Do you know this scenario: You wake up, get in front of your computer, navigate to your email inbox and get sucked into the endless stream of other people’s agendas? You lose hours upon hours doing things that weren’t urgent nor were they helping you move your business forward.
How does your productivity look like these days? Are you letting people step all over your agenda or are you the driving force behind everything that is happening in your life?
I think it’s safe to say that most of us let many distractions keep us from being the productive bees we have the ability to be. Whether it’s the twitter stream showing up on top of your screen, whether it’s your constant need to check your emails or the lack of physical boundaries, there are certain habits that are toxic for our agendas.
However, if you want to achieve great things in life, it’s important to get behind the driver’s seat and put on the engine of your productive vehicle again. Here are a few tips on how to work without constant distractions.
Know your bigger projects
One of the most important things when planning your day or week is to think of the bigger projects you have going on right now. You cannot plan anything if you’re floating around with vague ideas of what you are trying to achieve in this phase of your life.
Are you writing a book? Are you developing a course? Are you creating a product?
What are the three to five steps you have to take in order to make your project a reality? If you’re writing a book, you need to write a proposal, find an agent, write the chapters.
If you’re developing a course, you have to create the different modules, schedule interviews with experts and outline the journey you want your students to take.
Those are your pillars and that’s what you should be working on right now.
Set Priorities
You should have a to-do list oriented by your projects for every single day of the workweek.
Write down five to ten tasks you need to do today, no matter what happens.
Be realistic and don’t put too many items an your schedule. Being overwhelmed won’t help the process.
Reduce your time online
Even if you work in the social media realm, you don’t have to constantly be online, tweeting, Facebook updating or whatever form of social interaction you prefer these days.
Bundle the time you spend on the internets and make those hours count. Stay focused on the messages you want to convey. Use apps like buffer or tweet old posts to help you spread your content even if you’re not online.
You’ll see how much faster you can work once you focus on only one thing.
Emails
Don’t look at your email inbox more than twice a day. Yes, really only twice.
When you plan your day, think of the people you have to connect with on this given day. Maybe you are waiting for a finished transcription, maybe you’re waiting for a business partner to get back to you. Write down the names.
Then go to your inbox, but only to look if those people have delivered their work or whatever else it is you’re waiting for. Then write the emails to the people you need to contact and that’s it.
Disconnect and don’t go back to the inbox until you’ve done all the other work you have laid out for the day.
It’s amazing how these little changes can up your productivity immensely.
What tips do you have that help you stay productive?