5 Habits Of Highly Productive People
If someone were to tell you that to be more productive every day, you need to do less, you might not believe it. List-making and copious amounts of caffeine definitely won’t get you too far. Reaching your level of ‘peak productivity’ isn’t just for sportsmen and women, it can be achieved by anyone who is disciplined enough to create new habits.
1 BE DRIVEN BY YOUR PURPOSE
Highly-productive people have a vision of the future they want to create that matters to them. They work backwards to the present and then understand what they need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. Defining your mission in life will help you create long-term goals. These long-term goals can be broken down into smaller goals. Smaller goals then create to-do lists on a daily basis.
2 CUT YOUR TO-DO LIST IN HALF
How long is your ‘to-do’ list and how do you feel at the end of a day where you’ve tried to fit in as much as possible? Or perhaps, more demotivating, you been able to focus on what is important to you. The right approach is that ‘ ess-is-more’. This may include planning your day the evening before, focusing on getting the most important tasks done when you feel at your best and delegating more.
3 CREATE A SYSTEM
Technology can help us to create many productivity hacks in our lives, which can make a big impact in our workflow every day. There are numerous apps that can help us be less distracted and more mindful of how we are spending that precious resource we have called ‘time’.
4 LIMIT TECHNOLOGICAL DISTRACTIONS
Living in a world constantly stimulated by the virtual world – checking our e-mails, looking at social media feeds – can be one of the biggest drains on our productivity. Sending an e-mail to someone can actually cost you more time than just picking up the phone. Limit checking your social media streams to suitable times of the day, when you don’t need to be working at your best.
5 TAKE BREAKS THROUGHOUT THE DAY
Managing your energy levels is as important as managing your time. Research consistently shows that taking a quick break throughout the day can dramatically increase your focus, creativity, and productivity. Our brains use up glucose constantly and we can only truly be ‘in the zone’ for ninety minutes at a time. Re-energize yourself by doing something different, like taking a walk, drinking water, or meditating.