Top 10 Productivity tips
Understand the value of your time.
When you have tasks that would be better suited to a skilled expert, but you’re not ready to hire a full or part time employee, then outsourcing to a freelancer, contractor, or other professional might be a good alternative. If your biggest objection is price, consider this:
How much money could you be making if you fully focused on the things you do best for your business, and leave the rest to others?
So instead of you spending a full day trying to figure out how to design a new logo for your business, spend your day generating revenue and use a fraction of that revenue to pay a designer. And instead of stressing about your quarterly taxes, hand that job over to an accountant. While it may feel like a hit to your bottom line, in the long run, it gives you time to focus on the areas of your business you really enjoy working on. Also think about the random tasks that consume too much of your time. For example, use a scheduling tool like Calendar or Mixmax to organize meetings.
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
Do I need to explain this? There are countless studies confirming the importance of breakfast for maintaining our health. Healthy people are more productive. No matter how busy you are, eat a decent breakfast. It’ll fuel you for a terrific start to your day. For more breakfast ideas, check out this: 31 Healthy Breakfast Recipes That Will Super Boost Your Energy
Learn to Speed Read
When you can read faster, you will read and learn more! Check out these 10 Ways to Increase Your Reading Speed. You can also make use of the app OutRead to help speed up your reading speed!
Protect Yourself from Unnecessary Phone Time with Caller ID
The minutes you spend on picking up unnecessary phone calls are time wasted. You can prevent that from happening. Check out this detailed guide how you can deal with those unnecessary phone calls: How To Lose the Useless Items that Weigh Down Your Day – Cellphone Calls
Learn to Skip When You Read
When you’re reading a book, just read the parts that you need and skip the rest. But you have to read with a purpose. Learn how to make it work here: How to Read 10X Faster and Retain More
Batch your day into productive chunks.
One thing that can be time consuming in managing the day-to-day tasks in a business is bouncing back and forth between tasks. The ability to focus on one task at a time and keep a consistent rhythm can make it easier to finish that task in less time. Let’s say that you are a solopreneur that has to handle emails from customers, packaging and shipping products, and marketing via your social media networks. Instead of prepping an item to ship each time a sale comes in, answering emails each time the notification pops up on your desktop, and checking your social media networks in between, try batching.
- Check and respond to emails at the beginning, middle, and end of the day.
- Check social media network notifications and post a new update to your social media networks twice a day.
- Set aside an hour or two before you need to leave to drop off packages or before your carrier comes to pick up packages to do shipping and handling preparation. By doing this, you’ll get into a rhythm with each task instead of having to start and stop throughout the day. This allows you to be productive with the time you would normally spend shifting gears from one task to another.
Take Shorter Showers
This one may sound silly but it’s actually something I struggle with. I spend up to 30 minutes in the shower. Think of the time I could save simply by speeding up a bit.
Get Read Only Database Access
I recommend application-level admins have read-only access to the Jira database. Understanding how the data is structured will solve a lot of mysteries and is essential for any scheme cleanup or audit. There’s configuration information in the database that’s simply not available or easy to access in the Jira Administration Console. This is especially true for large instances. Maintenance or research often starts with a database query.
Save the Trips to Bank by Taking Direct Deposit
Many employers now offer direct deposit. If yours does, then be sure and take advantage of it and save yourself from a number of trips to the bank.
Get Some Exercise
Not to be too repetitive, but healthy people are more productive. Exercise makes you healthier, so be sure to get some exercise every day. You don’t need to spend hours at the gym to get the benefit of this; take a walk around the block, or do some isometrics at your desk. Try these 29 Exercises You Can Do At (Or Near) Your Desk or 15 Simple And Quick Office Stretches To Boost Work Efficiency. Just do something to get your heart pumping and your blood racing. It will enhance your general well being as well as your ability to think more clearly.