I’m a huge fan of Tim Ferriss. He blogs about personal productivity and actionable metrics and served as the inspiration for this post.
Being productive can help a person make more money, advance in his or her career quicker, finish projects sooner, and even have more time to spend with the family. However, it seems few people actively think about and take action to improve their productivity. This post will hopefully change that.
Self-Discipline
Humans, by nature, have very poor self-discipline. Steve Pavlina, a very successful and influential personal development blogger and author, wrote in 2005 that the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. In other words, during a 40-hour workweek, you actually work only less than 20 hours. If you’re self-employed or a commission based worker, this could directly result in tens of thousands of lost dollars per year.
Productive Environment
Rather than relying on self-discipline, put yourself in an environment conducive to extreme productivity. For me, a productive environment is generally one that is/has: bright lighting, some background noise, people around me (but not trying to talk to me), allows me to listen to music, and at a different location than my home. If my project doesn’t require me to use the internet, then the most productive environment for me is one that doesn’t have internet access. What is your environment like?
Monitoring
I came across RescueTime more than a year ago when I was looking to audit my productivity. Not only does RescueTime tell you were you could be more efficient and productive, but it also compares your data with others and even helps you to be a better worker through goal-setting. It’s helped me objectively analyze where I was being inefficient and be a much more productive worker.
Increase Your Productivity
If you’d like to increase your productivity, here are proven techniques that I use – they just might help you too.
1. Put yourself in the right environment
2. Monitor and audit your performance
3. Set (and keep) deadlines
4. Break large projects into smaller tasks
5. Reward yourself at key milestones
6. Understand that setbacks happen
7. Stay positive by thinking long-term
Further Reading
Friend and fellow blogger Regis Hadiaris often writes on personal productivity on his blog Dot Connector. If this post interests you, be sure to subscribe to his RSS feed and follow him on Twitter as well.
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