Boost Your Productivity
You have goals, you know the steps that need to be taken to get there, but how do you find time to do them? If you are feeling swamped by too many things to do, I first recommend writing To-Do Lists every night. Before you go to bed, write two To-Do Lists: one for tomorrow and one for the next month. You can even write down project lists or idea lists. But if you get it written down, you will probably sleep better and wake up with solutions and ready to tackle things.
How you invest your time will determine your success. Many people make the mistake of getting the little things out of the way before they tackle the big things. But the best advice is to get the big things out of the way first! And actually some of the little things may disappear.
Schedule your time so that you can do the important things during your best “mentally alert time.” I find that for most people this is the morning. And make sure you are making the distinction between important and urgent. Urgent things scream at you for attention to be done NOW. Important things are the actions that help you achieve your goals. They are more long term and too easily put aside. Yes, you have to take care of urgent things, but you also must take care of the important things in order to reach your goals. Urgent things have a way of interrupting you and taking you away from the important tasks, so I recommend working on the important things in a place where you will not be disturbed. You might actually have to leave the office in order to escape the urgent things. Try a few hours in your home office, the coffee shop, or my favorite, the library – anywhere that you will not be bombarded with urgent tasks! Then turn your phone off, don’t look at incoming messages, etc. and do your concentrated work.
The other important thing is to set a time limit for working on each item. If you give a task all day, it will take all day. So set a time for completing it and then when the time is up, move on to the next one.
Success in business is usually the result of spending more of your time doing what you are very good at and excited about, working on the best opportunities and the highest value responsibilities. So always think in terms of how you are investing your time. Look at your “To Do List” every day and decide what to delegate and what to leave undone. Increase the amount of time that you spend on the parts of the business that you have the most passion for!
How you invest your time really will determine your success.