How to be more productive

How to Be More Productive: 10 Tips for Work and Life

“Productivity” is an overused word. Or rather, the context in which it appears is. People tend to treat productivity as a standalone notion—detached from the rest of your life and somehow “hackable” with a series of apps.

I think that productivity is a conscious decision. In fact, it’s a series of conscious, purposeful decisions that you make for your own good. “Boosting” productivity isn’t a one-time event, it’s a long-term commitment in all areas of life.

I’d like to share with you some of the productivity tips I’ve picked up while working at Printful, and get you to skip over the superficial guilt you sometimes feel for “not being productive.” Instead, I want you to unlock your personal style of productivity by understanding the way you function and asking yourself a few questions.

Let’s get to it—10 ways how to be more productive.

1. Always start with you

When you feel you’re being “unproductive,” it’s likely out of comparison—we’re naturally inclined to think the grass is greener on the other side.

While making comparisons is completely normal, the outcome of comparing your productivity to someone else’s is apples and oranges. If you copy someone else’s productivity routine, you’ll end up chasing the idea of productivity rather than your actual goals.

Tip: Remember that another person’s productivity has nothing to do with you. Your productivity, however, starts and ends with you. It’s both liberating and terrifying!

2. Steal productivity tips from people you admire

While it’s a bad idea to chase after someone else’s dreams, it’s a good idea to follow someone whose dreams you share.

Most of what I’ve learned about productivity (and not copy+pasted) comes from my friends, family, and people who I relate to or who inspire me. Interestingly enough, most of these people don’t see themselves as “productivity coaches”, nor do they see what they do as “productivity hacks.” For them, it’s a way of life.

I recently came across a fantastic work productivity tip from Kate Lewis, Chief Content Officer at Hearst Magazines. She says she creates an extensive weekly to-do list and immediately throws it out. What she remembers is what sticks, and the rest proves to be irrelevant enough to be forgotten. Now, this might not be the best approach for work, but it’s definitely worth a try for errands!

Tip: Who do you find inspiring as a person? Warren Buffet? Your dad? Oprah? Check out their productivity habits and look out for other ideas while you’re browsing the media. The right tips will find you and will be fun to implement.

3. Be realistic about your to-do list

Kate Lewis’ approach to to-do lists illustrates a major productivity cornerstone—prioritizing. If you keep long, static lists of things you don’t even get around to doing, the problem is you’re treating everything as a priority.

You probably have a to-do list somewhere (or several) that’s giving you anxiety. Get it out and take a long, hard look at the items that have been lingering. Be honest—they probably fall under one of the following categories:

Now, go ahead and delete everything that falls under the second, third, and fourth category. We’ll get to the first one in a minute.

Tip: Save your to-do lists only for what you really need or want to do.

4. Prioritize tasks as they come in

Managing your workload isn’t just about keeping a list. A big part of staying productive is reacting to incoming tasks and ideas, and sorting them before they fall into that “nice to have” category that ends up cluttering your mind.

At Printful, we’re fans of the Getting Things Done (GTD) system by David Allen. When you do a bit of research, you’ll find that it overlaps with the Eisenhower Box and other methods.

The Eisenhower Box

This is how to apply GTD the moment you receive a new “thing to be done”:

It’s important to keep all your notes in a single space that you can easily access and review—a mix of app+notebook+email+post-its will soon get out of hand. Some of our favorites for productivity software include Google Keep, Evernote, Things, Microsoft To Do, and Any.do. And then there’s good old paper and pencil.

For prioritization to work, you have to enjoy using your productivity tools. Note that the first one you try might not be the right fit. I go for a combination of Google Keep for upcoming and ongoing tasks, and a notebook for quick, unexpected tasks I have to resolve the same day.

Google Keep in dark mode

Tip: If task prioritization is new for you, be patient with yourself. Changing habits is hard and takes a bit of time, but it’s worth the effort.

5. Break up bigger tasks

Remember the first category of to-dos I mentioned earlier, those important, scary ones? A productivity tip you’ll often find is to break them down into smaller, less scary ones. So rather than facing a big, overwhelming task (or the desired outcome), you see actionable steps to get you there.

I don’t always like the idea of crowding my Google Keep with too many predefined baby-steps—I know I’ll just get frustrated with not taking each baby-step as I had intended. Instead, I update the entry until the task is completed.

So, if I were creating an important email campaign for any of the upcoming holidays, the updates might go like this: “organize campaign brainstorm,” “create campaign draft,” “finalize copy and visuals,” “schedule campaign.” And once the entire task is completed, remember to monitor the results. For the holiday email campaign, I’d change my Google Keep entry to “check on holiday campaign in 5 days.”

Tip: Walk before you run—give each step the time it deserves. Don’t start drawing up what you assume to be the final product while still at the brainstorming stage.

6. Work with a sense of purpose

I believe the key to productivity lies in purpose. Once you’ve defined the purpose of what you’re doing, productivity will follow.

One of the great American writers of our time, Nora Ephron, has said: “I don’t write a word of the article until I have the lead. It just sets the whole tone—the whole point of view.” An idea that extends well beyond writing, wouldn’t you agree?

Tip: When defining this purpose, be brutally honest (you don’t have to tell anyone!). Are you working on something to improve your skills? Make money? Help out a friend? There’s no wrong answer.

7. Communicate with your team

You may have noticed that your productivity is also influenced by the habits of the people around you. Unsurprisingly, teamwork is a great asset for boosting productivity.

Solving problems on your own is fantastic, but sometimes it’s one of the least productive things you can do. If you’re stuck for a long time, you’ll start going in circles and feel annoyed. That’s when you need to step away and ask someone to lend you a hand—you’ll save time and energy for yourself and your team.

When communicating issues, delegating tasks, and giving answers, be brief and to-the point. It’s a good mental exercise, shows courtesy, and shows you’re in control. Say, someone on your team has asked you to share a Google Doc with them, and you have no idea where it is. Instead of wasting time replying “Oh no, hold on, I’ve no idea what folder I put it in, let me check if I can find it in my inbox [+ emoji],” try “On it, I’ll let you know in 10 minutes.”

Tip: Not reacting to someone’s message is also a reaction (usually interpreted as “I don’t care”). Save time for both parties and acknowledge the situation by saying you need to think about it. It’s a perfectly valid response that keeps the ball rolling.

8. Rethink your mobile habits

Getting sucked into a vortex of mobile apps is a headache for many. It starts with “I’m just going to check the weather real quick” and ends with you mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed (stop telling yourself it’s “research” for a project).

Being up-to-date with current affairs is important, but not to the point of shifting focus on someone else’s life instead of your own. Whatever’s going on with you and the people next to you at any given moment is often way more important than any social media post.

There are two main ways to manage app overuse. You can either set up some kind of downtime function or app blocker as a quick technical fix, or really ask yourself why you’re picking up your phone in the first place. Why go on your phone at a time you’ve specifically set aside for completing a task? Is the task boring? Do you need help? Is something distracting you?

Tip: I picked up this one only recently, and it’s freakishly simple. If your line of work allows it, keep your phone off your workspace (I put mine in my bag). Although my desk feels a bit naked, I like having the phone out of my field of vision while I’m concentrating on my computer screen. Another good one is to sign out of your social media accounts after using them. Logging back in will take more taps than usual, giving you time to check in with yourself if it’s really necessary.

9. Feel productive by looking after yourself

Your body is the vehicle of your “productivity,” making sleep, exercise, and a balanced diet the three pillars of self-care you can’t ignore or substitute.

Your sleep pattern is as unique as your fingerprints, so find the one that makes you feel your best. Take proper rest breaks–no coffee, no phone, no people–and nap, if you must. I know people who do just fine with 6 hours of sleep, and I’ve heard of med-students going to bed straight after their 5 p.m. class and waking up to burn the midnight oil.

I’m seated for most of the workday (and often too lazy to use my standing desk). That’s why for exercise, I’ve gone for a workout routine rooted in physiotherapy. There’s a lot of core stuff. On some days it’s not unlike slow torture, but I’ve never had a better confidence booster. I spend less time worrying about my appearance which leaves me more focused on what I have to do.

Since the workouts, I’ve also become more aware of how everything in the body is connected—legs, butt, spine—everything. So now I make a conscious effort to make my body work outside the gym, too—I try to stand up straight, I’ve stopped crossing my legs while sitting, and I no longer shift the weight of my body on one leg while standing. Over time, these habits cause muscular disbalance, making you slouchy and tired.

Another thing—please enjoy your meals. Try to extend your lunch break by 5-10 minutes to properly chew your food. You’ll notice you actually need a smaller portion size, and you’ll skip over the post-meal drowsiness straight to a more productive day.

Tip: The week after you’ve read this, make small changes to the way you sit, stand, and eat. See how they affect your productivity and well-being.

10. Be OK with procrastination

Lastly, accept that you’re not a machine and there’ll be days when your brain is going to make you take a break. You’ll feel sluggish, uninspired, and blank.

When it happens, don’t panic and use procrastination to your advantage. Go slow, and soak up some inspiration—catch up on your reading, listen to a podcast, or watch a movie. There’s even a TedTalks playlist for procrastinators to help you put your downtime to good use.

Tip: Don’t try to snap out of your procrastinating mood, it’ll only make it worse. Embrace the void and remember that “this too shall pass,” an adage that goes for both procrastination and productivity.

Final thoughts: personality over productivity

Cultivating productivity means building your entire personality. So, what kind of person are you going to be? A flaker who refuses to pull their weight, or a proactive doer?

Leaving unproductive habits unchecked only creates obstacles. Whenever you postpone something, choose to ignore something, or take up a forgotten project the very last minute, all you do is keep adding those hurdles.

What I’d really want you to do is to not be discouraged neither by this, nor any other list of productivity tips, and set your own rules. Only you can define what being productive means for you, and only you can reach the goals that will make you fulfilled and happy.

How To Be More Productive: 18 Top Tips To Help You (Don’t Miss The Last One!)

Before you read one more article on how to be more productive or maximizing productivity in every second of every day, remember this: Be kind to yourself and your mistakes.

You can’t expect to be more productive overnight.

You’ve probably spent years cultivating your work habits–both good and bad, consciously or subconsciously–and those won’t immediately change.

Small adjustments can lead to more lasting changes, but those may take time and discipline. It looks really easy when you’re reading a productivity article like this to think it’s easy. But it’s not. I’m not writing this from an expert point of view, but from a fellow worker in the fight against distraction.

So be patient and kind through the rough patches and try again.

How To Be More Productive: 18 Top Tips

How to be More Productive: Part I – Work & Efficiency

1. Make a reasonable to-do list...

…and don’t overwhelm yourself. To-do lists often fail because we make them way too complex or the tasks are unequal. Some tasks will take a long time, others won’t take any time at all. This creates an unbalance in the way we distribute our time. What happens then is that our to-do list then becomes a procrastination tool. Yes, that’s right. Because then we do the easy stuff, and then become really distracted on the hard stuff.

Don’t lie, you’ve done that before. So then you need to manage your to-do list better.

2. Set small goals for the tasks.

With every new project or assignment, the scope may seem too large. But once you start breaking it down and realizing what can be accomplished, you’ll notice how each part builds upon the other.

One of the easiest and most practical things you can do is to break down your project into smaller goals.

Break up key pieces of information before setting timelines, and then estimate how long they’ll take you to accomplish.

Understanding the scope of what’s being asked, putting the steps in place, and then estimating the time needed will help you get a grasp of what’s being asked. Sometimes what seems like a big project won’t take much time at all, or vice versa.

3. Focus on one goal at a time.

We just talked about how you should get in the habit of setting small goals for tasks. Now we move on to focusing on one at a time. Hopefully outlining your project ahead of time in the section before lets you know which tasks are most important, but how does your organization determine what’s important? Ultimately its for your team to decide, but you can track OKRs, KPIs, and other metrics to indicate productivity.

Whatever your company’s priority is, it’s your job to execute. Try the 90-90-1 rule. It also works if you’re managing a team.

Here’s what you do: Commit the first 90 minutes of your day for 90 days to the most important task. Suggested by HR guru, Robin Sharma, it will focus your priorities before the day even really gets going.

It’s also very practical. It’s not spending all of your time every day on one single thing.

You can also set up projects to focus on this one goal and to make sure that it aligns with your overall company goals.

4. Stop multi-tasking.

While we’re on the topic of focusing on one task or goal at a time, let’s talk about multitasking. Its easy to get distracted and try to work on multiple tasks, but the reality is, it makes you LESS productive.

The constant task switching is making us more tired and reducing productivity. It’s taking up brain energy to switch and change that often. We aren’t being more productive, we’re skimming over the surface of things. The modern workplace environment won’t support you in your quest to be more focused–it’s virtually an impossible task when Slack, Skype and Salesforce are jockeying for our attention.

Here’s a quote from a more credentialed person than me. A neuroscience behavior professor Daniel Levitin at McGill says:

“That switching comes with a biological cost that ends up making us feel tired much more quickly than if we sustain attention on one thing.” And you know what else? Caffeine won’t necessarily help us. In fact, we probably just need to take a break for awhile instead…People eat more, they take more caffeine. Often what you really need in that moment isn’t caffeine, but just a break. If you aren’t taking regular breaks every couple of hours, your brain won’t benefit from that extra cup of coffee.”

Ouch. Don’t tell my favorite barista.

To really stop multi-tasking, you may need apps to block you from clicking over. This will keep the distractions at bay, especially for us constant consumers.

5. Find a method for delegating and following up.

It’s one thing to give your team tasks and projects; it’s another thing to make sure they finish the work and get it done. Then passing it off for approvals is another piece of the pie that you have to tackle.

Finding a reliable method for tracking your team’s projects will make your work more efficient. Collaboration tools and project management software like Workzone can definitely help with this, but you also have to commit to using tools like this so you don’t let down your fellow co-workers. But your individual part is important in this, too. The more you update and follow up with next steps, it’ll help your co-workers stay on track, too.

6. Create a proactive dashboard.

This idea is from Noah Kagan, the founder of AppSumo. Essentially, this is a measurable task list. If you’re noticing that a certain task is having a big effect on our business or is a necessary task that you need to keep doing, then list out the number of times that you need to do that task each week. The goal here is to record inputs, not just outcomes.

This is especially useful for marketers. If you know you need to tweet or write a certain number of LinkedIn posts, then you can list these out and make sure you do that number for the week. Here’s an example of my proactive dashboard:

Watch this video from Noah Kagan to grab your own proactive dashboard template.

Another way to use a proactive dashboard is using your team’s project management software during team meetings to track progress on projects. There are plenty of alternatives out there including Gantt Chart software.

See it in Action

7. Pick one task and then do it.

This is very difficult because sometimes our projects aren’t a 30-minute or one-hour job. It may take 8 hours or multiple days. What’s the answer then? Break it up into one task and then do that one task to its completion. But how long should that be? And what’s reasonable? I think most of our days are broken into hour segments. Which then is really 45 to 50 minutes. We have meetings that start on the hour, take a lunch hour, or schedule a call for an hour. Working consistently for 45 minutes on one thing makes sense, but is very difficult.

The Pomodoro technique suggests 25-minute blocks of time, with short 5 minute breaks, followed by longer breaks later on.

Pomodoro helps you eliminate interruptions and helps you estimate how long a certain task will take you. Read more about the Pomodoro technique in this article.

8. Follow the 2 pizza rule for meetings.

Meetings definitely can slow down momentum, especially when there’s a huge crowd of 30 people to “brainstorm.” We know how that goes. The same people who always talk will talk. The silent ones will stay silent.

If you have to order more than 2 pizzas to feed the team you’re meeting with, then it’s too big. There will not be enough discussion. Not enough ideas will be expressed. Instead, if you have a team made up of only people who would eat two pizzas, more vibrant ideas will emerge. More people do not necessarily equal better ideas or faster action. It slows things down considerably.

People are less interested and feel less personally responsible if the idea stalls and stagnates. The accountability is lost.

9. Group similar tasks together.

When we switch between tasks, we naturally create friction. Starting and stopping. Opening and closing. Beginning and ending. All of those small moments add up and break our concentration. Then we get distracted and forget why we even were reviewing something in the first place. But the way to cut down on switching between tasks is to group similar ones together. Don’t respond to just one email and then move on. Respond to all of them and then don’t come back until several hours later. Or batch all of your emails together.

How to be More Productive: Part II – Mind, Body, & Soul

10. Identify your personal work patterns.

Tracking your time, even if no one is asking you for it can help you understand your work habits and the time of day when you finish work most successfully. This might actually hold the key to how to be more productive because learning from your patterns will allow you to focus on where you are (and aren’t) most productive.

Tracking your time efficiently, knowing what your tech habits are, from when you check your email to how often you check your favorite websites or social media can affect your workday in a big way. Check out browser extensions like Freedom that limit time on social sites or non-work sites. This takes discipline!!

By re-arranging some of those things, you may be able to get more done. Tracking your time for a week or two will help you see where you spend your time, and will help you better estimate your goals from #1 a little bit better the next time around. The next time you’re asked to repeat a task, you’ll have a better sense of the amount of time needed.

You’ll also notice problem areas, where you tend to be less productive or identify certain scheduling quirks that you can work around–such as weekly meetings or appointments or even when that one coworker comes by to chat for a few minutes.

One method that may help is a bullet journal. This is my favorite breakdown of how to make that happen, complete with symbols!

11. Figure out your 2 peak hours.

Some of us are morning people, some of us are night owls. With the modern business environment changing, there may be ways to accommodate your natural energy more than ever.

Maybe “the office” doesn’t open until 9 am, but your peak creative energy is from 5 am to 7 am. Personally, I find myself most productive when most people are winding down their day, around 4 pm to 7 pm and then after 8 pm. Often, I’ll purposely take some of that time away or schedule more less-strategic tasks during hours when I’m not as engaged. It’s suggested that we should find at least 2 hours a day to dive into the harder strategic work and leave the other hours for meetings or less urgent tasks.

You’ll also identify patterns and when you could engage in “deep work” or the idea of focused work for longer periods of time. This is a productivity concept from Georgetown professor Cal Newport. Some work (like answering emails) is shallow, while others (like coming up with new campaign concepts or intense photo editing) may need more focused time or “deep work.”

12. Throw stuff away and declutter.

Did you know your physical environment impacts your work and productivity? And I don’t mean just if you work in a “cool” office or not. Depending on your company and your role in the company, that’s largely out of your control. But you can control your workspace.

It helps you be more productive when you don’t have to hunt and peck for whatever that missing thing is. You’ll save time by not doing that. You’ll also get more clarity and focus for your tasks at hand. Check out more tips here.

13. Find time to walk or exercise.

I’ve worked in office parks, in downtown business districts, and from home. And in every place, I try to find time to walk at least once a day. That could be around the parking lot, down the street, or in the park, and it’s more refreshing than anything on social media.

This isn’t about staying in shape or losing weight, not that those are bad things. But exercise can help you be more productive because it increases your alertness. Because it increases your blood flow and cardiovascular health, you’ll be less anxious, more focused, and more capable of dealing with stress.

14. Stop…

…and reflect. When you’re responsible for getting multiple projects out the door, you have to take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, what needs to be prioritized, and what needs to be changed. Building in time to review isn’t wasting time but optimizes your work moving forward. For more on post-project reflection, check out this post.

15. Be accountable to another person.

For those that work in teams, this seems obvious. Using an automated project management system will notify you of the next task when it’s finished. But you may need accountability on everyday tasks too. Like if you accomplished the goals in your proactive dashboard (see #…), or spent another time on strategic brainstorming or setting up campaigns.

Find someone you trust that will support you and not beat you up for your failure. You need an encourager. This could be your supervisor, but more than likely it’s a colleague that can help you stay on track. And maybe you can help them as well.

16. Ask for help on stuff you don’t understand.

If you’re prideful (like me!), you don’t like to ask for help on things you feel like you should be able to do. This manifests itself in my life by taking way too long trying to format an Excel sheet or create the perfect Powerpoint presentation. Instead, smart people ask for help. And they’re actually viewed by their colleagues as being smarter.

Not to mention, this could save you tons of time in the long run. Yes, it may be difficult at first to sparse out a few extra minutes here and there to watch a video or call a support line, but in the end, it’ll help you be more efficient with those tasks.

17. Get sunlight.

Now that more workers have shifted to remote environments, this productivity tip is more relevant than ever. According to a study by Cornell University professor Dr. Alan Hedge in 2018 entitled Daylight & The Workplace Study: How natural light improves worker health, wellness and productivity, you will boost your productivity and alertness with more natural light. Why do you think offices with windows are in such high demand? It also affects the timing of the circadian clock which then impacts your wakefulness and fatigue.

“Workers in offices with optimized natural light reported a 51 percent drop in the incidence of eyestrain and a 63 percent drop in the incidence of headaches, both of which can detract
from productivity.”

Daylight & The Workplace Study: How natural light improves worker health, wellness, and productivity.

I used to work in office buildings where I also found myself in the middle of the floor or stuck in a conference room with no window. Plus, where I live it would get dark early in the wintertime, including the last part of the working day. Not good. What could I do? I bought a lightbox to bring an extra glow to my workspace. Try it if you’re in a similar position.

18. Look at cuddly animal pictures

This is kinda crazy and you may not believe it, but sharing and looking at pictures of cute animal pictures actually increases attention spans and productivity. Don’t believe me? This is hardcore science. If you have a problem with this, then you have a problem with science itself (j/k). But for real–a Japanese study measured performance after looking at cute animals. Yes, they actually did this.

Here’s a quote from the study: “Results show that participants performed tasks requiring focused attention more carefully after viewing cute images.”

Can you believe it? Here this will help you:

Conclusion

So, how to be more productive? You’ve read now that there is no sure-fire way to increase productivity. Increasing productivity is highly personalized and possibly not all these tips would work for you or your team. Maybe a combination of identifying your peak hours and increasing accountability would work wonders.

However, one way to get your team more productive is using project management software designed for full adoption through unlimited training and a helping hand of people who care. Reach out to us to get your team on the same page and delivering more projects on time.

See Workzone in action

Steve Pogue is the Marketing Operations Manager at Workzone. He writes about project management tips and the buying process. When not at Workzone, you can find him playing vintage base ball or relaxing with his family at home.

How to Be More Productive at Work: 15 Smart Tips

Productivity is a quality that we cherish and strive to improve. Every person has own different way of being productive and sometimes even the simplest things and obscure details can help us to make progress in this direction.

Here you can find some practical tips from GanttPRO – online project management tool that can help to be more productive and achieve your business goals.

Nowadays, corporations spend time trying to find successful ways of time management and productive teamwork. Top managers desperately make efforts and spend money to attract management specialists who know for sure how to become productive and improve team’s efficiency. They buy and apply innovative apps for productivity work, structure workflows and track and compensate employees with benefits and bonuses for extra working hours.

People used to work for about 40 hours a week or more and they believed this is an answer to a question how to be productive at work. The eight-hour working day was standardized in the 20th century according to the labor standards. Since then, many new approaches have been applied and many new theories have been created, including the scientific works of the most productive work time.

The first step to being more productive. If you stop rushing, you’re far less likely to be late

Whilst for some people it is enough to change the daily routine only once, for others, changes in plans and habits are a painful process that causes endless pursuit for being productive, which leads to a low motivation and dissatisfaction.

How much time do you need to be productive?

Is it so important to do everything right away and solve problems instantly?

Sometimes you just need to slow down, relax and allow yourself to be not an automatic machine, but a human who doesn’t care about super productivity at work.

For some of your hero-colleagues who got used to working hard all nights long (being ineffective, though), it may look like you are not productive at work and you can do more in less time – you’ll have a chance to prove that it’s not true with you actions and results.

It is necessary to find the right way and the happy medium among all plans, tables, and schedules. This is a solution for people who are looking for answers and want to manage not only their tasks but also success and productivity.

Successful time spreading for being more productive at work. The principle “52/17”

Do you want to be the most productive in your team? Hold on, dreams come true!

What is productive about?

Some companies use special time-tracking programs or applications to learn how to reach a productive working environment. They research habits of the most effective employees and determine abilities that help them get things done.

According to the last researches about a work productivity, the most important thing is a regular ability to have a break. Actually, the most successful and effective employees work for about 52 minutes at one period of time, then have a break for 17 minutes. The fact is proved.

Indeed, people with strong productivity ratings do not even work 8 hours. Scientists have proven that a secret of remaining at high-performance levels is not to work longer, but to work smarter and get regular breaks. According to their point of view, if you have a goal, which is visible and which you can achieve in this period of time, without being distracted by other things, you’ll definitely reach success.

These 52 working minutes is quite a serious length and a 17-minute break should be enough to completely relax from the current work. And after all, our brain can’t be focused and active for 8 hours a day, whether you cry and beg to be more productive. This is the key point.

How to become more productive?

Open the cage: an early bird should fly out early

If the principle doesn’t seem very applicable, it’s up to you to go to the other side and try to find your efficiency peak. It is quite possible to find the most productive working hours by paying more attention to your habits. The main idea here is understanding when your energy is at the highest level.

If you are an early bird – just try to schedule your day based on your habit to get up early. Usually, it is not difficult to move the hard work to the beginning of a day.

Keep calm and work smart to be more productive at work

Being productive takes some effort and diligence.

Nevertheless, in order to stay productive, you should consider not just your own feelings and habits, but also ask specialists. Experts advise some basic ways to increase productivity and stick to your personal time management rules.

Ways to be more productive at work:

Such pieces of advice may be appropriate for you or not, but one thing is important – becoming productive and efficient is never too late. Love what you do and do it with passion. Finally, you will find out which productivity tips work best for you. After all, the last important thing about productive work here is instead of thinking why your work is so hard and unbalanced, you should think how it can be changed for the better.

Here in GanttPRO, we’re happy to answer your questions about project scheduling, a Gantt chart template, teamwork, etc. and help you to make your work truly productive.

How to be more productive at work

VIDEO #1 (ex. 4)

VIDEO #2 (ex. 8)

LESSON OVERVIEW

This productivity lesson plan is based on two short videos in which a journalist and book writer Charles Duhigg presents his ideas for boosting work productivity. The worksheet consists of many different exercises that will make your students speak a lot, learn some vocabulary and practise setting SMART goals.

DISCUSSION

The lesson plan starts with two speaking warm-up activities. First, students need to read some quotes connected with work productivity and discuss whether they agree or disagree with them, and of course explain their opinion. Then, in the next task they have a list of factors and they need to talk about the ones that badly affect their work productivity. Before watching videos, students do one more task, that is they have to complete a few sentences with correct prepositions to create such phrases as: pay attention to, feel in control, keep track of, etc.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Students watch the first video which is about 5 tips for being more productive. They need to work in pairs. Student A needs to remember tips 1-3, whereas student B tips 4-5. The video is fast so they can listen to it twice to get all the information they need. Then, they tell each other what tips the speaker gives. After that, students move to a very short discussion about usefulness of the tips mentioned in the video.

Before watching the second video, students do one vocabulary task. They have to add two more synonyms to the words provided. Then, they discuss three lead-in questions about to-do lists. Next, they watch the second video and answer questions about to-do lists and SMART goals.

SETTING SMART GOALS

The last page of this productivity lesson plan consists of one practical task. Students read more about SMART goals and what the acronym SMART stands for, as well as read one sample to-do list. After learning more about the idea, students need to approach such a to-do list themselves and write down a stretch goal and at least 5 SMART goals. Let them focus on a professional or personal stretch goal. If you want to limit their options, you might prepare several stretch goals yourself and ask them to prepare SMART goals to them.

Extra Worksheet – Commonly confused words in English

When talking about productivity, there are two words often used: effective and efficient. These are two of the most confusing words in English and often wrongly used by students. See our extra worksheet where we focus on such commonly confused words to show students how they should be used. This extra worksheet includes 3 activities in which students will study 16 pairs of confusing verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

WORKSHEETS

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Mark Manson

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How to Be More Productive by Working Less

Productivity is more about what you don’t do than what you do. Focused effort on your most important tasks is a skill that can be practiced and perfected.

I t took me 18 months to write The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck. Over that time period, I wrote somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 words for the book (about 600 pages). Most of that came in the final three months. In fact, I can confidently say I got far more done in the final three months than I did in the first 15 combined.

Now, is that because I was on a deadline and worked like an insane person? Did I shove Adderall up my ass and work in 36-hour spurts or something?

No, in fact, those last three months, I worked less each day than I did the first 15, yet I still accomplished far more.

In this article, I’d like to make a simple argument (backed with lots of shitty images I created in MS Paint): that when it comes to productivity, things are not what they seem.

Every productivity book on the planet, from David Allen to Benjamin Franklin, tells you more or less the same thing: wake up at the ass-crack of dawn and drink some stimulating liquid, segment your work periods into bite-sized chunks organized by urgency and importance, keep fastidious lists and calendars, and schedule appointments 15 weeks in advance and be early to everything.

Fuck that. I hate mornings. You know what my “morning routine” usually is? Jerk off and read Facebook. And if I’m lucky, the garbage on my newsfeed will piss me off enough that I’ll start writing without even realizing it (after all, what’s more important than proving to someone on the internet that they’re wrong?).

The truth is, I do some of my best writing at 3 AM while blasting Every Time I Die into my eardrums. I take random Thursdays off. I hate calendars and after running my own online business for almost 10 years, I still don’t have one.

That’s what works for me and probably not what works for you. So why even bother talking about it?

I believe productivity is a deeply personal thing. We all have different brains and, therefore, different preferences, perspectives, and situations where we feel most effective. Thus, the few times I’ve attempted to wade into the productivity waters on this site, instead of jerking off over new apps or morning rituals, I’ve focused on understanding one’s own psychology.

Aside from birthing me my first grey hairs and keeping me up at night more times than I’d like to count, The Subtle Art taught me a lot about the nature of work. And a lot of that had to do with how my perception of the work itself evolved over the course of writing the book. So much so that I want to take some time and write a post about the nature of work itself.

Because see, this may surprise you, but not all work is created equal.

Productivity tips for, say, painting a landscape in watercolors, are probably not useful for finishing your tax returns on time. Or the advice that might help you come up with a way to re-organize the team you manage to get rid of some bottlenecks is not the same advice that would help you clean your apartment faster.

Table of Contents

Work as a Linear Function

Most of us, for most of our lives, conceptualize work as a linear function. What I mean by “linear” is that the amount of productive output you create is directly proportional to the number of hours you input.

So working for two hours will produce twice the results as one hour. And eight hours will produce four times that of two hours.

We all kind of go through life assuming this is the way things work (for the most part). This is mostly because school work functions pretty linearly. They give you a bunch of stuff to memorize, and if you spend two hours memorizing it, you’ll remember about twice as much as if you had spent one hour.

Then we get older and stop picking our noses in public and we just assume that the rest of life will function the same way.

The truth is that most thoughtful, brain-intensive work does not unfold like this. And this feels really unfair to us. So we spend a lot of time complaining to our parents and making excuses that our bosses don’t appreciate our “genius” or whatever.

The only work that is linear is really basic, repetitive stuff. Like hauling bales of hay. Or packing boxes. Or really obnoxious data entry on gigantic spreadsheets. Or operating the fryer at McDonald’s.

Four hours is twice as productive as two hours is twice as productive as one and so on.

Sadly, the “work as a linear function” is where all the religion of “Bro, you’ve just gotta hustle” comes from in the startup world. Since, in their minds, 16 hours of work is twice as productive as eight, the logical conclusion is that you’re all just a bunch of lazy sacks of shit, and you should be putting butter in your coffee at 4 AM and coding until your eyeballs bleed. Hustle, hustle, hustle.

As we’ll see, as well-intentioned and glamorous as the Religion of Hustle is, it often backfires on people. Because the truth is that most types of work (especially work that will make you some money in modern society) does not produce linear returns, it produces diminishing returns.

Work That Produces Diminishing (or Even Negative) Returns

Imagine that you went outside and jogged for 10 minutes. This would be a healthy thing to do.

Now imagine you went outside and ran for 20 minutes. It’d also be healthy, but it wouldn’t necessarily be twice as healthy as the 10 minutes.

What if you ran for an hour? Well, you’d definitely push yourself, but chances are you’d still see most of the benefits from those first 10 minutes of exercise.

Exercise has diminishing returns for the simple reason that your muscles tire out. And as your muscles tire out, their ability to be stimulated for further growth diminishes until it’s more or less non-existent. Spending two hours in the gym gets you little to no extra benefit to spending an hour. And spending an hour only gives you slightly more benefit than spending 45 minutes.

Most work is this way. Why? Because, like a muscle, your brain tires out. And if you’re exercising your brain by doing any sort of problem-solving, or important decision-making, then you’re limited in how much you can effectively accomplish in a day.

My wife used to work in the advertising industry and, like many industries, there was a fetish for working insane hours, especially when a major presentation or campaign proposal was due. People would stay late, often working until 9 or 10 o’clock at night. Sometimes they would come in on Saturdays.

But she noticed that most of this extra time was pretty ineffective. The four hours at the end of the day, from say 6 PM to 10 PM, contributed about as much usable work as the first two hours of the day. People were essentially slaving away for marginal benefits.

And in worst case scenarios, people would start producing bad work or make bad decisions because they were so tired. And when you accumulate enough bad work and bad decisions, you actually unintentionally create more work for yourself. So you go from working for diminishing returns to working for negative returns.

You dumbass, now look what you’ve done.

This happened to me when I started working on The Subtle Art. I was hanging out with a few other writers and we’d get together for “write-a-thons” and bang out as many words as humanly possible in an afternoon. It was basically one big pissing contest where we’d gloat about our word counts over drinks later that evening.

My best day was 8,000 words, all in about 6 hours of work.

“Holy shit!” I thought, “I just produced 32 pages in a single day!” All you would need is 10 days of that kind of productivity to write an entire book.

There was just one problem.

I mean all of it. When I eventually went back to revise the chapter a few weeks later, out of those 8,000 words, there were maybe 500 that were usable.

The problem is that it took me four days to sort through all the garbage, re-write the few parts that were salvageable, and make the decision to delete the parts that just sucked.

Suddenly, my 8,000-word burst of “massive” creativity created so much extra work for myself that I would have been better off not writing at all that day.

This was a huge realization for me. When it comes to creative work, not only is there a diminishing return, but at a certain point, writing more produced a negative return. Because bad writing isn’t just bad—bad writing creates more work for yourself, because it requires way more time to revise and edit.

I spent most of the first year writing The Subtle Art with this mindset of “more = better.” As a result, looking back, I spent at least half of my working hours fixing the messes I created unnecessarily in the first place.

Eventually, after months of frustration, I began to notice that most days, everything I wrote in the first 1-2 hours was great. It needed little revision and usually fit quite well with the message I was trying to go for in the book.

Everything written between 3-4 hours was mixed. On good days, I’d produce some good content (although almost never as good as the first two hours). But on bad days, most of it wasn’t usable and I was creating more work for myself.

Pretty much everything beyond hour number four sucked. Past that, any writing I attempted had negative returns and I was strangely better off playing video games or something.

It wasn’t until I had been writing for over a year that I worked up the courage to try limiting my writing to two hours a day. I was still so stuck in the mindset of linear returns, and I was so invested in this monstrous mess of a first draft (125,000 words, and most of it was shit) that I was afraid to find out that literally 50+% of the previous year’s “work” had not only been pointless, but had actually made me less productive.

But I tried it. And my god, did the book just shoot out of my fingers like my undiscovered Jedi powers. I banged out a new draft of the book in two months flat.

Me writing the second draft of my book in record time.

My guess is that most creative work operates on a negative returns curve. I know in the past when I’ve done design work, I’ve tinkered with an image so much that I can’t even tell if it looks good or not anymore. I would then spend half the night trying to make it “look right,” only to wake up in the morning realizing the idea sucked in the first place and I was better off starting over.

Work that’s highly social or requires a lot of team building can produce negative returns too. If you always need to be on point, then whenever your energy or mood slips, you might actually end up repelling customers, costing you potential long-term profits. Micromanaging the hell out of your employees won’t only not make them more productive, they’ll come to hate you and be even less motivated to produce results for you in the future.

Leverage and Deleverage Points

So again, not all work is created equal.

Every business, job, or project has what I call a leverage point that instantly makes everything else you do more effective.

If you’re a team manager, it might be some ritual you create to keep morale high among your workers. If you’re a programmer, it might be educating yourself on new types of databases. If you work in face-to-face sales, it might be spiffying up your appearance and learning how to understand your customers on an emotional level.

When it comes to online content, branding is a leverage point—it’s something that the more you work on and perfect, the more it will have a multiplier effect on everything else—sales will come easier, traffic will stick better, people will talk about you and spread your content more efficiently.

So, accomplishing some aspects of your job well can make everything else that much easier…

… Or that much harder.

My one and only “real” job was at a bank for a grand total of about six weeks. This bank (which shall remain nameless) had a very specific procedure for a certain type of data entry that involved software as old as my mother and a totally backwards-ass way of inputting the data. It made the entire process mind-numbingly slow.

Essentially, the bank had created what I call a deleverage point—work that made all other work slower and more difficult.

But about as soon as I pointed out to my boss that all of this work could be handled by a simple script and compiled into a spreadsheet, I was told to sit down, shut up, and enter the data how I’d been told to.

I quit a few weeks later.

Strategic Laziness as a Leverage Point

Let’s pretend you love Indian food. You love it more than your spouse and your kids. You love it so much you’d bathe in mango chutney if you could afford that much mango chutney.

Now, let’s say you go out to your favorite Indian spot and engorge yourself. We’re talking on the order of 4,000 to 5,000 calories in one sitting. Like Monty Python in “The Meaning of Life” type gluttony.

Now, imagine you roll yourself out of the restaurant, and then someone comes up and offers you some fresh samosas and chutney (or maybe a thin mint). How would you feel?

We’ve all been in that state where we overeat a food we like and then the mere thought of that food for the following week makes us nauseous and we question the meaning of our own existence.

But then, a week later, Indian food doesn’t sound so bad. And then about another week or two later, you’re all geared up to go back to your favorite Indian spot and stuff yourself blind all over again.

Your brain works the same way with productivity.

See, solving problems is like food for your mind. It makes your mind happy. It makes it feel important and worthy and capable—all things directly linked to happiness.

But solving problems is to your mind as food is to your stomach. It needs a variety of stimulation and too much of one kind will cause it to get sick and tired.

But what’s amazing is that this leisure time—this ability to distract one’s brain away from problem-solving and work—actually makes your brain far more effective upon returning to work.

I know, I know—it’s crazy, but weekends and vacation really do exist for a reason.

When I started my business in 2008, I was a bona fide work-a-holic. I was pulling 14/15-hour days and rarely taking days off. And although I traveled constantly, I rarely took “vacations” per se. It was more like, “hey, that beach looks like a really beautiful place to check my email for the next two hours.”

It wasn’t until I met my wife (who had a steady 9-5) that she put her (high-heeled) foot down and was like, “Hey fucknuts, put the laptop away and spend some time with me at the beach.”

I, of course, was horrified. It was like asking someone to leave the house without their right arm.

“But what about my emails?” I stammered.

I spent that first night in a fetal position, shaking. I had dreams where my website was hacked and my identity stolen and there was nothing I could do. I imagined the web servers spontaneously bursting into flames at the same time my bank accounts were being drained.

None of that happened, of course.

In fact, what happened was the complete opposite. Sitting there on that beach for five days, with no phone, no computer, no electronics—just me and a wonderful woman and my thoughts, I began to see my own work more clearly than I had ever seen it before. It was as if I had spent five years huddling over my business, scrutinizing and obsessing over every part and detail, and then hopping into a hot air balloon, and gliding so high above that I could see the whole thing with more perspective than I ever had before.

And it was on that beach that I came up with two ideas that would change my life.

The first was changing this website to markmanson.net (BRANDING. LEVERAGE POINTS. ). Within six months, traffic increased 5-fold and my income 3-fold. The site would soon be read by millions of people, shared in over 100 countries, and get me published in some of the most prestigious publications around the world. And this would all happen while doing fewer hours of work than I had been doing before.

Whereas I had spent years trying to grow my website through sheer willpower and time commitment, it was by letting go of what was not working that my business took off without even needing me in it half the time.

The other idea I had on that beach was my book.

If you’re ready to step back and take a long hard look at your life to find your leverage points, I recommend checking out my Build a Better Life Course in The Subtle Art School. In it, I guide you through six exercises that will help you figure out where you can be getting the most bang for your buck so you can, drumrolls, build a better life. You’re welcome.

How to Live a Healthy, Productive Life

Creating discipline in your life can seem like a never ending battle—but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve put together a 55-page ebook on developing rock-solid self-discipline and healthy habits. Put your email address in the form below and I’ll send it to you.

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