4 Simple Productivity Habits
If you often find yourself wishing you could get more done, you’re not alone. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. How do some people manage to get so much done? They adopt simple productivity habits to keep them on track and moving forward.
Whether you want to do more in the same amount of time, need more motivation for getting stuff done, or are looking to reduce the amount of time you waste in a day, these simple productivity habits can help you improve your time management so that you can get more done each day.
Habit #1: Keep Your Desk Decluttered
While creativity can arise from chaos, a litter-strewn office probably isn’t helping your productivity.
When you have visible files lying about your office, it reminds you of an unfinished task, while an unread book is an invitation to procrastination. Piles of papers may kill your motivation if you know they need to be dealt with at some point.
According to researchers, keeping your desk organized and free of clutter can help you stick with a task for more than one and a half times longer.
Habit #2: Schedule Time to Read Email
Instead of checking your email every time a new one arrives in your inbox, schedule times at the beginning and end of the day to focus on this task.
Monitoring and responding to emails right away is not only a great way to waste your precious time, but it has also been linked to lower memory function, depression, anxiety, and lower performance. Set up an auto-responder that lets people know that you check emails at the specific times you set aside and that you’ll respond during those times. You can include options for if something is truly an emergency, such as sending you a text message.
When you do check email, implementing a triage system might make the process simpler. For example, your morning email time might be when you deal with any fires that have come in over night as well as the emails that will take you less than 3 minutes to respond to. Then, all other emails can be saved for your afternoon session.
If you find that checking email often sends you down a rabbit hole and you end up spending way more time than you intended, set yourself a timer and close your inbox as soon as it goes off.
Habit #3: Rise Early
If you want to improve your productivity, then you need to get up early. Many of the most successful people swear by an early wake up time and consider it part of the reason why they’re so successful. For example, Tim Cook rises before 4:00 am each day while Richard Branson sleeps in a bit, waking at 5:00 am.
When you get up early, you have the opportunity to establish a good morning routine that will help you improve your productivity. Rising early allows you to have the time in the morning to prepare for the day ahead without being late or rushing to get to work.
An early morning gives you time for yourself that you might otherwise lose throughout the day. Focus on your health, eat a healthy breakfast, get your mind in the right place for the day, write out your to-dos… the list of things you can accomplish in the few hours before you actually begin your work day is long! Take advantage of that time to give you a leg up.
Habit #4: Focus on What’s Important
Take five minutes in the morning and read over your goals and remind yourself what you’re working toward. And then repeat the process each evening by reviewing how your day went.
Not only will this help you to focus on what’s important, but it will also give you a gauge to measure your to-do-list so that you can examine it with a renewed focus to make sure that you have at least one daily action that works toward your broader goals.
The Success Wizard app has a built in Morning Routine and Evening Routine section to help you do just that. Make sure you leverage this feature so that you can enjoy the impact it will have on your productivity.
Increasing your productivity doesn’t take a lot of extra work or more extended hours. By incorporating these simple productivity habits into your daily routine, you can start to get more done in less time.
