More often than not, I worked at jobs where I have had 500 things to do at once and not nearly enough time to do them. I know this sounds like an exaggeration but when you get to the point where you’re handling multiple categories of products, customers and stakeholders, you really can be saturated out of any type of productivity.
“Must look busy for the camera… close Facebook… get off Club Penguin… I can do it… I CAN DO IT!”
If this is something that you’ve experienced in your life, you know exactly where I am coming from. Now is the time to be more efficient, take back your sanity and regain control over your life. Here are three ways that you can up your productivity by optimizing your life like crazy.
1. Have A List Of 5-Minute Tasks Always Ready To Go
Take most of my blog posts for instance. I planned them to where I can get a pretty good idea of what I want to say, within 5, maybe a little bit more, minutes. By having this list of starters or templates that I can use to get me going, I always have something to do to move me forward in my business and my side jobs and interests. By having this list of things and easily manageable chunks, you will always have something to do and be productive at any given point in the day.
2. Add Audio Learning To Your Brainless Tasks
If you do something like data entry and spreadsheets, this would be something that’s very useful for you, or if you happen to just need to mow the lawn at home, then you want to pay attention to this too. There are audio books, podcasts, and all types of audio-based learning that you can do simultaneously with some other relatively mindless task, and benefit. This is the multitasking that works.
Not a lot of people want to admit it but listening or doing certain types of brain activities that don’t interfere with the task at hand, is a great way to add more value to everything that you do. This can require some experimentation and practice is necessary, but give this a shot and you’ll begin to see how much you can actually get done while you’re already doing things, and even up your output.
3. Cut Back On The Life-Suckers
Watching too much TV, on Facebook too much, playing too many video games, or simply driving to the store too much because you forgot something and you seem to forget something every single time – these are life-suckers that take 5 minutes here or 10 minutes there, an hour over there, from your life and from your ability to get things done in the waking moments that you have.
Sure it may not sound like a lot but what’s 30 minutes every day for an entire week? 210 minutes. Great! It’s almost four hours. What could you do productively in four hours?
If you’ve got your list of 5-minute tasks then you know you’ve already got 42 things that you could have done. Do you think your life could be any better or more productive by being able to knock out that many things, by simply replacing something that’s just sucking your life away? I think so!
Productivity For The Win
If you’re ready to optimize your life and update your current plans for ultimate productivity, then look to always have a list of things that you can get done in five minutes or less. Add audio learning to your brainless tasks and cut back on those life-suckers. They’re just not worth your time. Take back your life, get more out of it, and start being awesome.