Productivity Tips

We could all be more productive. Between the daily deluge of digital distractions and our own bad habits and human fallibility, there is probably room for improvement somewhere. With endless articles online offering productivity advice, how to separate the wheat from the chaff? We brought some method to the madness. We scoured hundreds of articles online and found the top 100 most frequently cited tips. We then ranked them. The result? The definitive top 100 productivity hacks. Which ones work for you?

1. Timeboxing: It will enhance your life. At its foundation, it's simple: designate a specific amount of time to a task, plan it, and stick to it. It works because it addresses so many areas of behavior, including single-tasking and attention to achieve more and feel less stressed, prioritizing work to meet deadlines, frequent feelings of accomplishment, and being transparent so others can see what you're doing and help. The tough part is breaking down the jobs and predicting how long they will take, but this skill improves quickly with experience. Time-boxing into a common calendar and factoring in commuting, meetings, and other responsibilities are critical to success.
2. Prioritize: The modern worker has a thousand tasks to complete at any given time. Prioritize these ruthlessly and deliberately. Otherwise, you will continually provide less value at work. Determine how to prevent being distracted by jobs that rise to the top of the queue, such as email and alarms (see below). You also need a strategy for ranking jobs; a simple one will suffice and is always preferable than none. So make a list of your tasks and, whether it's a score out of ten or color coding, complete and stick to them.
3. Say No: Stop trying to please everybody! We understand that it is much easier said than done, but overloading yourself with work not only puts you at risk of not being able to complete projects and meet deadlines, but it also lowers the quality of your work overall. Sometimes it's best to respectfully decline so you can focus on the most vital tasks. If you do it correctly, your colleagues will understand and respect you for it.
4. Move: Moving has several benefits for you. It circulates circulation throughout your body, breaks you out of your daydream, and stimulates creative ideas. It's beneficial for you and the ideal complement to our desk-bound lifestyles. Consider using a wearable that informs you when you've been sedentary for too long. Take a walk for that call or meeting.
5. Control Your Devices: Don’t let them control you. We check our phones between 150-221 times a day, depending on which study you’re reading. Even having your phone in sight, without touching it, has been shown to reduce performance in tests, according to a study at the University of Southern Maine. Clear your desk of distracting devices and see how much more you get done, with fewer distractions.
6. Take Short Breaks: Studies have indicated that including regular, short breaks into the workday improves focus and productivity. The Pomodoro Technique, named after Francesco Cirillo's tomato-shaped timer, is a popular way to put this into practice. You utilize the timer to divide your work into short chunks, usually 25 minutes, with regular micro-breaks of roughly 5 minutes. Experiment with different timings to see what works best for you.
7. To-Do List: They are fundamental. They are not a complete solution to time management (time-boxing extends the concept), but they are necessary. Consider a normal day: we dash from meeting to email to work conversation to conference call, completing innumerable duties in the process. We need to keep track of these things and make sure we complete them when we get a moment of peace. For many people, the next step is to prioritize and then schedule them. To-do lists, however, are where it all begins.
8. Eat Well: Putting on a lot of sugar and salt will not keep you going for hours on end and will almost probably cause you to collapse. Because exercising self-control causes your brain to burn more glucose, this is especially detrimental to productivity. Consuming foods that release energy gradually improves both your productivity and well-being. Consider eating natural, unprocessed foods and a balanced lunch of fat, carbs, protein, and vegetables.
9. Two Minute Rule: If a task can be completed in less than two minutes, just do it without thinking about it, discussing it, or writing it down. Instead, put it into a system and move on. Naturally, the job that is more essential and significant to you at that particular moment will prevail. However, generally speaking, we tend to put things off or feel overburdened when it would be better to just start working on a few little projects, gain some momentum, tidy up the mess, and regain some control. When combined with shorter activities, this tends to be more productive and works particularly well for full inboxes.
10. Control Social Media: Taking a sneak peek at what your friends are up to on Facebook during the working day is common. But social media can be a toxic distraction. One click of a photo can quickly escalate to 20 and unthinkingly uploading content can get you into trouble. Take control, don’t let social media control you. Schedule “social media time” into your calendar for 5 minutes twice a day. By setting aside time to check social media, you can limit its impact on your day.
11. Check Mails Sometimes: Our brains receive a dopamine surge each time we receive a ping signaling the arrival of a new email, comment, or other notice. The neurotransmitter dopamine is linked to sensations of pleasure and reward and has the potential to become addictive. This explains why it's so simple to give in to the temptation of continuously checking your email; every new message, no matter how uninteresting, releases dopamine, which reduces productivity. To combat this, set aside specific periods to check your emails and devote other times to working on your greatest projects.
12. Organise Your Workspace: Spending several minutes digging through the clutter on your desk in an attempt to locate a paper is a waste of time. Maintaining a tidy workspace will make you more efficient, peaceful, and emanate a sense of control. A self-imposed clean desk policy is an excellent place to begin.
13. Start Earlier: Though simple and effective, it's not easy. Prominent individuals, such as Michelle Obama and Richard Branson, frequently have early riser status. Getting up early gives you a distinct advantage over most others in the day, whether it's for the purpose of fitting in a morning workout or gaining an additional hour of uninterrupted work.
14. Breathe: It's understandable that today's workforce is more stressed than ever given our growing workloads, diverse tasks, coworkers in different time zones, and constantly pinging devices. We require easy methods for unwinding. The easiest is to breathe. Try focusing on your breath and slowing it down a little if you feel like your mind is racing with too many thoughts and spinning uncontrollably. You may be able to break free from the pattern of automatic negative reactions and the accompanying physiological reactions in as little as 90 seconds. Even better, schedule 10 to 15 minutes each day for meditation. Among many other benefits, meditation makes our thoughts happier, more beneficial, and more productive in addition to helping us better manage our mental ramblings.
15. Turn Off Alerts: Alerts, alerts. They have your attention, so to speak. This implies that they divert your focus from whatever you were working on. If the alarm is truly critical and urgent, then that's acceptable. But most of the time, it's not for most of us. The work we were doing is of greater significance. Put alerts on mute, pause, and airplane mode. This pertains to everything: email, Whatsapp, Slack, Skype, internal messaging services—it's about taking back control over where your attention is directed. Muting notifications quickly and efficiently can be accomplished by going full-screen (F11 on a PC or ^ + ⌘ + F on a Mac). Changing your status to "Do not disturb" on all of your communication platforms is an additional method.
16. Shorter Meetings: The idea of the "hour" was first proposed by the Babylonians, though it's unlikely that they had modern business meetings in mind when they developed it. The wonderful thing about using one hour as a universal time allocation for meetings is that it's a round number. According to Parkinson's Law, "work expands to fill the time available for its completion," thus even if we might not accomplish as much as we would have if we had given each meeting an hour, it will still take that amount of time. Therefore, the recommendation is to either adapt the duration of the meeting based on the agenda (60 minutes is, of course, sometimes appropriate!) or to consistently use a lesser time, such as 30 or 45 minutes. This forces everyone to get the most out of the time you have.
17. Site Blockers: Why spend valuable energy training self-control when you can just eliminate all temptation? There are various tools available to limit access to your most irritating websites for fixed periods of time, for all operating systems and browsers. Install and activate these while working to relieve yourself of the stress of decision.
18. Productivity Tools: While technology may be responsible for the majority of our distractions, it may also be used to increase productivity. There are numerous apps, tools, and programs available that can make your life easier and more efficient, such as syncing your social network postings or lowering the blue light from your screen at night to improve sleep quality. Invest some time in mastering a chosen few tasks, and you'll see an increase in productivity.
19. Plan Ahead: It sounds like a no-brainer. We all understand that adequate planning allows us to make better use of our time. So, plan beforehand. At the start of each week, identify the non-negotiables (meetings, deadlines, etc.) and then plan the other chores around them. By developing a plan of daily activities, you will be more likely to complete each task and less likely to postpone.
20. Single Tasking: Do one thing at a time. Do not multitask. This is quite difficult. Even if you minimise distractions from electronics and technology, your dear colleagues may approach you. Even if you can distance yourself from them, your mind will continue to race! You're drafting a report, but your brain keeps reminding you of the assignment your boss assigned you before lunch, which has inspired a chain of thoughts about your previous review...aah!!! It occurs to all of us, so don't be too hard on yourself when you become distracted. Just make sure you know exactly what activity you're supposed to be doing (e.g., write it down somewhere) so you can get back to it as soon as possible after being distracted.
21. Listen To Music: According to research, persons who listen to music complete their activities faster and generate more good ideas than those who do not listen to music. Pop music, on the other hand, interferes with information processing and reading comprehension, so be cautious about what you listen to while working, and save the top 40 chart bangers for non-working hours. Instead, try listening to white noise or ambient sounds, which have been shown to improve attention. There are other sound generators available; try Noisli, which is an excellent free background noise generator for both productivity and leisure. Great for blocking out a noisy environment.
22. Write It Down: When you are handed a duty, it looms in your face: large, significant, and memorable. However, it is commonly forgotten. Oops! We have all been there. So write it down, make it memorable (hand-drawn images, no matter how absurd, are useful), and highlight chores so that when you return to your notes, you know what you still need to complete. This might be in task management software, a Google Doc, Word, Notepad, or a physical notepad. The crucial thing is that you have a written record somewhere.
23. Break Tasks Down: Start with writing down the first thing you need to do, however basic. You’re much more likely to get started on a task (i.e. not procrastinate), especially on something big, when you see the small, manageable steps required to complete it. This will also help you avoid overwhelm and maintain momentum, and ultimately execute in a big way
24. 80/20 Rule: This concept, also known as the Pareto Principle, argues that in all sectors, activities, and situations, 80% of results originate from 20% of causes. For example, 80% of sales come from 20% of clients, and 80% of software issues are caused by 20% of defects. When it comes to your job, focus on the 20% of tasks and actions that provide 80% of your outcomes, and you'll have increased your effectiveness with less effort while reducing time spent on low-yield activities.
25. Be True To Yourself: Follow the ageless admonition engraved on the temple of the Greek Delphic oracle: know oneself. Determine your most and least productive times of day, and plan appropriately. Know your main distractions (Facebook? Compulsive email checking? Chocolate buttons?) and manage them appropriately. Determine your ideal working environment and strive to achieve it whenever feasible. Knowledge is power, and the more we know about ourselves, the simpler it is to create settings conducive to optimum productivity and success. Know your own mood. If you're in the mood to write, go with it; you could write twice or three times as rapidly.
26. Avoid Visual Distractions: When you need to do deep work, the most common distraction is visual. So conceal your phone, turn off pop-up notifications, and put on some headphones to let coworkers know you're in your own zone. If there is anything else in your range of view that may draw your attention (such as a clock or a constant news program on a large display), remove it or adjust yourself so it does not irritate you.
27. Sleep: We are all aware that sleep is sacred, necessary for the normal operation of all physical functions. Sleep deprivation increases stress hormones and impairs your capacity to concentrate, control impulses, emotionally regulate, retain information, and do pretty much everything else required for productivity and human functioning. Get a good night's sleep every night to benefit both your health and your productivity.
28. Run Meetings Well: Meetings, sometimes known as time-consuming, sleep-inducing group torture sessions, are typically conducted poorly. It's a no-win situation that wastes everyone's time. Meetings, on the other hand, can be a useful tool for team motivation, morale, and, yes, productivity. Set a clear agenda for the meeting, and at the end, establish goals with specific assignments so that everyone knows what they need to complete by the next meeting. You can also prohibit the use of electronic devices, distribute vital information ahead of time, be more discriminating about participants, and be strict about timekeeping.
29. Batch Similar Tasks: Jumping from one different activity to the next is inefficient and consumes valuable brain juice as your mind scrambles to absorb each new work that is thrown at it. Minimize this by grouping comparable jobs together so that your brain can more readily focus on something specific and has less adjusting to do as you move from one item to another.
30. Fewer Meetings: While meetings are unavoidable, they are a major source of productivity loss. Reduce this by simply having fewer. This will free up time on your calendar for productive work while forcing the meetings you do hold to be more focused and efficient.
31. Focus On Outcomes: This is a simple mind hack you may use on yourself to laser-focus your efforts and stay motivated when things become tough. Consider the ultimate aim of what you are attempting to do, rather than the "how" and all of the jobs along the way. That way, you'll be clear about what you're actually striving for.
32. Effective Above Efficient: Before becoming efficient, prioritise effectiveness. Efficiency helps you to do a task fast and effectively, whereas effectiveness dictates what you do and how well you do it. It's pointless to be really efficient at an activity that is ineffective in terms of reaching your objectives. Decide what is effective first. And completing a quick-and-dirty version of the assignment, whether it be a draft, sketch, or prototype, will significantly improve the quality and efficacy of your final output. No one gets it completely correctly the first time.
33. Delegate: Only do the tasks that you can do, and delegate the rest if possible. Try outsourcing to people who have the necessary abilities and can complete the task faster and better than you. Trust your coworkers to complete tasks rather than micromanaging them. This will empower them while allowing you to focus on your strengths.
34. Ignore The News: Can you recall feeling more productive and motivated at work as a result of anything you saw in the news? News outlets profit mostly off negativity, which not only does not benefit you, but is more likely to lower your mood and impair your capacity to work. Save the time you would spend reading the news for productive work.
35. Change The Scenery: Being slumped over a keyboard in the same artificial lighting for hours on end, day after day, will do more harm than good to your productivity. If possible, go outside in nature for a rejuvenating break. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the benefits of spending time in nature. Even staring out the window can help you feel refreshed while also providing an essential rest for your eyes. Alternatively, merely staring at an image of a natural setting might have a relaxing impact and help you focus.
36. Long Breaks: While regular, brief breaks are vital for staying fresh and focused, don't forget to take a longer rest during the day, usually during lunchtime. A longer break allows you to properly decompress by going for a 30-minute stroll outside or a 20-minute nap, as well as sitting down and eating a real meal away from your desk. These are all necessary activities for overall health and well-being, which will have a beneficial impact on your work.
37. Time Yourself: There is nothing like a time limit to motivate you to get more done. Setting time limitations on your projects and then timing yourself while completing them will create a sense of urgency. Even if the deadline is purely self-imposed and no one else is aware of it, it will still serve as motivation. And shortcuts (worth learning for programs such as Excel, email, and so on) can save minutes every day, which adds up to entire days saved throughout a career.
38. Be Positive: There is a direct relationship between self-control and positivity. Consider this: are you more inclined to give in and eat a whole pack of cookies while wallowing in your feelings and procrastinating when you're feeling upbeat about life, or when you're down and in need of comfort? The more positive your mood, the easier it is to maintain self-control and focus on the job at hand. Do everything you need to do to be positive.
39. Follow Up After Meetings: Following a meeting, having a clear list of actions assigned to specific persons with established timeframes is critical to keeping things moving ahead. It is good having someone accountable for keeping track of and chasing these activities to ensure they are completed before the next meeting.
40. One Small Change: A thousand-mile trip begins with a single step. Even the greatest successes are made up of hundreds of modest actions. Small, progressive modifications to your routines give you a lot better chance of success than a sudden, massive change that shocks your system and demotivates you sooner. Looking to learn a new language? Learn only two new words per day. These little, painless modifications, which required little effort to begin, will accumulate over time, making increasing the load easier.
41. Flow: Getting into "flow" means entirely immersed in an activity: focused, in control, and creative. Read: productive. While we've all fallen into a flow state at random and emerged, blinking, an hour later, having completed a load of work, there are other strategies to stimulate this condition. Distractions are anathema to flow, so eliminate them first and foremost. Having certain rituals before beginning work can help, alongside ensuring you are invested in the work, and that the assignment is just demanding enough to stretch you without being too hard.
42. Drink Water: It moisturizes your body and energizes your intellect. It's so basic, but many of us fail to do it. Being well hydrated improves focus, energy, and sleep. Aim for eight mugs every day.
43. Limit Coffee: Caffeine is a potent stimulant that, when used appropriately, may dramatically increase our energy and productivity. However, if you get overly reliant, it will be as harmful as any addiction, albeit with a lesser consequence. Dose carefully between 09:30-11:30 AM and 1:30-5:00 PM, when your body's cortisol levels are lowest and you would benefit the most from an increase.
44. Make A Public Commitment: Simply notifying someone else about a task increases your chances of completing it. Once made public, a mix of pride, humiliation, and a sense of obligation will keep you on track to complete a commitment that is more than just a promise you made to yourself.
45. Acknowledge Your Success: While it's necessary to keep looking forward and working toward your objectives, it's also important to take a minute to appreciate what you've already accomplished. Give yourself a small pat on the back. Recognizing the results of your work will keep you motivated, ensuring that you continue to attain your goals.
46. Don't Reread Emails: Implementing a tight "one-time only" read policy in your emails will ensure that you read with greater care and attention, retaining the information better than if you skim read and then forget. You'll be less likely to forget essential communications, and you'll save time by not having to reread emails or scan through your inbox.
47. Help Others In Meetings: Meetings can easily be hijacked by the biggest and loudest people in the room, but showy does not always equate to great. Do your bit to encourage all participants to participate to the discourse, and you may discover treasure that benefits everyone.
48. Be On Time: Start at the beginning. Be on time. According to a recent research by Bain & Company, a meeting that begins five minutes late is eight percent less productive. When given a specific time restriction to attain goals, people are more likely to work harder to achieve them. Be clear on how much time you need to commute to your meeting, and be conservative in your calculations - add an extra 15 minutes for delays.
49. Kill Your Darlings: We all develop irrational attachments to specific ideas or methods of doing things, either because we are accustomed to them, because we invented the notion ourselves, or just because we enjoy them. However, if the preferred method is not particularly effective, this can come at the expense of true productivity and progress. Learn to examine things more objectively in terms of their genuine effectiveness, and let go of what isn't serving your greater purpose, no matter how painful that may be.
50. Work From Home: Working from home, while not for everyone, has been shown to greatly increase productivity for some. There could be a variety of causes for this, but it's most likely due to the refreshing effect of changing landscape from time to time. This, combined with avoiding a stressful and exhausting commute, eliminating typical office distractions (noisy phone conversations, colleagues chit-chatting over your desk, etc.), and eliminating decisions like what to wear to work or where to eat lunch, contributes to more focus available for getting good work done.
51. Productive Procrastination: Nobody is perfect. We all procrastinate occasionally. However, you may improve your procrastination time to make it even more fruitful. While procrastinating, complete non-work-related chores such as running errands, reading, or listening to a podcast to keep your mind developing and expanding. That way, instead of feeling terrible and unclean, as you might if you spent the same time looking on social media, you might come out of your procrastination time feeling more knowledgable or organised.
52. Prime Time: Most people are most alert and productive in the first few hours after waking up, usually between 9 and 11 AM. You probably already know when your biological peak time is. Take advantage of this by scheduling your most important tasks at times when you are at your peak performance.
53. Find Time: Some of the most innovative ideas come to us in the space between doing tasks. It’s difficult for inspiration to hit when your mind is completely absorbed in something else. Taking time out for yourself, even just for downtime doing nothing, is essential for idea generation. Schedule it in, so that that time is protected.
54. Be Realistic: Productivity is harmed by perfectionism. We should choose goals that challenge us while remaining within the bounds of possible. Too high of goals will demotivate us since we won't actually think we can reach them (reasonably), which will impede our advancement. Realistic goal-setting, on the other hand, will encourage us to work toward them and let us celebrate when we reach them.
55. Set Clear Goals: Make sure your goals are as clear as possible. Setting vague goals deprives you of the focus required to attain them. Consult yourself. Consider why you want to reach your goal. If your motivation is not strong, you are unlikely to remain with it. Also, decide how you will achieve it. Finally, consider the repercussions of not attaining your goals. These should be written down and reviewed on a regular basis.
56. Just Start: Do not sit around waiting for good things to happen to you! Starting a task might be the most difficult aspect, and we often waste time procrastinating and fretting about what might go wrong. We often don't want to get started. The key to getting started is to divide your enormous, overwhelming projects into little, achievable portions and then begin to work on the first one.
57. Devices In Meetings: We are all aware of how distracting our technological devices can be at the best of times. Their allure can be amplified during a snooze-worthy meeting, decreasing concentration and participation and distracting whoever is speaking. Prevent this by imposing a ban on all gadgets during meetings.
58. Break Bad Habits: The vast majority of things that keep us from being productive are just a result of bad habits. We open Facebook and the next thing we know, half an hour has passed. We forget to eat properly again, so we feel sluggish throughout the day. We don't plan our tasks, therefore we feel lost and overwhelmed. Make an effort to break your poor habits, and you'll reap the long-term rewards of increased productivity and a better quality of life in general.
59. Love Your Job: When you enjoy what you do, you are happier, more productive, more efficient. It may be difficult at times to like your career and its obstacles, but maintaining a good attitude will assist. Use your initiative to identify the aspects of your career that you enjoy doing and expand those responsibilities.
60. Show Compassion: When you feel helpless, help someone else. By doing so, you not only make the world a better place, but you also empower yourself and reinforce your (perhaps weakened) self-belief.
61. Focus On The Present: Dwelling on the past never helped anyone become more productive. Mindfulness, or the concept of being present in the moment, has helped numerous people in various aspects of their lives, and you can use it at work to stay on track. Focusing on the present can also help with anxiety, which is mostly a dread of a poor future outcome.
62. Systemise: Set up a fail-proof method to ensure speedier, error-free results. Automation is the name of the game. It might be as simple as turning on spell checks, spreadsheet checks, or automated email forwarding. Anything that reduces the work and decision-making required for tiny, everyday actions will pay off handsomely in the long run.
63. Start And End On Time: Start and end on time, no exceptions. Simple rules yield enormous outcomes. Simply knowing that there is no flexibility on this will alter everyone's behavior, allowing for optimal efficiency in the time allotted.
64. Get Ergonomic: It's really excruciating to have an actual ache in one's neck. Your physical comfort, ability to work efficiently, and general health will all suffer if you spend hours each day in an uncomfortable chair or using underutilized equipment. Among the many modern office innovations are standing desks and more ergonomic equipment. For the good of all, it is worthwhile to invest in some of these, or to have your organization invest in some of them.
65. Use Your Commute: Ah, the commute. The misery of all office workers' existence. This is practically dead time, but you can use it to perform additional tasks. Instead of staring aimlessly into someone's armpit on the crowded train, take this opportunity to learn, read, work, or meditate. If you have a half-hour commute, you have an hour per day to do any of the activities listed above.
66. Unplug: It is far too easy to become engrossed in checking work emails at home, or even on the way home on your phone. Unplugging is difficult in this age of continual connectedness since there is pressure to be productive at all times. Ironically, unplugging is necessary for maximum productivity. When you're not at work, make an attempt to completely unplug and devote your time to family, loved ones, and leisure activities. This is the only way to ensure that you return to work refreshed and ready to tackle anything.
67. Meeting Roles: Assign distinct duties to participants in your meetings, such as timekeeper, notetaker, and chair, to ensure that they are productive rather than passive. Active participation will keep attendees engaged and maximize group production.
68. Balance To Do List: If it's not scheduled, it won't get done. To-do lists are useful because they define what needs to be done, but they might make us feel like we're doing something productive when we're actually procrastinating. Worse, when we fail to complete all of the tasks on our list, we may feel frustrated and inept. Instead, schedule things that need to be completed, forcing you to be realistic about how long each item will take and providing you with a structure in which to do them.
69. 10,000 Hours: Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that mastering a skill requires 10,000 hours of dedicated practice. Following this idea should allow you to eliminate activities that you are unwilling to dedicate so much time to. Do you want to learn how to play the banjo? Willing to practice for 10,000 hours before you get good? If not, drop it and focus on your top priorities.
70. Find Lost Hours: Take back time that you would have otherwise lost. These little periods of time add up—waiting in lines, traveling, spending time in waiting rooms. Use them to complete little tasks, like reading a book, coming up with fresh ideas, or listening to an engaging podcast.
71. Short & Long Term Goals: It's challenging enough to keep yourself motivated, let alone a full team. Setting common goals ensures that everyone is on the same page and working together. Establish both long- and short-term goals. Long-term objectives are useful for providing you with a broad vision to aim toward, and short-term goals will assist keep you motivated and supported along the way.
72. Visualise Success: Visualisation, a strategy utilized by both athletes and successful businesspeople, is an effective tool. Having a clear, compelling, and exciting vision for your goal will motivate you to work harder and help you visualize the steps needed to get there.
73. Reward Yourself: You must make sure that you reward yourself just after completing your task—not before—for this to work. Give that chocolate bar away! But it will only benefit you if you provide yourself an additional motivation to do your assignment. It's also beneficial to keep track of the things you've finished, as this is frequently sufficient compensation. This maintains momentum by letting you see the progress you've made.
74. Rituals: Do you use a toothbrush every day? Ideally, the response will be "yes, of course!" It's a custom that your parents most likely instilled in you from an early age. That is the magic of rituals: if you do something frequently, it will come naturally to you. The advantages of brushing your teeth are well known, but there are other routines whose advantages can be less clear. Taking a minute in the morning to make your bed is one example. Although it doesn't seem to have anything to do with increasing productivity at work, that gets your day started off well. There's a solid reason why most great achievers follow rituals: they help you enter a state of flow where your best work can be produced.
75. Nine Rules Of Email: 1. Respond swiftly. 2. When drafting an email, every word counts; meaningless prose does not. Be concise in your delivery. 3. Constantly clean out your inbox. 4. Process emails in the LIFO (last in, first out) order. 5. Consider, "What should I have forwarded, but didn't?"
76. Be Flexible: Apply well-known project management techniques to your own management. Any firm would like to have "agile" employees, so why not strive to be agile yourself? The well-known SCRUM agile framework assigns tasks that must be accomplished in around one week's sprints, each of which serves a bigger purpose. Consider using that in your own writing.
77. Log All Your Ideas: You never know when a seemingly insignificant concept will turn out to be a game changer in the future. Keep a record of all of your ideas in a place where you can readily access and add to them, such as a dedicated notebook or a file on your computer. Over time, this might become a motivating source of creativity. At the very least, it will be an interesting collection to look back on.
78. Take Control When You Can: A lot of these suggestions center around developing more control over your surroundings, your schedule, or yourself. Wherever possible, try to maintain control over your environment. Productive work is not enhanced by chaos or a sense of being out of control. But it's equally critical to acknowledge when circumstances are beyond your control and focus on those that are.
79. Make Work Fun: The most important factor in any activity is probably how much fun we have doing it. Over time, finding joy in even the most unappreciated activities will help you remain productive. It all comes down to how you conceptualize the tasks at hand. You can either consider them uninteresting or gamify them. To pass the time, challenge yourself or even make up stories (remember, the bomb will go off if I don't finish this report by midday, so it's important to keep that in mind!) Alternatively, establish a lighthearted rivalry among your coworkers to keep everyone extra motivated. Whatever makes your work more exciting.
80. Natural Light: Who doesn't appreciate a little sunshine? Sun exposure has several health benefits, including increased vitamin D, enhanced mood, and better sleep. All of these will help you stay productive. If possible, try to work near a window where you will be exposed to natural light.
81. Learn To Type: Consider how much time you spend typing. Learning to touch type can save you hours in a relatively short period of time. You can also save your neck from constantly staring up and down from the keyboard to the screen, which promotes good posture.
82. Listen Actively: The power of active listening is always underestimated. Although we may take it for granted that we listen during a conversation and that we are heard during one, you might be shocked by how little of what we actually retain—research indicates that we remember between 25 and 50 percent of what we hear. Unlike half-listening to the buzzing in your own thoughts, active listening guarantees that you are totally focused on the speaker and, as a result, appropriately taking in what they are saying. You can't go wrong with it because it will enhance both your connections and productivity!
83. Zero Inbox: The term "zero" refers to the amount of time your mind is focused on your inbox, not the number of emails in it. The email Zero technique, devised by productivity expert Merlin Mann, prevents your email from becoming a to-do list. Select one of five actions for each email: delete, delegate, respond, defer, or do. He also suggests avoiding leaving your inbox open and just checking email at specific periods of the day.
84. Voicemail: In a world of constant pings and text alerts, answering the phone can seem like a more "legitimate" cause to be interrupted. But technology also gave us another option: voicemail. If you are busy with an essential task, don't feel obligated to answer phone calls. Let voicemail be your buddy.
85. Templates: There's no need to recreate the wheel with each new message. If you routinely send out emails with similar structures, use templates to speed up the process.
86. Hard Stuff First: Wherever possible, give the most difficult tasks priority (keeping deadlines in mind). It may be the exact opposite of what you want to do because it gives us a false sense of accomplishment to blast through all the fun and simple activities. However, if you start with the difficult and uncomfortable ones, you'll feel more satisfied in the long run and have more confidence and happiness. Additionally, this leaves the enjoyable activities for the end of the day, when your energy is likely low and the last thing you want to do is tackle a difficult work.
87. Close Open Loops: Open loops are jobs that require completion but do not have a deadline, plan, or choice in place. They can be professional or personal (a difficult task from your boss, an awkward chat you need to have with a buddy). They are unsolved, open-ended situations that sap your energy, induce anxiety, and ultimately reduce your productivity. Close these open loops by documenting them and implementing a plan.
88. Waiting List: The things that are important to you but need to be completed by someone else are on the list. As soon as you assign such chores, or if someone offers to fulfill them, keep a record of them. If you record the dates the work was allocated and the agreed-upon deadline, this strategy becomes much more effective. Be selective about what is on your waiting list (no more than a dozen) to avoid adding to your already excessive workload.
89. Deprioritize The Non-Essential: It sounds pretty obvious, but non-essential emails should be moved down the priority list, if not removed outright.
90. Reply By: Even the most well-intentioned people can be derailed by email since our natural tendency is to open and reply to each new message that arrives. But not every email has to be answered right away, and many of them don't. Consider creating an email folder and designating a day for each email that needs to be replied to. In this manner, you not only give yourself a deadline for responding, but you also relieve yourself of the weight of feeling as though you must answer right immediately.
91. Control Your Inbox: Don't allow your inbox to control you. It is all too tempting to allow the steady inflow of our email dictate how we spend our time. Turn off email notifications, set aside specific times for dealing with email (and don't touch it outside of those times), and organise your email using folders or tags - whichever works best for you.
92. Wear A Uniform: Making the decision of what to wear to work each day will take time out of your morning routine, unless your employment requires you to wear an actual uniform. Whether or not this is a serious decision depends on your level of fashion consciousness, but every choice we make throughout the day uses up a little more of our mental energy, which eventually results in decision fatigue. Put on a work uniform for yourself to avoid this. Steve Jobs and many other successful businesspeople are well-known for dressing in jeans and polo shirts. Your energy can be saved for the numerous decisions you will need to make at work if you wear the same outfit every day.
93. Set Deadlines: Give everything, even little tasks, a deadline. When assigning, if people are unaware of the urgency of a work, they cannot prioritize it and hence will not. This holds true whether you're speaking with a coworker, your boss, or your boss's boss. It comes down to clarity. Just remember to be kind when you assign deadlines to other people!
94. Assign A Task: Even though we can attempt self-control, nothing keeps us focused like having someone else hold us accountable. Consider designating a task deputy who is a friend or coworker. As long as it's someone you can rely on to ruthlessly hold you accountable for your tardiness or failure to honor agreements.
95. Password Manager: We're drowning in passwords these days, and it's sometimes worthless to invest time retrieving forgotten or lost ones. Try using a password manager like Dashlane, which can generate secure passwords for you and allow you to access all of your accounts painlessly.
96. Schedule "Stress" Time: While some stress at work is normal, excessive stress will impair your performance and have a detrimental influence on your physical and emotional health. While we cannot totally avoid stress, we can maintain control. Time blocking can help you protect yourself while also improving job satisfaction and overall well-being. Take a few minutes to yourself before starting work. Schedule a specific amount of time each week and consider it like an appointment that you cannot cancel. When you write it down and plan for it, you are less likely to overlook it.
97. Five Goals: Warren Buffett would advise you to scrap all but the top five of your aspirations. Just your top five priorities, that's all. You are forced by this activity to identify what matters most and to focus all of your efforts on those items. It's strangely liberating, but it sounds scary.
98. E-mails To To-Do: To avoid getting sidetracked from your meticulously planned list of scheduled duties, add emails that require action to tomorrow's to-do list. This allows you to stick to your initial plan of action while still responding to emails in a timely manner.
99. Old School Alarm Clock: When you wake up, the last thing you want to do is start aimlessly scrolling through your phone. However, if you depend on an alarm clock to get you up first thing in the morning, you run the risk of doing this. Alternatively, consider utilizing a simple alarm clock that wakes you up.
100. Chewing Gum: Chewing gum is an alternative to coffee, which should be consumed in moderation to avoid jitters and disrupted sleep patterns. Chewing gum has been found to help you concentrate, retain information, and stay alert!