Be Better at Business in 2015: 8 Productivity Tips for Small Business Success
1. Get it Right From the Morning
The first hour of the morning is the rudder of your day. If you spend it hitting snooze button and struggling to the shower, how do you think the rest of your day will pan out? Productive? Not a chance. But jumping out of bed with vigour and excitement for the new day doesn't come naturally for most of us. Especially the 'night owls' amongst us…
So to boost your productivity from right out of the gate every morning, do yourself a favour and read The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
2. Start With A Plan
How many of you have a daily or even a weekly plan? If you have an overflowing to do list, but you haven't scheduled time to do each item - ie. determining how long it will take to do and when you can realistically do it. Guess how long it will stay on your to-do list? (Hint: Forever). So take an hour at the start of every work week (even on Sunday evening so you can rest soundly), to determine what you need to to for the week ahead and when you're going to have time to complete each task. And then email the plan to yourself, because you're bound to see it there numerous times a day that way!
3. Plan Your Day Based on Your Unique Peaks and Troughs
When you're making your plan try to keep in mind your own body's rhythms. Everyone has their own peak times during the day. And their equally useless times — that afternoon slump, for example. Instead of trying to fight these natural rhythms, work with them. If you know you feel the best around 11, plan to do your most challenging tasks then. And leave the easy but must-do tasks for when you know you won't be on your a-game. Also remember not to berate yourself for these natural troughs. No-one is at their peak all of the time.
4. Don't Work Through Lunch
Do you often work through lunch in order to get more done? Stop that right now! Lunch is more than just satiating hunger, it's an opportunity to take a break, refresh and come at the day with a new, revitalised perspective. Skip lunch and your afternoon is likely to feel sluggish and drawn out. You'll be less productive overall than if you'd taken a half hour break, walked around the block and then got back to business. What's more, a day without lunch will feel longer. If you take a break you can actually work longer hours. Think about it, a twelve hour day without a proper break? Horrible. But two six hour stints with an hour or so between to smell the metaphorical roses? Much more manageable! So when you're making your plan, always schedule time for lunch.
5. Plan to finish at 5:30
Have you ever heard of Parkinson's law? It's the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". And it's true. That's why you always end up leaving the office at 9! Have you ever noticed that that 1 hour task can take up the whole day if you let it? But if you only have 45 minutes to finish it? You'll get it done. It might not be perfect, but it'll be done. So use Parkinson's law to your advantage. Plan to finish at 5:30 and allot time to each task so that you finish on time. Be firm with yourself. If you don't finish it in time, you'll have to reschedule more time next week. Don't let tasks overflow into other time slots. You can even have dun with Parkinson's law. take you laptop to a coffee shop but leave your charger at home. Now you need to get that task done before your computer runs out of juice!
6. Harness the Power of Music!
Ok, here's the excuse you need to blast your favourite tunes. Even if it is with headphones so you don't frustrate everyone else! Music can be a great motivator and productivity enhancer, just remember to choose your music based on the task you need to perform. If you're trying to write or working with numbers, music with lyrics is a bad idea. Stick to some funky upbeat instrumentals instead. But if you're doing other tedious tasks by all means have the red hot chilli peppers playing in the background. It's also been shown that the white-noise like hubbub of a coffee shop can increase productivity for creatives. Even if you can't leave the office, you can simulate the same productive environment with the app Coffivity. So find your jam and crank it!
7. Institute the Two Minute Rule
The general productivity consensus is that if a task takes less than two minutes to complete, you should finish it immediately. Whether that means responding to an email or confirming a doctor's appointment, get those small (but often weighty-feeling) tasks done with, rather than let them collect and snowball. Besides if it takes less than two minutes, you're wasting time writing it on your to-do list when you could be just doing it!
8. Make Your Bad Habits More Difficult
If you check social media or your email every few minutes, you end up wasting a lot of time. What about notifactions on your phone always distracting you from your task? Learn to manage your social media addiction and make these bad habits more difficult by installing programs like StayFocused to limit your time on email and social media and turn off notification on your phone so you can focus! By making those crutches more difficult to access, you'll find you no longer need them as much.
What Are You Business Productivity Tips?
Share your tips in the comments so we can all improve our productivity and our businesses.
