found, takes longer than building the budget for it ever does.
Arthur names something worth sitting with — what kind of person do you become when you’ve spent a life being depended on and now have to depend on someone else. There’s no shame in that shift. If anything, being able to hand something over and trust it to another person, especially one younger than you, is itself a kind of character, not a loss of it.
I hired someone to help with a chunk of my workload in year two, and Hollis’s framing is closer to what actually happened than ‘checkbox’ or even ‘identity shift’ sounds like on paper — the first month I redid half of what came back because it wasn’t exactly how I’d have done it, which defeated the entire point of handing it off in the first place. By month three I’d learned to write down what actually mattered versus what I just preferred, and stopped redoing the second category. That’s the whole skill tips 19 and 20 compress into one line each — not the hiring, the letting go of preference.
Arthur’s point lands. Building a team meant handing things to people with less experience and letting their version be good enough. Harder than a checkbox.
The strongest case against tip 22 is that typing speed was never really the bottleneck the math implies. The 133 minutes to write 4000 words assumes you know exactly what you’re going to type before you start, which is the actual bottleneck for almost everyone — thinking time, not finger speed. Double your typing speed and you’ll still stare at the same blank paragraph for the same length of time deciding what it should say.