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Last Updated on January 2, 2023 by Mandy Schmitz
Now is the right moment to refresh your productivity and time skills with some effective productivity hacks. With individuals and businesses giving more attention to performance metrics than ever before, organizations and even small business owners see productivity as a top priority. People are now learning how to complete arduous tasks from time to time since productivity is connected to forming fruitful habits.
Look at it this way: you can save yourself from vast stress down the line through a few tweaks on your plans. You will discover that you’re more motivated to find productive hacks to expand your business and also have more time on your hands. After all, even though it is good to work hard, it is always more effective to work smart.
What are the Best Productivity Hacks?
Table of Contents
You can use various productivity hacks to change how your typical workday goes if you don’t like it. The fundamental reason you’re not productive is that you are reactive instead of proactive, and you have unhealthy habits that get in the way of your workplace productivity. Thus, you are not making any progress to your goals and simply snuffing out fires.
While the solution to these issues is simple, they are not always easy to implement. To make yourself proactive and leverage productivity hacks, you can use good habits to replace your reactive patterns and bad habits. With that, you can take the reins of your workplace using some of these productivity hacks:
- Get enough sleep
- Be optimistic
- Break up work periods with exercise
- Plan phone calls
- Eliminate distractions
- Delegate properly
- Cut down your to-do list
- Prepare a to-do list each night
- Stop multitasking
- Do the heavy lifting at your best
The 12 Best Productivity Hacks to Get More Done in 2021:
Imagine equipping yourself with the necessary productivity hacks that let you fly over your to-do list and have plenty of free time left every day. It will be like a dream come true. However, I’ve discovered that this fantasy doesn’t always translate into reality, as I have tried many of them.
Fortunately, things have become easy with the advent of the internet to enjoy a good deal of productivity hacks. But don’t fear if it appears pretty overwhelming to you. This article will detail the best productivity hacks you can start using almost immediately to help get things done faster.
Get more done and advance your business with these essential productivity hacks.
01. Stop Multitasking
As our lives begin to get busier and affect our productivity hacks, most of us turn to how we can multitask to get more done. We believe that it is easy to multitask since technology has made things easy. However, when you multitask constantly, you stand the risk of reducing your brain’s gray matter, leading to memory issues. Thus, you end up taking a long time to complete a task without any focus due to multitasking’s side effects.
You can stop multitasking when you:
- Consider apps that block distractions
- Be aware of your multitasking habits
- Ensure you unitask during your prime time
- Keep work areas organized and clean
- Be ready to say no
- Set a time for distractions
- Eliminate or reduce outside distractions
- Create a list of daily priorities
- Stop starting your daily by looking at your phone
A Stanford University study indicates that multitasking adversely affects our productivity, motivation, and mood and increases pressure on our lives. As such, you won’t have a focused mind on any of the tasks if you pride yourself on having the capacity to juggle several tasks at a time.
The inability to concentrate and focus can influence your career life. It also has consequences on your relationships and experiences. It has a significant impact on your productivity. You won’t connect with family, friends, coworkers, or customers or concentrate on anything when you do a few things at once. We are essentially only half-living when we stop living in the present.
02. Set SMART Goals
As part of all aspects of your life or business, goals offer an impression of clear focus, motivation, and direction. When you set goals, you will identify a few productivity hacks as you aim for a target. And with your SMART goal, you will get help to set your goal. SMART is an abbreviation that represents:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timely
You can get these measures from a SMART goal, which will boost the chances and focus your efforts while intensifying your productivity hacks in achieving your goal.
SMART Goal’s Specific
You have a better opportunity of attaining your goals when they are specific. Therefore, you must consider these “W” if you want to make your goal clear:
- Why: Why do you need to reach this goal?
- When: When do you wish to accomplish this goal?
- Where: Where do you want to achieve this goal?
- What: What do you want to accomplish?
- Who: Who is involved in this goal?
03. Mute Gadget Notification
Do you remember all the times you are in the middle of something and the flash of new information on your screen distracted you? Well, that’s a great way to kill your momentum and productivity! The number of times your device or phone can get you distracted each day is pretty crazy when you turn on your notification.
Fortunately, you can fix this easily. Go to “Settings” on your device and then “Notifications.” From there, you can customize which notifications you want to get when you unlock your phone.
You will realize that you can reduce the feelings you need to have your phone with you anywhere you go and increase your productivity when you mute all notifications on your phone. Even if you don’t plan to increase productivity or reduce distraction, you will enjoy fewer buzzes, beeps, or dings throughout your day!
Why You Must Reduce Mobile Dependence
The recent years have seen many of us rely heavily on our mobile devices. As many manufacturers develop applications in large numbers, our dependence on these devices has skyrocketed. In the name of enhanced communication and efficiency, we outsource little pieces of our lives to our smartphones. With some of these reasons, you may want to reduce your mobile dependence for efficient, productive hacks to:
- Force you to plan or think ahead
- Lengthen your attention span
- Strengthen your eyes
- Learn to love books again
- Reduce drama
- Separate work life from home life
- Reduce petty communication and force deep face-to-face interaction
- Strengthen your mind
- Be aware
- Free up more time
- Reduce distractions
- Find value in yourself
- Break your addiction
- Relieve the mental burden
- Create more than you consume
04. Use 90-Minute Segments
You must break your day into segments. As part of productivity hacks, you can group similar activities into these segments. You can dedicate the first 90 minutes of your day exclusively to priority tasks. Check and respond to personal communications, voicemail, text messages, and email for the second segment. Use the third segment for relaxation, exercise, and lunch. You must ensure you don’t overlap any of these segments.
Avoiding Distractions by Dedicating Time
When you commit 90 minutes to do a task, it means that you don’t want to check email or social media, text, or answer the phone in the priority 90-minute segment. You can easily launch another tangent by jumping on social media or checking your phone.
Take Brakes
You need to relax your brain! Your brain will focus once for 90 to 120 minutes. For more effective productivity hacks, the 90-minute sections must have short breaks in between. And before you initiate the next 90 minutes, you can read the news, do some drawing, go for a walk, grab a coffee, or stretch.
05. Use Cloud Computing to Access Files Easily
Your business can save a lot of money in hardware costs when you use cloud storage for files. With it, you can access and work with documents; you don’t have to have them saved on your personal device. It is pretty easy to access or save your files on the cloud, even if you don’t have any technical skills.
As one of the productive hacks on the list, it allows for automation and flexibility. You can change and grow your business without investing in information technology to maintain and update your file storage system. You can also use the cloud for:
- Growth planning
- File storage
- Mobile working
- Data backup
You can access information anywhere with any compatible device when you use cloud computing, ensuring that you maintain consistency between your team and increasing productivity.
06. Have Team Communication in a Platform
To have the most effective, productive team, you will need good communication. Without good communication, you will need to deal with disagreements, misunderstandings, and inefficient workflows that will cripple morale when you don’t communicate. Your business can increase productivity by 25 percent when you ensure better communication with the entire team. You can improve your business productivity and communication by holding fun team-building activities, recognizing team and individual successes and strengths, and gathering regular feedback.
Your team will be more productive when you centralize all communications. Besides, it will be easier to find any conversations whenever you need them. Whether Brosix, Chanty, Slack, or Flock, ensure that your team uses the tool you decided on for all work-related communication.
Benefits of Using One Platform for Communication
With a communication platform, your business can converge its channels into an easy-to-use, single interface. If your business is not making any use of this high-performance platform, you can consider using it because of these reasons:
- Lower costs
- Greater productivity and efficiency
- Improved scalability
- Easy to manage technology
- Empowers your workforce
Every team member can access the resources needed instantly when you have all of your communication strategies in a single cloud-based platform. To connect to communication tools like instant chat tools and web conferencing securely and quickly, they simply need the proper credentials and an internet connection. Whether your team is exploring the remote working trend or situated in an office, you can deliver a similarly exceptional employee experience.
Another advantage of using cloud-based communication for productivity hacks is that you will only pay for what you use regularly. If you look at the expenses that go with installing and maintaining a typical communication system, you will find it a fantastic saving option.
07. Save Time by Using Templates
Are you spending a lot of time formatting, filling, or creating contracts, invoices, or reports? Do you know that you can do nearly all the routine work instantly and benefit from exceptional productivity hacks when you have ready-made templates at hand? With these templates, you don’t need to worry about placing visual elements, customizing fonts, or creating a document from scratch. Input the required information and send the document to your team or client.
As one of the best productive hacks, you can save yourself some time to focus your activity on more significant tasks. Depending on the versatility of these templates, you can use them repeatedly for other purposes.
Flexibility
Depending on different situations, there are text options that you can use in the document on each template. With that, you can easily systemize your document database and eliminate several copies with such an organization. Essentially, it is relatively easy to speed up preparing the file by ten folds!
Reduces Execution and Processing Time
These online templates allow you to create documents fast with mailing, processing and searching. Your business can benefit from optimized business processes and perform routine tasks quickly with these templates.
08. Organize Your Email
Do you find yourself spending an hour or 30 minutes daily to manage your email? Since we spend more time managing our emails, it has become a counter-productive tool even though it is intended to simplify communication. In the end, you need to do the job using email.
One of the best things you can do is reserve a specific time daily to manage your emails. You can continue the next day if the time slot is not enough to finish it. Let go of the rest and give precedence to the more important emails.
If you get several time-sensitive messages since you are in a senior-level position, this tip is still valid. It is vital not to allow email to take charge of your life. Don’t forget that email is not the work itself, and it is a tool that you will use to enhance tasks.
Some of the tips that can improve your productivity hacks with email management are:
- Try email archiving
- Get inbox zero every day
- Don’t check email so often
- Make use of folders and rulers
- Unsubscribe from things you don’t read
- Limit the time you spend in the inbox
- Use the 1-minute rule when replying
- Use filters
- Structure your emails into categories
- Read the relevant emails
- Create template replies if you send similar responses often
- Realize the need not to reply to every email
09. The 2-minute Task Rule
Are you looking for more ways to power your productivity hacks? This hack is indeed a must-have for you. It shouldn’t feel like a challenge when you pick up a new habit. Though you can have a bit of challenge with the events that follow, you must handle the initial two minutes with ease. Thus, it can be pretty simple to make it a habit, leading to you a more fruitful path.
The two-minute rule is effective since you will find it easy to continue with it once you start doing the right thing. Instead of starting with a perfect habit, you can engage in easy tasks consistently. Some people think it is odd to get hyped regarding making one sales call, having one minute meditating, or reading a page. However, you can only improve a habit after establishing it. As a result, it will be hard to master the finer details when you don’t know the basic aptitude of showing up.
You can reinforce your productivity hacks and the identity you wish to build with the two-minute rule. With it, you’re confirming the type of individual you want to be by taking the most minor action.
10. Group Similar Tasks Into Chunks
One of the best productivity hacks is to be able to break down bigger tasks into manageable pieces. You can start by writing down essential tasks when you identify them. Your focus must be on the required outcome. Figure out necessary aspects and improve your productivity hacks by working backward to get you through a successful project strategy. Proceed to perform a task analysis.
This step is where you assess exactly how you will complete a task. To get a grasp of how complicated a task is, you will first need to analyze it. Then, you must answer how long it should take, what actions will go into accomplishing it, and what resources you will need.
You cannot start working just because you’ve broken down these projects. Prioritize your tasks and know which of them to take on for perfect productivity hacks to keep moving forward – label tasks as Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority, or Urgent.
Define deadlines and set time estimates after you’re decided on task priority. Your deadlines must be realistic to ensure you complete all the work by the project’s overall deadline. After this step, you can start keeping track of tasks.
11. Finish One Task Each Day
The tricky bit for many of us is finishing projects, even though it is quite easy to start one. The effort matters only when we finish things. There is always excitement with the initial idea, leading to designing and sketching. However, things start falling apart when we have to deal with less fun things. Then, we leave the project on shelves.
One of the things to change this narrative and seek productivity hacks is to be selective. Since time is precious, be careful about what you want to spend time with and the thing that will take up your time. Put in place a detailed plan. Then, make it a priority if you intend to finish it. Listen to an audiobook in your car or bring your book on the train in the morning if your goal is to read more. Look for available time and use these productivity hacks to your advantage.
Ultimately, commitment is crucial. Ensure that you do the work after you’ve figured out when to work on it. And don’t forget to set a realistic deadline. Remember, it doesn’t need to be perfect. The most important thing is to have the end goal in mind and track your progress.
12. The Pomodoro Technique
If you don’t know what Pomodoro Technique means, it helps people work with their time instead of against it. As a time management system, you need to break your workday into 25-minute chunks with five-minute breaks. You will have a 15 to 20 minutes break after completing four ‘Pomodoro’s, 25-minute work plus 5-minute break intervals.
Instilling a sense of urgency is the idea behind the technique. With it, you won’t think of having endless time to finish what you need to do, thereby wasting those precious hours on distractions. You will know quite well that you have 25 minutes to make as much progress as possible on a task.
And with the forced breaks, you can get the necessary cure for the burnt-out, frazzled feeling many people experience toward the end of the day. The ticking timer will always remind you to stop and take a breather.
Some time ago, I downloaded a Pomodoro timer on my phone. After the first week, I discovered that I felt more productive than before. If you are an Android user, you can try Pomodoro Timer Lite or Focus Keeper if you have an iPhone.
You will find Pomodoro Technique effective if you:
- Enjoy gamified goal-setting
- Are overall optimistic concerning how much you plan to get done in a day
- Have plenty of open-ended tasks that need unlimited amounts of time
- Work past the optimal productivity point
- Discover little distractions often derail the whole workday
Conclusion
Productivity hacks are excellent means of utilizing your time better and getting more done. However, they are tools you can use to accomplish something even more significant. Read through this article again and choose from the productivity hacks that will help you achieve your goals. It would help if you also focused on forming productive habits.
It is also vital to change your habit of completing and organizing tasks if you want to become more productive. To nurture effective, productive working relationships, you need the right kind of team with the right mentality. Make this year the most prolific year yet by making progress on that perfect life you want to build for yourself when applying these productivity hacks towards your goals.
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[…] your home office according to your taste can help improve your productivity. Embed your personality in it. There are things that make you happy and put them all in one place. […]