If you run a Google search for the term “productivity tips” you’ll find everything from “become an early riser” to exercise and get enough sleep, and from develop a method for overcoming procrastination to create a system for tackling every paper that comes across your desk. From the plethora of productivity tips out there, I’ve chosen the following three to write about today since adopting these three tips will help move you quickly along the road to becoming awesomely productive.
Productivity Tip One: Create Your Own Planner
We all differ on the degree to which we want or need to structure our lives, ranging from those who plan their day in fifteen minute increments, to those who simply write down on an index card the three most important things they will get done the next day.
In addition, there are methods that emphasize a top-down approach, most notably Stephen Covey’s method, while others emphasize a bottom-up approach as, for example, the method set forth in the book “Getting Things Done”. There’s nothing wrong with mixing and matching elements from each of these methods in order to create a personalized method that works well for you.
This leads us to the conclusion that you’re the best person to create a daily planner for yourself. So purchase a binder or a notebook and begin finding or creating templates in order to create your very own daily planner. You can find lots of great, free templates at diyplanner.com. In addition, there’s an interesting squidoo lens on creating DIY Planners here.
Here are some more free templates to get you started:
- Exercise Tracker and Diet Tracker
- A Wants List
- Weekly Master Task List
- Monthly Master Task List
- Important Numbers, Goal Planning Sheets, Priority Matrix, Auto-Maintenance Log
- A Daily Planner
- Another Daily Planner
- Divide Your Day Into Fifteen Minute Increments
- Project Tracker
- Contact Form
- Fly Lady Kit
- Seinfeld Creativity Calendar
- Activity Log
- Simple Mom’s Daily Docket
- Ann at One Bag Nation’s Daily Planner
Productivity Tip Two: Master the Art of Saying “No”
Learning to say “no” to others is one of the best things you can do to reclaim your time as your own and to redirect your energy toward the achievement of your goals instead of simply furthering somebody else’s agenda. In addition, saying “no” will help you reduce the stress created when you over-commit yourself and stretch yourself too thin. Here are several tips to help you master the art of saying “no”:
- Ask lots of questions before committing yourself. Make sure that you know exactly what you’re committing yourself to and how much time you’re agreeing to devote to the activity.
- Is the activity in line with your goals? Will it further one of your goals?
- Look at your schedule and determine where you’re going to fit in the time to devote to this new activity. If your schedule is full, are you willing to postpone or cancel some other activity in order to fulfill the new activity you’re being asked to commit to? If the answer is “no” then you can’t commit to this new activity because you don’t have the time.
- Make sure that your schedule includes “me” time, time with your children, time for exercise, and other things that are important but not urgent. That way you won’t be substituting time spent on things that are important to you on the needs and wants of others.
- If you can’t do something or you simply don’t want to, then just say so. Do not leave others under the false impression that there’s the possibility that you might accede to their wishes by giving a wishy-washy response.
- Ask for a quid pro quo: “I can help you with this, but I’m going to need your help with this other task.”
- Put a condition on your help: “I can man the desk for one hour, but no longer than that.”
- If you’re willing to help and have the time, but you truly despise the task you’re being asked to do, say you’re not willing to perform that task and offer to help with something else instead.
- If you need a script telling you what to say in different situations where you want to say “no”, read the article “54 Ways to Get Out of Doing Anything You Don’t Want to Do”.
Productivity Tip Three: Act in the Way Most Conducive to Achieving Your Goals
In “Simpleology – The Simple Science of Getting What You Want”, Mark Joyner explains that if you want a drink of water there are many different things that you can do. You can set a glass of water in front of you and you can do any of the following:
- Plead with the water;
- Attempt to impress the water by reciting a list of all of your advanced degrees;
- Yell at the water and try to intimidate it;
- Pray to the Divinity of your choice and ask that you be given water;
- Formulate a detailed plan as to how you will get water;
- Take a seminar or complete an online course on how to get water;
- And so on.
Another alternative is to simply pick up the glass of water and drink from it. That is, take direct and purposeful action toward the achievement of your goal. You’ll notice that out of all of these methods the only one that created the outcome of putting water in your mouth so that you could drink it was the one that involved the simple action of picking up the glass and drinking from it.
Steve Pavlina illustrates this same point in his article “The Most Direct Solution to Any Problem”. In this article he advises that whenever you have a problem you should ask yourself: “What’s the clearest, most direct path to my goal or the most efficient way to get around an obstacle?” He explains that the direct solution to a problem will often require courage, self-discipline, creativity, or persistence to implement, so people have a tendency to avoid the direct route and, instead, create a circuitous path toward their goals in order to compensate for laziness or timidity.
As an example, if you want to lose weight you need to increase the amount of exercise that you do or decrease your caloric intake. However, these options require discipline and persistence, so most people won’t follow through. In addition, if you’re interested in starting a relationship with someone, the most direct route is to simply walk up to them and find out if they’re interested. This solution requires a lot of courage to overcome the possibility of rejection, but it’s very simple and straightforward.
As a last example, Steve refers to the popular New Age exercise of intending to manifest a blue feather. Instead of passively waiting for the Universe to bring you a blue feather, why not simply get up and do a Google image search for “blue feather”? It’s easy, fast, and creates the result you’re looking for.
(“Blue Feather”; courtesy of inge helene)
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