Productivity Hacks for Busy People

You are one the kind of person who has an imaginary list (maybe even a real one) that is a mile long and you are perpetually adding items to that list just as fast as you can check them off!

(Insert infomercial voice) BUT WAIT!!! THERES MORE!!

You have a constant feeling of urgency and always have your day on “catch up” mode.  Its a good thing that you found this article.  You can take a deep breath now, its okay.  Here are some Productivity Hacks for Busy People.

Tame the Beast.

In the world of business, you are a warrior and email is the beast.  You can’t slay it, so you need to tame it to your will.  Have it be an ally to you instead of an enemy.  If your like most people, emails come flooding in at a frequency that you can barely fathom. 

Lets assume you spend at least 1 hour a day, 5 days a week on emails. If you were to cut your time spent on emails in half, that is 30 minutes a day that you have freed up to focus on the more important tasks.  Thats 2 & 1/2 hours a week to get that big project done.  Thats 1 ten hour day every month that you didn’t have before! Thats 12 days a year you can get back right now!

Step 1:
Edit your filters to get rid of more of the junk mail.  They already have reset settings, but you can narrow it down even more to ditch the emails from that restaurant you went to while on vacation in another country.

Step 2:
Only check emails once a day.  Yes! You heard me! People can wait till tomorrow to hear back from you! Think about it, if it was really urgent, they would have called you by phone.  By only checking emails once a day, you are doing something called “batching” which mathematically save you time to get the same amount done.

Step 3:
Don’t check email first thing in the morning. Wait till you have accomplished something else first before confronting the beast.  By giving your mind a chance “warm up” you’ll be able to answer emails more quickly, and you’ll have a sense of accomplishment by already completing another task.

Multitasker VS Focuser

Not everyone is a multitasker. We have all heard about the glorious skill of being able to multitask.  If you truly want to be more productive, you need to find out which kind of person you are: one who can multitask, or one who needs to focus on one task at a time.

Why?

Everyone is different. Have you ever hear the expression “too many irons in the fire”?  For some people, when you divide your time to accomplishing several different tasks, you divide your energy as well and as a result the collective time it takes to get the same amount of tasks done increases.

Don’t believe me?  Try it out! 🙂

On a day when you have the typical tasks to give the done checkmark to, multitask that day and time yourself how long it takes.  On another day when you have a similar list, spend your day focusing on one task at a time and time that day too.  Which day was more productive?

Thanks for reading! I hope these Productivity Hacks help you get some Carpe Diem back into your life!  If you liked this article and want to see more, comment what topic you would like me to cover!