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Productivity... The key to doing everything much faster than everyone else. Why do some people finish their tasks and projects within weeks or months, while it takes years for you?

Are we all different and some people can't do tasks as fast as successful people do?

What is the secret? How to be more productive?

Well, there is no secret.

If I told you that there's a secret way to boost your productivity I would be lying.

I bet you have at least once downloaded an app that was meant to make you more productive. There's plenty of these kinds of apps and they all seem to have hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of downloads.

People hope that a simple app is going to fix all of their problems and their life will become wonderful.

I'm not going to offer you to download any of these apps. Quite the opposite in fact... I would recommend staying away from them.

All they really do in the end is take your attention away. They bring your attention to the phone instead of your task at hand.

So, what can you do to finish your tasks faster?

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How To Be More Productive - Manage Your Time

Every single person has the same amount of time in a day. 24 hours. No more, no less. It all comes down to how you use those 24 hours.

If you would ever get the chance to observe a successful person's day, you would definitely notice that his activities throughout the day is much different from the average person.

Time management is probably one of the most important things when it comes to productivity.

You could be throwing out excuses why you can't use your time as effectively as some other people, but those will only be excuses and you won't be able to become very productive.

Try to observe yourself. Observe your actions throughout the day.

A good idea would be to have a journal of some sort. Write down the time you spend on every activity.

For example, you notice that you watch TV for 2 hours a day. Write that down.

Then, you notice that you spend 3 hours a day to surf the internet. You spend majority of that time scrolling through Facebook. Write it down.

Later, you notice that you've spent an hour texting your friends. Your journal is getting fuller.

Finally, you notice that you were absorbed by your phone for a couple of hours before bed.

Here you go, that would be 8 hours that you spend on mostly useless activities. Here's the thing, you spend so much time on those activities, but it doesn't actually feel like you spend that much time washing your brain.

Once you actually observe how much time you spend on nothing, you will see that you really have plenty of free time on your hands that you could be using to be more productive.

Most successful people on earth know how to manage their time. They didn't become successful because they spend 8 hours a day watching TV and playing video games.

So learn how to manage your time first.

And here's some more tips that can help you become more productive:

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1. Keep Your Surroundings Clean

Whether you work at an office or at home, you simply must keep it clean. If you're working in a messy environment, you're going to get distracted for sure.

Trust me, I've learned this the hard way...

Not so long ago, I never used to care about my environment and I didn't think it affected my productivity. Who cares about all the trash that's lying around?

Well, your productivity cares!

I always keep my room extra clean now. It really did make me more productive, because my room often distracted me and my brain simply overloaded all the time.

When I'm in a clean place, my mind is also much cleaner.

Make Your Bed

Also, there's one thing you can do to kickstart your day. Make your bed! Yeah, it's that simple. You will feel like you've started your day by completing a task, thus you will want to complete even more tasks.

If you want to be much more productive, then you have to be productive from the moment you wake up. Usually, the whole day depends on the way your mornings start.

Make this a habit and you won't even notice how you're trying to keep everything clean.

Seriously, when I started to make my bed each and every morning, I notice that I unconsciously clean things up so everything would look better. That means there're less distractions for me, since my mind stays clear as well.

2. Beat Your Bed

If we are talking about beds, we simply must talk about this. Beat your damn bed!

I know, I know... Your bed is the most wonderful thing in the world (aside from triple cheese pizzas), but it can be most dangerous thing for productivity.

The moment you wake up, you must get out of bed immediately or at least really quickly. Don't lie around for hours and hours.

And especially, don't snooze. Snoozing is the worst thing you can do in the morning! If you woke up, try not to fall asleep anymore.

By snoozing you actually make the rest of the day worse, because you might feel completely out of energy and even dizzy.

I used to hit the snooze button like 20 times in a row. Damn, it felt good to sleep for 5 more minutes. But I failed to notice that it completely messed my energy levels. I was basically a zombie all the time.

Even when I didn't hit snooze, I stayed in bed with my face glued to my phone for an hour or so.

Don't do the mistakes that I did if you want to be a more productive person!

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3. Forget About Multi-tasking!

I'm pretty sure a lot of people think that it's an amazing skill to be able to do 10 things at once, but in reality, it's affecting your productivity negatively.

If you are doing many things at once, you can't really put all of your focus into anything, thus it takes much longer to complete your task, plus you never master it.

You might be average at many things, but you'll never be more than that if you keep on multi-tasking. To really master anything, you have to be fully focused on that specific thing.

Sure, you could be writing an article, checking your email, broswing social media, reading a book all at the same time, but your productivity will suffer so much...

Doing more is not always the best option.

Avoid any kind of distractions and immerse yourself within the task at hand. Turn off your phone, so you wouldn't get any calls or app notifications.

A simple notification could take you away from your task for an hour or so. I have experienced this so many times, and sometimes I wouldn't even notice that I'm not doing what I was supposed to do.

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4. Have Some Rituals!

And no... I'm not talking about rituals where you offer your blood to the devil so he would make your life better. I'm talking about daily rituals that would make you productive, like exercise or meditation.

It's a very good idea to have morning rituals, because it will start off your day and you'll feel like doing something useful.

Related:Benefits of Being a Morning Person

For example, you could start your day with 15-20 minutes of exercise, then 20 minutes to read a book and end the morning ritual with 15-20 minutes of meditation.

You would feel extreme focus and concentration. Any task will get done much faster than before, because you already started the day in a very productive way.

Sure, it might be hard to exercise, read and meditate all at once, but you can easily make these activities into habits if you focus onto one of them.

Like I said before, don't multi-task! If you never exercise, read or meditate, then try to make only one activity into a habit.

Each morning exercise for 10-15 minutes. Once you feel comfortable with that, add reading or meditation to your routine. It will be much easier to add one habit at a time, instead of trying to change your life immediately and take up 10 habits at once.

Chances are, you wouldn't add a single healthy habit to your life if you try to add up too much. Even worse, you would feel defeated and you could possibly add an unhealthy habit.

You don't want that to happen, do you?

5. Make To-Do Lists Like a PRO!

To boost one's productivity, a lot of people make a big, no.. HUGE to-do list. Guess what happens then? They never do most of the tasks they set themselves to do.

Why is that? Because when they look at the list, it looks extremely hard to do all those tasks. They start thinking how much easier it would be to just chill out and watch TV or play video games.

So... How can you have a to-do list that doesn't make your brain go BOOM?

Well, it's really not that hard.

All you have to do is divide your goal into smaller goals.

Let's say you are making videos and you add this to your list.

Monday: Make a video about triple cheese pizzas.

Friday: Make a video about why I love triple cheese pizzas.

This is just an example and your to-do list probably doesn't look like this, but you get the idea. Plus your to-do list probably doesn't consist of only one task for a day, so keep in mind that normally there's many more tasks.

Anyway, you open up your list and you see these tasks. You simply don't want to do them, because it feel like it will take so much of your time and it will be difficult to make a whole video.

So, you procrastinate for weeks or months.

But! by breaking down your task into smaller tasks, you can actually approach it with much more motivation and focus.

Here, I'll give you another example. This is how the same task could be made much easier.

Monday: Video about triple cheese pizzas.

Task 1: Do the research to find information for the video.

Task 2: Create the thumbnail for the video.

Task 3: Record the audio or find the required audio.

Task 4: Create the animations.

Task 5: Add some special effects if required.

See? When you see the first task, your brain won't feel overloaded and you'll be more than willing to complete this task. Then, you'll easily do the second task and so on.

When you break it down like this, you'll be much more productive and you'll do more in less time!

And obviously, I don't need to tell you that you should focus on one task at a time, right?

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6. Take a Break You Workaholic!

Isn't it funny that taking a break can make you more productive? I always thought that taking breaks would make my mind focused on something else from the task at hand and it would be harder to finish it...

But, I was wrong.

It's very important for us to relax. Overworking is only hurting your productivity, because your brain can only take so much.

You need to refresh your mind, you need to chill out! Grab a slice of that triple cheese pizza!

When you go to the gym, you don't constantly lift weights until you pass out, do you? You rest in between sets and not only in between sets, but you also have rest days.

So, why would your brain be any different?

It's also like a muscle and it needs rest. You can't simply work for 6 hours straight and expect your productivity to be at its peak the whole time.

The longer you work, the less productive you will be, because you tire out your brain.

Take breaks and do it often, but not for too long. Have a couple of longer breaks as well. I like to go out for a walk to refresh my mind completely.

Also, a short exercise is a great way to take a break from work. It will make your much sharper and focused when you come back to your tasks.

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You Must Observe Yourself!

So, there you have it. That's how to be more productive.

Like I've said, there're no secrets here. All you gotta do is take some action and observe what's making you not so productive.

Time management is one of the most important things, but there are other factors that determine whether you're productive or not.

You can cut out all the TV and computer time from your life, but you could still be the same person who gets nothing done if you're getting distracted by other things.

Observe, identify and make changes!

 

You can also find me on Steemit: @trendo

What makes you more productive? What makes you unproductive? Comment bellow!

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