When it’s hard to cope with all your work, it’s because you need better goals, self-organization, prioritization, delegation, or just some quality sleep. Here are 10 tips for better productivity if you aim to work at a world-class level.
Manage your goals
Set goals that scare you a little but excite you a lot. Your goals should be bigger than yourself so that you can grow into them. In the end, it’s all about personal growth.
Manage your mindset
Practice a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. You are not who you are. Instead, you are becoming who you aim to be.
With the fixed mindset, you accept the status quo about yourself. With the growth mindset, you listen to people’s feedback and are willing to learn from your mistakes, acknowledge the weak points, and improve them if you need to.
Manage your habits
Get used to getting out of your comfort zone. Practice doing hard things. When hard things are doable, average things become easy.
Aim to be 1% better every day. Spend at least 15-20 minutes a day for self-improvement.
Focus on your routine. Create, analyze, and improve your systems for daily and weekly work.
Manage your priorities
Use Eisenhower Matrix for daily tasks:
- Urgent and important? Do it today!
- Important, but not urgent? Schedule!
- Urgent, but not important? Delegate.
- Neither urgent nor important? Eliminate.
Use 1st things 1st for long-term prioritization:
- Define success criteria for your tasks.
- List out your ideas and initiatives.
- Evaluate ideas and initiatives by your success criteria.
- Get your priorities calculated and visualized.
Manage your focus
Get rid of all distractions and get into the Flow state of mind. When in that state, you will know what to do, how to do it, and how well you are doing. The work is neither boring nor too challenging, just at the right spot.
Manage your visuals
Clean your desk and organize your office regularly. A mess around you usually leads to a mess in your head.
Use a vision board for inspiration and positive motivation. Visual representation of your goals will spark your imagination and desire to reach them.
Manage your audio
Listen to music that boosts your performance.
- Classical – for focus.
- Lo-fi – for creativity.
- Ambient – to reduce stress.
- Anything on repeat – for the flow.
- Video-game – for problem-solving.
- Cinematic – for motivation.
Working in a noisy environment? Use noise-canceling headphones.
Manage your scents
While working, smell something pleasant:
- Rosemary, Vetiver, Coffee help solve problems.
- Lemon, Jasmine, Citrus improve performance.
- Cinamon, Peppermint, Ginger sustain attention.
- Pines, Lemongrass, Lavender recharge.
Manage your time
Schedule work time in blocks. Have different time windows for different projects or similar types of tasks.
Find your prime biological time. When during the day do you have the most energy and are the most productive? Do the most demanding work during those times.
Manage your rest
Have rest days. Don’t work non-stop. Recharge your brain and body for better mental health, raised focus and memory, and a healthier immune system.
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Invitation
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you learned something new and want to dive deeper, check the concise productivity tips for high achievers I recently published. There are 120+ tips for goal setting, self-awareness, focussed working environment, habits, priorities, planning, efficiency, teamwork, shortcuts, and self-care.
Photos by Ian Dooley, Allan Mas, Taha Mazandarani, Kristina Snowasp, Andrea Piacquadio, Jacob Colvin, Cottonbro, Marcela Laskoski, Jon Tyson, and Ron Lach.