Kick-start your productivity
March 20, 2009 by Chris Duran
Filed under Articles, Blog, Habits, Personal Organisation, Productivity, Time Management
The purpose of this article is to give you a few simple and easy to follow tips to help kick start your productivity. It is important to note that these tips are not a set of once off instructions; rather they are a set of behavioural changes that, once introduced into your daily routine, will kick start your productivity on a daily basis.
No doubt many people reading this have had periods where, with deadlines looming, they have dug deep and found an extra source of energy to produce amazing results in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, this type of productivity is unsustainable and has a very negative effect on your physical health and emotional balance – afterwards you will feel exhausted and flat.
The tips provided here will help to kick start yourself into providing repeatable and sustained productivity!
Exercise first thing
Physical activity is a great help to increasing your productivity. Exercise is shown to increase your energy levels and help to fight fatigue. It is so important for your body to be awake and alert before you even think of starting work.
When I wake up the first thing I do is go for a surf. Surfing is a great morning exercise but there aren’t always waves to be had. If this is the case, I will instead go for a jog, do a circuits course in the yard, go for a swim or simply go for a morning walk. The important thing is that I am doing an activity to energise my body and expel the remaining fatigue from my body.
This is vital: How can you possibly be productive if you’re feeling tired and exhausted?
Some will note that I have also placed importance on exercise in achieving a positive mental attitude in previous articles. Not only are their obvious physical benefits to exercise, I additionally believe that positivity (a mental benefit of exercise) and sustained productivity are intrinsically linked. Many of the most productive people I know also have an incredibly positive outlook and take good care of their physical health.
Create work blocks
It is important to allocate solid work blocks when organising your schedule to achieve an effective level of productivity. Your work blocks shouldn’t be too long as to exhaust your mental power, nor too short as to allow insufficient time to effectively complete any tasks: a good starting level is approximately 2 hours.
Something to note is that everybody is different, and not all tasks are created equal. Some people can naturally perform for longer or shorter periods of time. I also find that the ’stamina’ of my mental power differs greatly depending on the task at hand.
For example, I find it difficult to write for much longer then 1.5 to 2 hours. However, I am able to program or do design work effectively for periods up to 3 or 4 hours.
Eliminate distraction and interruption
Once you have defined your working block, one of the most important things you can do to increase your productivity is to eliminate anything that will distract you from the task at hand.
I live on the Gold Coast and my workplace is in Brisbane (approximately 1 hour away). I do approximately 50% of my work from home and the other half is done up in Brisbane. Most of the time I am in Brisbane, I am involved in either meetings or teaching commitments, leaving much of my core work (which is mostly computational work, writing or researching) to be done in my home office.
When I am working on my computer I make sure that I am logged out of all my social media services: email, skype, twitter, facebook… all OFF! I also put my phone on discrete and will ignore all but the most urgent of phone calls. I also play music with an uplifting energy and no lyrics, such as Trance (I’m unable to get into most classical music, but Alborz swears by it!). I’ll play this music in the background at half-volume, and it serves a dual purpose. Not only does it drown out potentially distracting noises, but it also cultivates a positive atmosphere in your work environment (Alborz has already mentioned the importance of music in this article to help stop your mind wandering).
Now, I am lucky to be able to work from home, which makes distractions from co-workers a non-issue. A common issue in an office environment is the distractive element of co-workers. A simple solution is to take in a set of noise-cancelling earphones. During a work block, I listen to my music through the earphones and I make sure my co-workers understand that when I am wearing the earphones I wish to be left undisturbed.
Prioritise your tasks
Before you start a work block, you should have a list of all the tasks that require attention. It is important that you spend a few minutes looking through your list and prioritise the tasks at hand. Then, most importantly, do the most important task first! Unless you are super-human, your productivity will wane as you work your way through the block. This is normal and is because your mental power is becoming exhausted. The most important tasks should be done first, as they will then receive your attention at your most productive and alert.