Are you working hard or hardly working?

How is your day going? Is it productive, or are you procrastinating? If you ever procrastinate, I have a few tips for you that will make your workday more productive so you can control your day and not have it control you.

1. Plan out the week to have a more productive day: Every Sunday I look at my upcoming work week and plan out what I need to get done. I take into account meetings, appointments and activities that must take place. I then look at my free time and budget the time according to what needs to get done on my To Do list. The key here is to only plan 75% of the day. This will allow for interruptions and other non-planned To Do items.
2. Do important activities in the morning: The morning hours between 9 a.m. and noon have been identified as the period when mental alertness is at its peak for most people. Try to focus your critical activities during your peak period. Use your power hour door hanger to alert people NOT to interrupt you.
3. Take a break: This can be hard to do when you’re on a roll. Studies show that our attention span on large tasks only lasts for 50 minutes. After that we become counterproductive.
4. Use a timer to keep you on track with your activities: If you are not good at scheduling your time or get easily distracted set your timer (there is one on most phones) for 50 min intervals. This will allow you to focus all your attention on the task at hand.
5. Prioritize your tasks: When you plan your day, decide what is truly important, do it first and get it out of the way. It’s easy to postpone the difficult or boring task in our day. These tasks, however, are usually the ones that need to get done and have the most impact on productivity. So suck it up and get it done!
6. Email: Emails are time suckers. Ever go to your inbox and realize half way through the day that all you really did was emails. We may think we’re being productive with emails, but instead they are a big distraction from doing necessary work. So, ONLY look at your email 2x/day. Look at it in the morning (I prefer 1^st thing) and then towards the end of the day. Make this a habit and turn on your timer (Tip 4) so you don’t exceed your time limit on emails.
7. Clean your desk: Research shows that a messy desk can impact productivity. So tidy up your stuff and get rid of what you don’t need.
8. Get a good night sleep: Rest leads to a more productive work day. We all experience days in which nothing gets done because we’re exhausted. Taking care of yourself will ensure that you are able to have a productive day. So eat well, get lots of sleep and ensure that self-care is a top priority for you. You are worth it!

Use these tips to gain control of your day. Review the list and decide which one’s will have the most impact for you and implement them. Be observant of the results. You may surprise yourself and say…wow, I had a productive day!

What do you do to be more productive in your workday? Feel free to leave a comment below or shout out to us on Facebook or Twitter. Of course, you could always write your own blog post on the subject and share it with us… We’d love to read it!

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