5 Actionable Tips To Boost Immediately Your Productivity

No magic formula, but tips to try at least once.

Productivity is a subject that is much talked about. Many books, articles, videos, or pieces of training have been made on this subject to tell you how to boost your productivity. The most detailed materials give you for example complete methods to apply to your life to maximize your productivity.

I'm not saying that all this content is not valuable, but I admit that I still have trouble applying entire methods to be more productive. It would mean changing my entire life, and that's something I don't find easily applicable.

Instead, I have always preferred small tips that are easily adaptable to my situation. We are all different, and I don't think that complete third-party methods will work for everyone.

Instead, I think that finding tips left and right and trying them out in your routine makes a lot more sense. You'll see what works for you and you'll be able to build the best routine for yourself: the one that's tailored to your needs.

So in what follows, I'm sharing five tips that I use daily that have boosted my productivity. Nothing says that this is the case for you, but you should at least try it to see if it can bring you as many benefits as it did for me.

Follow the five-minute rule

Nobody wakes up every morning with 110% motivation and the desire to get the moon. This is a myth that you need to break as soon as possible. We all have bad days. That's just the way life goes. On the bad days, however, you will need to find the mental strength to move forward with your tasks and the conquest of your goals.

This is where discipline comes in. Get used to following what I call the five-minute rule. This rule gives you a reassuring psychological way out: you must start the task you were supposed to do (even if you don't feel like it right now) and dedicate at least 5 minutes to it.

Five minutes is the time you need to get into the task. Once those five minutes are up, you can decide to give up if you still want to. You'll be surprised to find that 99% of the time, you'll keep going and finish your task.

The hardest part is always getting started. Once a task is started, no one likes to leave it undone.

Make a very short To-Do List for tomorrow

My most productive days always start the night before personally. I have a general To-Do List of tasks to do, but I mostly pick out every night the essential tasks I intend to do the next day. I create a very short To-Do List every night of what I'm going to do the next day.

In the morning, I take full advantage of my productivity peak by directly attacking the tasks I wanted to do. The last trick here is that I sort these tasks by decreasing difficulty. So I always start with the most difficult task when my energy is at its peak.

Again, this is an ideal that I strive for. There are days when I don't have time to do this very short To-Do List for the next day. My productivity suffers the next day, but that's the way it is, you have to accept your bad days as I told you before. You will do better tomorrow.

Be accountable for your tasks

We always make faster progress on a task when we have to complete it by a specific date for a specific person. For some tasks, you will have to do it only for yourself. In these cases, you need to find ways to remind yourself via a reminder on your smartphone or computer, for example, that you are going to have to finish this task today.

By keeping this in mind, you will not lose sight of the fact that you need to be productive to keep the commitments you make to yourself. It sounds trivial, but it works.

Celebrate small wins

Set up your reward system to celebrate the small victories of the day. You have big, long-term goals to achieve, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be happy about a particular day when you've achieved your daily goals with flying colors.

Try to be proud of yourself. This is how you will become a greater ally and how your motivation can last.

People who say they never want to celebrate anything because they are always waiting for a bigger goal to celebrate often end up unmotivated. Don't fall into this trap. Train your motivation with those small victories that you will celebrate proportionately.

Walk or exercise every day for at least 30 minutes

It is very difficult if not impossible to be productive for several hours while sitting in front of your computer screen working. This is something that I find impossible to do. I need to clear my mind and think about something else during my lunch break.

So, every day, I go for a walk for 30 minutes to an hour. Other times, I may go for a workout. My goal is to do something that allows me to escape from thinking about my tasks. It clears my head and allows me to recharge my batteries.

I come back after this break relaxed and de-stressed. I am ready to finish the second part of my workday productively.

Final Thoughts

The five tips I just shared with you are easily adaptable to your existing routine. They don't require major adjustments, which gives you a better chance of them working for you as they did for me.

Give them a try and let me know how it goes in the comments. Also, feel free to tell me what easily actionable tips you recommend. It's always interesting to learn other people's tips and try them out in your routine.