Be A Pro At Productivity

How good are you at staying on track and finishing tasks?

Well if you’re anything like me then you get easily distracted, overwhelmed and underestimate how long something will take to complete. This is a challenge I’ve been dealing with for a while now. When you are self employed task management and productivity is vital to staying on track and getting paid for completing the work. Let me take you through some tips I implement to try and keep things running smoothly.

Realistic Targets

The first mistake we tend to make when managing our time and productivity is putting too much on our schedule. By overloading our calendar with work we’re setting ourselves up for failure. Having realistic daily, weekly and monthly targets will help us to stay on track and get through that to‑do list.

How do you know what’s a realistic target?

Well, this is trial and error plus each individual works at a different pace. Therefore it’s not always helpful to compare your productivity to your friends, as you’ll probably have different ways of working and different levels of responsibilities and commitments which could impact how much time you can put towards your work.

I would start by setting smaller targets for yourself, daily, weekly and finally monthly. Once you begin to consistently meeting these goals, they might start to feel ‘easy’ to reach. You could try expanding your to‑do list to tick off more tasks.

If you begin to feel overwhelmed and can feel yourself falling behind your schedule that’s a good indicator that you’re pilling too much work on yourself.

Schedule Rest

Obviously we know that to be productive we need to be doing the work. However the fastest way to stunt your productivity is to not take a rest.

As someone who suffers from anxiety on a daily basis, I struggle to ‘turn off’ from work. My mind is constantly obsessing over the next project, something going wrong, something going well, the work I didn’t have time to do this week. Winding down and shutting work out is pretty much terrifying. You think that by taking a couple of days off your work will fall apart and make your anxiety worse.

I’m here to tell you that it’s not true.

You need to take regular rests and breaks in order to not only function properly as a human being, regulate your mental health and well‑being, but to perform at your best when you do return to the work.

I am still learning to be kinder to myself and schedule rest periods into my daily routine, not just on a weekend, so that I’m more present and alert on a day to day basis.

Get yourself organised.

How can you be productive if you don’t even know where to start?

If you’ve got a to‑do list longer than your arm you’ll be jumping around from task to task desperately trying to get everything done. This is where you need to be organised and have a plan of action. Every event, exhibition, workshop, deadline is colour coded in my google calendar. I know what I need to get done and by when.

I have a general overview of what my month looks like, which is likely to shift and change. At the beginning of each week I check if I have any important dates coming up. I break down what I need to get done each day of that week and create a small to‑do list of around 5 tasks each morning in my ‘To‑Do’ app.

If your goal is to do this full time, the sooner you can get your schedules organised, the easier it’ll be to juggle everything. I recommend using digital calendars as it gives you the opportunity to colour code, group events, make changes, set alarms, add tasks and share your schedule.

Doing this will not only help you be more productive. It will also help you get more work as you have a clear picture of when you have time to book new clients in.

You’re not gonna always be productive. That’s okay.

If you watched my stories the day before this guide is released you’ll know that I’m actually a day late to put this out. The reason I’m exposing myself is to share with you the reality that you’re not going to be high functioning all the time.

Even when you have a routine of completing a task every week there’s some days where you’re not firing on all cylinders.

Firstly you need to differentiate between procrastination and lack of energy. Sometimes work can feel tricky because we’re procrastinating and getting distracted. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have the energy to get the task done. For me it’s usually because there’s a deeper reason as to why I’m putting the work off. Typically it’s because I feel anxious that it’s not going to be ‘good enough’. In those cases I find what works best by diving into the work in 20 minute intervals. By setting a small timer it makes it feel less daunting and can trick your brain into moving past procrastination. At around 15 minutes you’ll find that you get into a flow and then can continue working past the initial 20 minute timer.

Secondly, if it’s the later, you lack energy, you need to take a break. Yesterday I tried to push myself to get this guide written. It was happening but super slow and the writing that I was producing was subpar to my other guides.

You might think you’re getting work done by ‘pushing through’. But it’s actually more beneficial to take time away as when you return it will be better quality and you’ll get it done faster.