2019: a new year, a clean slate for you to use however you want, to achieve whatever you desire. This year more than ever before, you have the potential to grasp the objects of your dreams and hopes, but this cannot be possible without the right plan of action. You’ve got 365 days ahead of you to tick off your to-dos, gather your resources and use them efficiently to smash your goals – it might feel very overwhelming right now but it’s completely possible! And chances are, if you returned to the blog to read this new post, you’ve got yourself an ally in this crazy, yet perfectly feasible endeavour: yours truly.
I am passionate about everything productivity-related, and I love looking up new methods and strategies that I can use to produce work of higher quality with the resources that I have, could it be for university, for my part-time job or for this blog. Some of these techniques have done wonders for my work style and ethic, and I am going to share them with you today.
These will be your new armour and weapons to use in the year to come.
1) First, devise a planning system.
I’ve talked about planning on the blog before, by sharing some organisation tips that have worked for me and by explaining for you how I plan and organise my work. It might sound as though I’m preaching to the converted, but planning is essential for successful, high-quality work. Planning is what we use to know where to start, how many things need to be done and what the end result will look like. It gives us structure and guidance, and sustains our self-discipline and concentration. If you haven’t got a planning system yet, then what are you waiting for?
There are myriads of styles out there, but one element is fundamental: your to-do list. A space where you can write down all the tasks you want to complete in a limited amount of time, and the steps needed for each of these aims to be fulfilled. Make to-do lists a weekly, if not daily practice: start your week knowing what sort of things you need and want to do. You feel too overwhelmed by everything that’s on your mind to make a neat list? Don’t make a list, make a brain dump. Grab a piece of paper and jot down everything that’s on your mind and once you finish, read it back and give it a bit of structure. Planning is where you start. For more advice on how to plan, check out my previous posts that I’ve done on planning and organisation!
2) Schedule a power hour.
This is a concept coined by the New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin in her podcast Happier, which I highly recommend if you’re looking for more inspirational content on creativity and how to improve your life. The term is quite self-explanatory: it is an hour you schedule once per week for you to power through all the tasks that you’ve dreaded doing, and therefore postponed for so long. We all have those teeny, tiny responsibilities that weigh on our minds – maybe you deliberately avoided picking up the parcel that could not be delivered to your house long ago, or you haven’t made an appointment for your yearly dental check-up although you should’ve last month. They are not urgent, so we never bring ourselves to do them. Like Christmas presents shopping. That’s one thing I procrastinated on quite a bit this year.
Do your future self a favour and schedule in that power hour sometime throughout your week. Then, make it a habit for every week in 2019. You will find that by doing that, your productivity will not be hindered by annoying little tasks you end up thinking about whenever you want to do something truly important. You will also get to make your life easier by staying on top of things and getting responsibilities out of the way until they do become urgent!
3) Use a timer.
This is especially useful if you’re like me and you struggle with procrastination or making a start on work. I already briefly explored time management in my post about the Pomodoro technique, and how this method helps me make progress when I lack the motivation or the drive to put effort in. Try that yourself! Figure how much time you can stay focused for, and aim to work for that specific amount of time before you reward yourself with a break. Repeat the cycle several times before you take a longer break. You will power through your to-do list before you even realise it.
This method also works if you struggle with concentration once you do start working. The first ten minutes of my day are usually the most difficult for me, because I simply can’t bring myself to focus on the task at hand and get the gears in my head going; everything following those ten minutes is a lot easier, though. If you relate, by setting your timer for as short as five minutes and making yourself work for the entirety of that time before you take a break will help you make progress even though you are not fully into it just yet. Grind for a bit in there before you get into the mood: you will, I can assure you of that.
4) Hold yourself accountable.
A lot of the time, for things such as our own academic performance or our creative pursuits, we aren’t really responsible in front of anyone but ourselves: no-one will check on your progress, assess your performance and in some cases, present you with critique if you failed to do the work. And well, this is kind of bad, because we often fail to fulfill our responsibilities towards ourselves, but we are more willing to perform if other people are watching or they will make use of it. If we fail when we are responsible to others, we feel guilty, and that’s actually one thing we can use in favour of our productivity.
Find ways to hold yourself accountable for the work you do or don’t do, in order to persuade yourself to work even when you don’t feel like it. You can do that by finding a study buddy or a friend who wishes to boost their productivity, and update each other on your progress on a regular basis. If not a friend, try following study-with-me type videos on YouTube; that will make you feel as though you are working along with someone else! Also doing your work in motivating environments such as libraries or coffee shops can have a similar effect. One thing I’ve started doing recently is making productivity features on my Instagram stories (follow me here), where I would share my to-do list for the next couple of hours and update my story as I progress. Sharing my goals with my followers makes me feel more motivated to complete them!
These four tips have helped me tremendously in improving my productivity and upping the quality of my work, academic, professional or creative. Please do let me know if you find them helpful! I would also love to hear whatever tips and tricks you have for improving your productivity, so leave a comment down below with your input!
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