You might hear everywhere that you must be more productive and especially if you want to change your life. There are a lot of posts or videos on how to stop procrastinating. The goal is to learn more, work more, travel more, and have more money. But you could also be more productive to have more time for what you love, your hobbies or your family. And let’s be honest, there’s nothing wrong with some procrastinating by watching Netflix!
So let’s dive in!
If you want to start a project: eating healthier, working out, or starting a blog, you need to have time. It was one of the reasons why I’ve decided to become a minimalist.
For a few years, I’ve tried a lot of productive methods to achieve a lot. And I can say that some are really helping people to accomplish a lot. Some, a lot less.
In my free guide about how to become a minimalist in 7 easy steps, there is a whole part about how to find more time as a minimalist to do whatever you want to do. Please feel free to check the guide.
So here are 6 tips to be more productive and achieve more in less time.
Analyze how you spend your time
You may think that you never have the time to do anything. And let’s be honest, some weeks, it’s exactly like that. When I come back home, I’m too tired to do anything. I don’t want to clean, cook or do anything, so I watch a TV show. At the end of the day or of the week, I pretend that I hadn’t enough time to do what I needed to do.
When it’s about time management I always remember a Ted Talk about prioritizing and gaining control of free time. The time management expert Lauren Vanderkam explains how to find free time even if you work 60 hours a week. She cuts her day by activities. For example, your day has 24 hours, you sleep 8 hours, so you subtract 8 to 24 hours. Subtract 1 hour for daily commute and 10 hours for the time spent at work. Do the math and you have your free time. It’s quite huge, right?
There are Apps that are very well to track your activities. I think that it’s a good beginning to become productive. I usually use ATracker to track what I do on several days. Even watching your screen time on your phone is a good indicator.
Plan your day
I started to plan every activity that I had during a day after watching Matt D’Avella’s video about tracking every minute of his days during a month. He created a Google Calendar with all his activities, even travel to go to work, lunch, and so on…
This hasn’t to be perfect and life shouldn’t be set like a music sheet but it gives you time to do what you love or maybe work on your projects.
What I like to do is to take a blank page of my journal and write down everything that I want to accomplish the next week. Then, next to each task, I write down how much time I will accomplish the task and finally I fill out my calendar. It really helps me to know exactly what I need to do and thanks to this system I don’t waste my time thinking about what I need to do.
Make to-do lists
This is the number one priority when you want to be more productive. If you don’t know what you have to do, you will postpone tasks and you will end up doing nothing productive.
I’m not a regular person about App or notebooks but I like to use Notion. Their models of to-do list are really good and it helps me to gain a lot of time. I also have my notebook with me all the time to note anything that goes through my head.
Preparing my to-do list on Sunday for the next week is what works the most for me. Then, during the week, I add or delete some items.
I think that writing your to-do list makes your tasks concrete. It’s not just “it will be amazing if I finish this tonight”, you do it and what a satisfaction when you check the box!
Some tasks may be difficult to check. The solution could be to divide this task into smaller tasks. You will be more effective for this project and you will get results faster!
Use the Pomodoro method
When I really need to concentrate, for example, to write a script, I like to use the Pomodoro method. There are a ton of videos on Youtube with the timer and some lo-fi or piano music and it’s something that helps me a lot! Pomodoro is a method of time management: you work 25 minutes and you have a 5 minutes break. To have 15 minutes break, you need to repeat this 4 times.
It’s the best method when you need to concentrate to work for several hours. I like to use this method every morning before going to work. I also used it when I had to write my thesis.
By using this method you will see that 25 minutes is not long at all but you have to take the 5 minutes break to not faint afterward. And you will achieve so much in 25 minutes!
Have daily routines
Daily routines, like morning or evening routines, are really important, especially if you want to achieve goals. It helps you to manage your time for what you really want to do. For example, getting up earlier in the morning for reading or working out. I like to wake up early, even if I’m not going to work until several hours because it’s the time that I’m super productive. I’m a morning person and it’s really at that time that I achieve a lot. Because I know myself and when I come back from work at night, I’m not as productive. And the only thing that I want is to lay down on my couch and don’t move.
You can also create a habit of doing your to-do list every evening for the next day.
Have a specific area
We all saw this during lockdown, we are more productive and focus when we have a dedicated space for our activities. I wasn’t the kind of woman who worked a lot on a desk. I always studied in my bed but with the lockdown, I realized that I’m far more productive when I sit on my chair and I work on my desk. I know that it could be difficult to find a dedicated space. And I’m the first to tell you that in a small apartment it’s more difficult but if I found a place, you can find a place.
You will see amazing results!
Enjoy your free time!
How could you be productive every day if you don’t take time for yourself?
So enjoy your free time! Take time for yourself and don’t squeeze it for doing laundry or whatever.
If you have days or weeks without motivation, don’t blame yourself. Take time to reset. In these moments, I try to not think about tasks and take time for myself. The next morning I try to find motivation and do a to-do list with easy tasks.
Ok guys it’s the end, tell me in the comments below if you have any other methods to stay productive. I see you in the next one! Bye!
Hi everyone! I’m Anna and I’m a twenty-something woman. Most of the time, I like to rewatch all the episodes of Castle and read A LOT of personal development books! And I have a cat : Pizza, because I love … Pizza!