5 Steps to More Productive Workdays.


Get Organized: 5 Steps for a More Productive Workday
You probably know you could be making better use of your time at work. But how do you do it?
There are a few tricks to being more productive, and the five steps outlined below will explain exactly how to get there.
It's not easy. To truly be a more productive person, you'll need to cultivate habits, rather than rely on quick-fixes. But there are some things you can do to help yourself pick up those new habits. You'll also find there are many mobile apps, software programs, and tech services that can help guide you toward a more productive workday.



1 Map Your Productivity Cycle

The most important thing you can do to boost your productivity at work is first get to know your productivity cycle. Everyone has times during the day when they are able to focus, and other times when their attention wanes. Although everyone has her own best hours for getting work done, "for most people, the most productive hours are first thing in the day—not when you first wake up, but relatively early," says Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and professor at Duke University. Ariely has a keen interest in figuring out how to use mobile apps for personal self-improvement. "For example," he added, "doing email in the morning is usually wasteful because the minutes in the morning are more valuable." Not all minutes are created equal.
Figuring out your periods of high and low productivity, or high and low capacity, as Ariely prefers to call them, is the first step then in making the most of those precious, fleeting minutes.
While many people think they know which times of day they are at their best and worst, it doesn't hurt to check. RescueTime is by far the best tool I've found for figuring out your productivity cycle. RescueTime is a small desktop application that records which programs you use and what sites you visit throughout the day, and for how long. It classifies those different apps and sites (very productive, productive, neutral, distracting, or very distracting) and generates a report about how you spend your time. For example, social networking sites are "very distracting" by default. (You can reclassify any sites and programs if the defaults aren't accurate for you.) You can also tell a lot about your productivity cycle by watching how often you switch tasks.
I recommend using RescueTime for at least a week before analyzing your report. Try to use it without changing your normal behavior. The point is not to be a model employee for a week. It's to figure out when are your natural moments for high and low capacity.
When you have some data, take a look at the times of day when you spent a good chunk of time (40 minutes or more) on one, highly productive task. Now look for times of day when you were less productive, switching quickly among different tasks or spending long stretches of time on distractions.
For example, I'm at my most focused between roughly 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Then my productivity decreases. I'm usually very distracted around lunchtime. Sometimes, but not always, I have another strong period of productivity in the afternoon, but it's not reliable.
The next step is knowing what to do with that information.

2 Change Your Routine

Once you know your productivity cycle, you should change your routine to fit it.
For example, start scheduling meetings for times of day when you have lower focus. Meetings rarely require us to be at our best. So, for example, make it a habit to never take morning meetings if mornings are your productive time.
Conversely, tackle your most important, high-focus tasks during the times of day when your mind is at its best. Often, we don't schedule our most important work. We just get to it when we can. That's okay, as long as you make it a habit to do it during the times of day when you can truly focus.
Seeing as most people can do high-focus tasks earlier, get into the habit of launching only the programs that you use for these tasks during your peak productivity hours. For example, if email is not very productive for you, don't open it. Just don't even launch the program. If you really need to check your email, glance through your inbox on your mobile phone or tablet, and then put it away so you can get back to the tasks that really demand your attention.
What if much of your high-productivity work happens in the browser, but your biggest time-wasters are there, too? There are a few tricks for minimizing distractions of this sort. For starters, you could put the active tab into full-screen mode. That will help you stay with the task at hand. You can also install browser plug-ins and extensions that lock you out of websites you specify. My favorite is called StayFocusd for Chrome. You can find more recommendations in my article about how to stay focused.

3 Review Your Day, Everyday

140805_getorg_anydomoment Another change to make to your routine: Make it a habit to always review your day before it starts. Look over your calendar and your to-do list first thing so you won't be caught off-guard for a 3 p.m. meeting you scheduled two weeks ago. Whether it's over your first cup of coffee or while commuting, having a single moment (and it should be the same moment everyday to make it a habit) to review your plans for the whole day really makes a difference.
Creating a new habit of reviewing your day everyday is easier said than done. One mobile app that can help remind you is Any.Do, which has a feature called the AnyDo Moment. The AnyDo Moment plays a pleasant tone and pushes a notification at the same time every weekday telling you it's time to review your day. The app then lists everything on your calendar and to-do list and asks whether you want to keep it on the schedule or move it to another day.

4 Schedule Breaks

Take your breaks. And not just one break for lunch. Your mind needs to refresh itself if you're going to be the most productive person you can be.
140805_getorg_idelalert I am a huge fan of activity trackers for fitness, and one feature in a few of them that I love is a silent alarm. You can set an alarm that causes your fitness band to vibrate at a certain time of day, silently. I like to set it for 4 p.m. sharp, when I know I should take a break whether I think I need one or not. Even just getting out of my chair to walk to the kitchen and wash out my coffee cup is enough to get my eyes away from the computer screen for a bit.
Some activity trackers also have idle alerts. These alarms cause the tracker to vibrate if you've been sitting still for a period of time, usually one hour. They are designed to remind you to get up and move, but I think they're equally valuable as reminders to stop working for two minutes and take a break. You might also want to install a break app, a lightweight program that reminds you take breaks and can even lock you out of your computer for a short period of time to force the issue. Our favorite is a Mac app called TimeOut Free.
Another good one for Windows, Mac, and browsers is called Focus Booster.

5 Line Up End-of-Day Chores

Imagine your day is going along just swimmingly. Then 4:40 p.m. hits. You try to keep busy. It feels like eternity goes by! Then you glance down at the clock again, and...it's 4:42 p.m.
How often do you waste those final 20 minutes at the end of the day? How many hours does it equal in a month? How much of that time do you spend on social networking sites or texting your friends?
Kick that habit by lining up a few end-of-day chores. Try to make them something you like to do, but that might be considered busy work. Some examples include:

  • filing papers
  • following up on old emails
  • dumping your computer's cache
  • deleting your browser's history
  • returning phone calls
  • wiping the dust and crumbs from your desk, keyboard, and monitor.
If you have a short list of options ahead of time for tasks you can do at the end of the day, you're more likely to actually do one of them. Make a note in your calendar, or even just leave a sticky note near your desk with some ideas to serve as reminders. Come 4:45 p.m. on Friday, your eye will probably wander over to them.
pcmag.

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