Years ago, I used to waste hours each day refreshing my Facebook feed. What was I looking for? Nothing in particular. Why did I keep going back then? Because Facebook spends millions of dollars each year to make their platform addictive. It’s hard to break the spell. Really hard. But eventually I realized how much time I was losing each day. Time I’d never get back. It’s one thing to spend time with purpose but another entirely to just waste it aimlessly. That was how I wasted my leisure time. But it's easy to do the same thing in business. For me, that manifested itself as me endlessly refreshing my email inbox. Looking for something to make me busy. Instead of doing work that needed to get done. Completely unproductive. And then I read a book called The Four Hour Workweek and no, I don't only work four hours a week but that book has been HUGE in making me productive and cutting out waste. One of the big takeaways was to use tools to automate and increase productivity. So I wanted to share mine. I'm also curious what other people use. Calendly - I have 20-30 meetings a week. I used to schedule all of them going back and fourth over email. With Calendly, I just give someone a link and they choose a time I'm free for the specific type of meeting we need to have. And it all syncs with my Google Calendar Trello - Trello is a task management system that I use to plan my days. I have a different card for each day and as a rule of thumb, I like to have my day planned in advance so instead of showing up to work and figuring out what I want to do, I can just start executing. What tool do you all use to be productive?
If you work online you have probably noticed how easy it is to watch YouTube videos when you should be working. Personally, I have setup a daily schedule (a notepad document on my computer) with marketing tasks that I must do on that day. It helps me focus on what is important. I can see an increase in traffic and sales. It works for me.
Well, my favorite technique is Eisenhower's urgent/important techniques. That is to say, I try to prioritize my activities in the following manner: 1) Important and Urgent 2) Important but Not Urgent 3) Not Important but Urgent 4) Not Important and Not Urgent If you know your field well enough, it is easy to see what is what. After that I quickly plan my activities and start to act accordingly.
I love that @GeneK that's great! Also @Tom Lindstrom , SelfControl is an app on Mac OS that I use to prevent the watching of YouTube etc. When you turn it on, you can't access social media sites for X amount of minutes. And you can't turn it off unless you restart your computer. It's awesome.
Being more productive is very is! Just follow mantra "Whatever I am going to do I'll give my best" e.g. If your clapping, give your best there also so you will become addicted to give best and ultimately you become more productive than others