How to Be More Productive

Contents · 3 sections

1. What is productivity?
2. Six simple steps
3. Productivity tools

Are you as productive as you’d like to be? Do you want to boost your productivity, manage your time better, get more out of what you do and actually get results? Then this article is for you.

Before we can get more done and stay on top of everything on our plate, it helps to understand what productivity really is and how it shapes our day.

A good place to start is a well-known idea: the Pareto 80/20 rule.

Twenty percent of what we do each day produces 80% of our results. The 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto principle, works almost like a law of nature: effort and results are not equal. A small share of our activities (20%) drives most (80%) of what we achieve. That means the real value of any resource, whether it’s time, energy or money, depends on how we use it.

What is productivity?

Productivity measures how efficiently a person completes a task. Put simply, it’s how well we use the time we have to get our work done, consistently and well. It goes hand in hand with being organized and focused. Below are a few simple steps and ideas that can help you get there.

Six simple steps

1. Set goals

Goals are at the heart of productivity, and setting them the right way helps you get the results you want. For more on this, see my post “How to set goals you’ll actually reach.”

2. Make a to-do list

It’s an old habit, but a very useful one. A list is the easiest way to organize and see all the tasks you want to finish in a given period.

Be specific when you write each task down. Don’t just write “Work on project X.” Spell out exactly what needs to get done.

3. Make a plan and a schedule

Figure out which items on your list you can realistically finish, and decide what order to tackle them in. If you can, build a schedule for the day that shows when you’ll work on each task and when you’ll take your breaks. That way you can focus only on what you can actually get done that day.

It also helps to start with your main priorities for the month and spread them across the weeks. Then, at the start of each week, write down that week’s priorities and decide the order you’ll work through them.

4. Prioritize

If you want to be productive, you have to prioritize: sort your tasks and figure out which ones matter most. That’s how you finish your work well and on time.

Here are a few strategies that help.

The Eisenhower Matrix: one of the classic tools for prioritizing and choosing among many competing options.

Use the Eisenhower box to cut out the activities that waste your time.

The matrix helps you take action, organize your tasks better and get more of them done. Best of all, it works just as well for big plans as for small, everyday to-dos.

It sorts tasks by whether they are important and urgent, which gives you four quadrants:

• Urgent and important (tasks you’ll do right away).
• Important but not urgent (tasks you’ll schedule for later).
• Urgent but not important (tasks you’ll delegate to someone else).
• Neither urgent nor important (tasks you’ll drop).

Warren Buffett’s “two lists” strategy

This strategy is all about sharpening your focus and refining your priorities. It comes from legendary investor Warren Buffett, who uses a simple three-step process to set his priorities. It also helps you make decisions and get ready to act right away. STEP 1: Write down the 25 most important things you want to do this week. They can be personal or professional goals, work tasks, personal growth tasks and so on. You can also do this exercise for a longer or shorter period. STEP 2: Circle the top 5 goals or tasks. STEP 3: You now have two lists: the 5 things that matter most to you and the other 20 tasks on your plate.

The Ivy Lee method

Many productivity experts swear by this method. The idea is simple: do the most important thing first every day.

1. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to get done tomorrow. Don’t write down more than six tasks!
2. Rank those six items in order of their true importance.
3. The next day, focus only on the first task. Stay with it until it’s finished before moving on to the second. Work through the rest of the list the same way.
4. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the next day.
5. Repeat this process every workday.

The 15-minute routine Anthony Trollope used to write more than 40 books

Say you’ve sorted your priorities, and one of your tasks is a huge, time-consuming project. By the end of the day you may feel frustrated and unproductive: you worked on it for hours and still aren’t done. The novelist Anthony Trollope found a fix for this common problem.

While writing his 40-plus books, Trollope didn’t measure his progress by finished chapters or books. He measured it in 15-minute increments. That gave him a steady sense of accomplishment and kept him moving on the big task (like writing a book).

Why it works:

• Small markers of progress help you keep your momentum over the long haul, so you’re more likely to finish big tasks.

• The sooner you finish one productive task, the sooner your whole day shifts into a mindset of productivity and efficiency.

5. Set deadlines and measure success

Once you’ve prioritized your tasks, give each one a deadline and block out time to finish it. Leave some slack in your schedule every day for surprises, and stick to the deadline you set. When you follow an overall plan, becoming more productive comes naturally. You’ll also get better at judging how much work a task takes and how long it takes you. And deadlines will make you more focused and organized.

Keep an eye on your efficiency, too. Don’t judge how productive you are in the moment. Look back later: How well did you focus? How closely did you stick to your plan? How realistic were your schedule and deadlines? Note any surprises or interruptions, and think about what you can do better next time.

6. Focus

No matter how well we plan and prioritize, we can’t be productive if we can’t focus on the task at hand.

Here are a few simple steps to help you focus better.

#1: Eliminate distractions

The first step toward focus is to cut back on distractions or, ideally, get rid of them entirely. Think about how much time all those interruptions add up to. If you’re trying to concentrate but your phone keeps ringing or people nearby keep talking, all that noise will pull you off track.

So start by getting rid of distractions.

Research suggests that every time you lose your concentration, it can take up to 21 minutes to get your focus back. Don’t waste that time. Remove distractions, or at least keep them to a minimum.

#2: Your focus is a muscle, so train it

The ability to concentrate is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger it gets.

If you’re used to concentrating for 5 minutes at a time and suddenly try for 45, you probably won’t make it. You’re just not used to it. Instead, train your focus and concentration the way you’d train a muscle: start slow and build up gradually.

#3: Do it first thing in the morning

Your energy, willpower and focus are all at their peak in the morning. So get started on your tasks as soon as you can after you wake up.

The earlier you start, the more focused you’ll be and the longer you’ll stay concentrated.

#4: Make a plan

Always have a plan. Start each day by mapping out what you need to do and when. With a plan and a schedule in hand, it’s much easier to concentrate.

#5: Take breaks

Breaks give your focus a chance to recharge. Your energy follows a very predictable pattern every day: it builds, then fades over roughly 2½ hours. As your energy dips, so do your focus, willpower and concentration.

Productivity tools

Thanks to technology, there’s no shortage of techniques and apps that can boost your productivity. Here are a few of them:

1. Computer hardware and accessories

If you spend your workday at a computer, you need a machine that runs fast and smoothly. An SSD (solid state drive) costs more, but it can make a standard desktop or laptop load several times faster. If you do design or video editing, a good machine is essential to your productivity. The right class and size of monitor (or two) can reduce eye strain and let you work comfortably for longer. There’s also a Bulgarian-made app that protects your eyes from the glare of your monitor or phone. You can find it here: https://iristech.co. If your hardware budget is tight, you can buy used or refurbished high-end equipment that gives you the performance you need at an affordable price.

2. All-in-one organization

ProofHub

Launched in 2011, ProofHub is a cloud-based project management and collaboration tool. It’s built to help with planning, teamwork and organization so you can deliver your projects on time.

It packs plenty of features, from reports to a calendar. It also connects with other popular platforms, such as Google Calendar, iCal, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Outlook and others. That way you can keep all your scattered tasks in one place.

Freedcamp

Freedcamp is a central hub for project planning, organization and task management. You can share tasks and project files, join discussions with your team and more. Its big selling point: it offers many features for free.

Asana

Asana is a team productivity tool that helps everyone stay focused and organized. It’s best suited to teams, since it keeps all your projects and tasks in one place and lets you use separate workspaces. It can also help you organize your own tasks across different projects.

Slack

Slack’s huge success comes down to its simplicity. It integrates with more than 1,500 other apps and simplifies every kind of internal communication: you can set up channels by topic and never miss an important message again. You can chat with colleagues, share files and photos, and hold calls. A “do not disturb” mode lets colleagues know you can’t reply right now.

3. Google

Many people prefer to stick mostly with Google’s tools. Google Drive (and friends): Google Drive, together with Google Docs and Google Sheets, makes it easy to share and edit large numbers of files. You can store a lot of information there and keep it neatly organized.

Google Calendar

Use it to organize your schedule, meetings and tasks, and keep separate calendars for your personal life and for work.

4. Mobile apps

Wunderlist

Wunderlist is one of the easiest ways to get things done. Whether you’re managing several work projects, planning a vacation or sharing a shopping list, the app helps you organize all your personal and work tasks.

Evernote

Ever had a great idea and lost it on your way to work? Evernote is a solid cross-platform notebook that lets you capture and organize notes as text, images or audio on the go.

5. Time management and tracking

Todoist

Todoist keeps adding useful features that boost productivity. One recent addition is Smart Schedule, which uses artificial intelligence to help you plan and schedule your tasks with ease. Another feature shows you, at a glance, how productive you’ve been at getting your tasks done.

Toggl

Toggl is a simple, easy-to-use time tracker for individuals and teams, with powerful reports that show you exactly where your time goes.

RescueTime

It works a lot like Toggl but offers more advanced features. You install RescueTime on your computer, and it tracks which programs and websites you spend the most time on. It’s a pretty amazing tool that shows not only where your time goes but also which days you were most productive.

6. Visual organization

Trello

Trello is an easy, convenient way to stay organized. You can add lists, labels and tasks and rearrange them whenever you have a free moment. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s great for visualizing your work, and it beats covering your monitor in sticky notes.

There’s no shortage of tools that help us manage our time and methods that help us focus. But the most important thing of all is to take action.

Every day, each of us juggles tasks, challenges and activities: some we have to get done, others we choose to fill our time with. The key is to be organized and disciplined, and we get there through small, smart steps.

A good time management strategy helps solve these problems, lowers stress significantly and boosts our productivity, so we reach our goals faster and more easily.