Increasing Productivity
Hi everyone,
I hope all is well in your section of the world, despite our current pandemic happening.
So what’s the difference between being busy and productive?
Everyone can keep themselves busy, but during the hustle and bustle of being busy are you also being productive at the same time? The two are different busy can mean anything you are doing to occupy your time: watching TV all day keeps you busy but in general, it does nothing for your productivity.
The same goes for walking your dog keeps you busy but if not multitasked with something else it's not very productive for your business. Fortunately, these bad habits of keeping busy and not being productive can be changed quite easily.
Today I wanted to discuss productivity with you and am wondering just how many of you think you’re being productive on a daily basis but in reality, is just wishful thinking while wasting your precious time away.
Many individuals are learning how to become more productive in their daily routines which in turn are increasing their website’s potential of becoming more profitable along with gaining more insight to efficiently spend their time.
If you were given the opportunity to increase your productivity by 100% in just one single day, would you jump on the chance? Most of us would without any hesitation.
What if I were able to tell you one single thing that most of us do not currently do, but it could drastically increase your daily productivity.
Would you do it?
And if so, for how long?
Daily habits are a great thing if they don’t waste your time. For example how many times do you look at your emails during the typical day at home working and plugging away on your websites? Once? Twice? Or maybe even ten times a day!
EMAILAHOLIC BEWARE
According to a recent study of over 200 billionaires, millionaires, Olympic athletes, and famous sports stars - Productive people check their emails just twice daily: once in the morning and once prior to ending the day. The reason is checking emails if not scheduled into your daily routine can become very time consuming.
Furthermore, when scheduled or planned into the daily routine they tend to be quickly assessed or read for importance then either saved or deleted at a much more efficient rate in turn, taking less overall time during the day to deal with, as a whole.
How many of you own a tablet or a smartphone?
Most productive people own both and use them throughout the day to take notes and jot down ideas as they think of them. You may be wondering how exactly this improves their productivity.
Well, I hope you at least thought about that question!
Why?
Because they only think about the idea once then jot it down on either their tablet, if it is a more detailed idea; but if it’s a simple idea, they record a quick message about the idea on their smartphone. That way they will not be wasting time thinking about the idea all day. They know they have the idea stored safely away and can now concentrate on other problems or ideas: being much more productive on a daily basis.
The average person originally thinks of an idea and then continues to think about it off and on throughout the entire day wasting more time thinking about the same idea than if they acted on it immediately or implemented the idea right then and there.
Productive people jot it down or store it electronically somehow so that it frees up their thoughts for other ideas, thusly reducing the time spent thinking about a single idea versus thinking up many ideas within the same time frame. Then at the end of the day or week, they spend an allotted scheduled amount of time reflecting on all the ideas.
TIME MANAGEMENT
Yet another great concept that productive people do, is extreme time management. Most business leaders that I know use time management skills, but often only break their time down into 15 minutes increments and this may work great for some. However, productive people break their time down to the minute.
Moreover, they schedule every aspect of their lives within their daily calendar, not the 30-day view of their calendar but the minute-by-minute view and they schedule everything including and down to time spent on daily hygiene. To many, this may seem like a person suffering from an obsessive-compulsive personality or a control freak but in reality, it is an enormous means of getting a grasp on lost time throughout each day.
Remember we only have 1440 Minutes
in a day let’s not waste 100 of them trying to think of ways to better manage our time.
If you have a 20-minute drive to the grocery store; why not spend it listening to motivational or inspirational speeches. While sitting at the doctor’s office; why not read the latest article by Russell Bronson about his new and advanced sales funnels that are changing the way of doing digital marketing.
The above, are just two examples of how you can increase your productivity in a single day’s time (pun intended) :-) Many entrepreneurs can’t recognize when they are wasting their time or spending it efficiently.
"Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time." - Jim Rohn.
There ago, it’s not so much as learning how to manage our time better; but to determine if what we are doing is increasing our productivity and/or when we are performing tasks that are truly holding our productivity back and wasting our time.
By implementing extreme time management control of our minutes and not hours or other increments we can come to appreciate each minute we utilize toward our success. Eventually, after an assessment of our time management skills, we can eliminate time wasters from our daily schedules.
Try scheduling every minute of every day for one week and see if this works for you as well!
What do you think are the major time wasters for most entrepreneurs?
1. Day Dreaming
2. Fail to Plan or schedule daily tasks
3. Waiting on things to happen
4. To Available to others
5. Worrying or self-doubt
Let’s see how big of a list we can create!
Got more to add to this list?
There are plenty of time wasters that I intentionally left off so that others can contribute through efficient comments. So, please by all means leave a comment so that others can learn what is and is not contributing to their daily productivity.
The more answers that are listed through comments the more everyone learns how to become more productive in their daily routines!
Recent Comments
42
Hi Calvin. Thank you for sharing. While I was still working I found the following to be time wasters:
1. Telephone calls and colleagues coming in with “Do you have a minute? I need help with something.” And then taking about half an hour or more of my time.
To deal with the challenge I started coming to work at 6 in the morning instead of 9 like everyone else.
For three hours I would have no interruptions from colleagues or telephone calls because no one knew I was in. And my productivity increased.
2. Recently I found that answering my cell phone while I am working, was a time waster.
I have now put my cell phone on silent, permanently. So I can easily ignore a call, (unless I am expecting it), as the cell phone only vibrates.
Thokozile
Hi Thokozile,
Yes, one of the many distractions is being to available to others.
I know there was a time that if I would allow it I to would have spent the entire day talking to my boss on my cell phone.
It got to a point where I told him if he wanted me to do any work he had to quit calling me all the time. I explained to him that if he was that worried about what was going on on the job site maybe he should come and visit it every once in a while.
Needless to say, the calls stopped that day and he got the message very clearly! LOL
Thanks for stopping by and participating in the discussion thread to my blog it is greatly appreciated!
Calvin
Thank you for this post Calvin.
I use my phone for ideas. They become handy when working on a blog.
I also check email in the morning and sometimes at night but usually morning after breakfast. I only read a few, I have about over 5,000 emails. I try to go over them when I have time to delete as much as I can.
I use social media to post newly released blogs. I divide my time between my website, gardening, capsuling, and my pugs. I usually find myself spending hours on my website through early morning hours on some days. Not everyday though.
Cheers,
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn,
I think it would be wise if you try to schedule your day in a minute by minute format.
You will find your gardening hours could also be utilized to listen to inspirational, motivational, or even instructional Kindle books read to you not you having to read them yourself. This simple multitasking would free your hands to do your gardening choirs or even while walking your pugs.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment it is greatly appreciated,
Calvin
Great Idea, Calvin. I will try using kindle when gardening. Never thought about it.
Thank you and cheers!
Evelyn
Me, personally I have eliminated social media completely. I use it only and only for posting my website articles, on business ones. I have decided to check my email twice a day only instead of 10 times. I guess I have found my time ''sucks''.
Thank you for sharing these great points.
Meena
Hi Meena,
I think it is better to realize where you are wasting time now and correct it: so that in the future you have more time to be productive.
Thanks for your comment it is greatly appreciated,
Calvin
An excellent list for increasing productivity Calvin.
I can attest to the use of smart phones as a way to increasing productivity, I currently run two and also use a mini key board, which is linked to a phone via Bluetooth. I call it my office on the go.
I can be productive where ever its like adding some extra hours into the day, by utilzing down time effectively.
I think one of the best boosts is in realizing that we need to become more productive, we maybe sleeping our competition is not.
Conquering the fear of missing out, FOMO, can be another boost, concentrate on your own game and not on chasing someone else's tail.
When it comes to social media, as a marketer you are still in civvie Street if you approach without a plan linked to definable goals. Some rightly say SM is the ultimate productivity killer.
Just anothet thought learn to manage the people around you, in that endeavor, NO can become your best friend.
Following your post Calvin thanks for sharing.
Alex
Hi Alex,
Thanks for taking the time and giving such a detailed comment it is greatly appreciated.
Funny thing with the study they found out that most of the productive people scheduled in a complete 8 hours (or 480 minutes) for sleep, along with time for exercising, meditation or prayer, and at least (4) 15 minute breaks to just sit back and relax; to help relieve any stress that had accumulated over the past few hours.
Yes, I agree that if you are using Social Media Platforms, to promote your business, most need to be strict on their scheduled minutes there, because it is so easy to get sidetracked on any of them.
Thanks again for commenting,
Calvin
Yes indeed, Calvin, I really enjoy posts like this and the interaction and ideas that fellow members bring to the conversation.
Thank you.
Alex
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Wow this is some very valuable information! I have been guilty of staying busy without being productive and its hard to see how much time you are wasting when it feels like you were doing things "that had to be done". But did they have to be done? Maybe outsourcing the yardwork so you can work on your website is a better use of that time and money well spent!