Boost Your Productivity With These 9 One-Minute Time Hacks
These simple hacks will boost your productivity.
Productivity is a theme that leaves no one indifferent. So I’m pretty sure you’re frequently looking for new ideas to increase your daily productivity. Indeed, being able to produce more in less time is essential because it will give you more time for yourself.
Entire books are devoted to productivity with methods that are more or less complex to implement. These books are excellent and I have already read several of them myself, but sometimes you just want to quickly test new ideas that can boost your productivity without having to change your working methods completely.
Being myself in this case, I have adopted over time some quick techniques to boost my productivity. In what follows, I will present you 9 hacks that take at most one minute to implement but that have boosted my productivity. I hope they will have the same positive effects on your daily work.
#1: Make A ToDo-List For The Next Day
A productive day always starts the day before. Indeed, your productivity is at its highest in the morning shortly after waking up. So you shouldn’t lose this precious moment by thinking about the tasks you’re going to do.
You need to make a list of things to do the day before.
This way, you will end your day by preparing for the next day. You will start your new day a step ahead and will only have to follow the plan you defined the day before in your ToDo-List.
Your peak productivity may be used to perform tasks and not to think about the tasks to be performed.
#2: Have Confidence In Your Ability To Carry Out Complex Tasks
In order to be truly productive, you must be able to take action directly without procrastinating by asking yourself unnecessary questions such as:
Am I able to carry out this complex task?
These kinds of questions will only slow you down. The answer is that you are able to carry out complex tasks if you take action. Your willpower will make the difference and allow you to overcome all obstacles.
You must be convinced of your ability to carry out the most complex tasks to maximize your productivity.
#3: Disable Push Notifications For Your Emails
Smartphones have put the power of a computer directly into our pockets. With your smartphone, you can read and send emails but also browse the Web in search of exciting new information.
Smartphones are great tools but you need to be careful on the way you use these tools.
Smartphones have made us take bad habits that affect our productivity. You must therefore consider push notifications as the number one enemy of your productivity.
In the past, you were the one who decided to check your emails. With push notifications, it is the emails that come to you and make you leave your work time. Studies have shown that you lose up to 20 minutes to focus fully on your task again when disturbed like this.
To maximize your productivity, you must choose to disable push notifications for your emails but also your social networks.
Don’t be a slave to your smartphone anymore. You need to take control by defining specific slots during which you will check your emails and social media.
#4: Establish A Morning Routine
I have just explained to you that the productive day begins the day before when you write your ToDo-List of tasks to be done the next day. This way, you will start your day directly without having to think about the choice of your tasks.
However, there is still a moment between waking up and starting your first task of the day that you can still optimize.
To optimize your productivity after waking up, I recommend that you establish a morning routine. You will gradually build it over time and it must be composed of good habits that allow you to maximize your productivity as soon as possible after you wake up.
For example, my personal morning routine consists of three habits designed to get me up and being efficient as quickly as possible: stretch while breathing properly, be grateful to the world and have a cup of coffee.
It’s up to you to find yours!
#5: Define Precise Time Slots For Your Internet Browsing
As I explained to you in point number 3 of my list, smartphones are great tools that can be your best ally to be productive or your worst enemy. Everything will depend on how you use it.
I therefore advise you to define specific time slots during which you will browse the Internet.
This applies both to the use of the Internet on your smartphone and also to its use on your computer. By defining dedicated Internet slots, you can use the rest of the time to fully focus on your tasks and maximize your productivity.
#6: Focus Only On Your High Priority Tasks
When you define your ToDo-List for the next day, I advise you to rank the tasks in order of priority and decreasing difficulty. This way, you will always start your day with the most difficult and priority task.
By focusing only on your highest priority tasks, your productivity will automatically be maximized.
Indeed, with a mind fully focused on your priority tasks, you will be able to perform them more efficiently without your mind being polluted by less important tasks that slow you down.
Once your priority tasks are completed, you can always see what you have to do for the remaining tasks: make them or leave them out.
#7: Say No To Almost Every Opportunity
Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors in history. His advice is always invaluable when it comes to investment. However, there are many other areas in which his advice is a real gold mine. Among these areas are time management and therefore productivity.
Thus, Warren Buffett often repeats the following thing:
“Really Successful People Say No To Almost Everything” — Warren Buffett
You must follow this advice to the letter throughout your life. You have to say no to almost every opportunity. You must make your “yes” precious because they will engage you and reduce your time available to perform your most important tasks.
By doing so, you will maximize your productivity by working only on tasks that are really essential to you.
#8: Change Work Location Frequently
This advice applies mainly to people who are independent or lucky enough to be able to work remotely. If this is your case, you must use this option to change location frequently when you work.
In summer, you can go to work in a park to enjoy the calm of nature.
In winter, you can go to a coworking space from time to time to tap into the positive energy that usually emerges from these kinds of places.
Remember that the change in habits and the novelty it brings helps to boost productivity.
#9: Never Say Never
This last hack is to be compared to hack number 2. I have told you to be confident in your ability to carry out complex tasks. In the same vein, you should avoid saying never.
When an obstacle presents itself, you should not waste time thinking to yourself: “I’m never going to make it”.
You must understand that this obstacle is facing you for a good reason and that you must overcome it to reach a higher level in your progress towards achieving your objectives.
Saying never will only delay you when you will sooner or later have to overcome this obstacle to go higher.
Conclusion
To boost your productivity, you don’t necessarily have to completely rethink the way you work. You can choose, as I do, to implement some small hacks such as the ones I have just presented to you. These little hacks only take one minute at most to apply, but their impact on your productivity can be truly phenomenal.
So I advise you to try them out and see if these hacks have the same beneficial effects on your productivity as they have had on mine.
More reading:
You’ll Never Be Wealthy if You Continue to Manage Your Expenses With a Poor People Mindset: Increasing your income is useless if you don’t control your expenses.
There Is Only One Opponent You Must Beat Every Day Throughout Your Life: Hint: you see him or her every morning in the mirror.