6 Productivity Hacks for Any Working Professional

With every professional task, there comes an opportunity to work smarter, not harder. Doing so ensures you’re able to get everything on your to-do list tackled with the greatest ease. You’re not left wondering how the day passed without you being productive. These six productivity hacks are enough to keep you ahead of the game by ensuring that you’re capable of getting things done with ease and efficiency.

Adopt Bullet Journaling for Keeping Track of Your To-Do List

It may seem like the obvious way to stay on top of tasks is by using digital applications and software. That isn’t necessarily the case. You activate parts of your brain that go unused when you write things down. Bullet journaling is a reliable and accessible way to keep track of your day-to-day obligations with ease. Use the bulleted sheets inside the journal for creating lists that you divide into sections to keep track of your multiple obligations.

Put Your Notifications on Hold

One of the biggest time killers there is to date is smartphone notifications. You do not need to be alerted to every email and comment made on a social media post that you’re following. You lose hours of your days each week looking at your phone. Staring at a bluescreen before bed causes you to lose valuable sleep, too, which negatively affects your productivity. Do yourself a favor and stick to checking your phone during specific times of the day and for no longer than five to ten minutes at a time.

Limit the Time You Spend on Social Media

Have you ever lost an entire afternoon by falling down a virtual rabbit hole? If you have, it’s time to reconsider using social media throughout the workday. You may want to install an app blocker that makes it impossible to access specific apps until you’ve gotten your work done. It’s much easier to give yourself limitations than to remove the apps and download them repeatedly.

Make Your Biggest Tasks the First Things You Do Each Day

It’s easy to put off the tasks that take the most time to complete. All that does is make you scramble to finish them later on. A better approach is to name the three most important tasks you need to do each day and make it a point to get them done early. Then, you can work on the next most important obligations commanding your attention.

Take a Power Nap

There is a stigma associated with taking a nap in America, as well as other western cultures that are more focused on appearances. In places like Spain, Italy, and Greece, people take mid-afternoon breaks, known as riposo or mesimeri, or siesta.

In Japan, the practice of inemuri is a way to show devotion to work. It can be interpreted as a form of daydreaming, sleeping, or sleeping wherever you are. Japanese businessmen often go to sleep pods during the workday to enjoy quality, quiet sleep on small beds.

In many places, however, a nap is not an option. It is not possible to do so. It takes too much time. A power nap can be replaced by a liter of coffee. Alger et. al. argued that there’s time to scroll through social media, often unconsciously to redirect mental focus. 

A power nap should last between 15 to 45 minutes. People feel most at their best when they take naps of 15 to 20 minutes. This allows you to transition from stage 1 to stage 2. These are the two stages of light sleep before you reach stage 3. Stage 3 is deeper and more difficult to wake from.

Do the Fastest Tasks Next

If a task takes you five minutes or less to complete, knock it off your list. Doing that several times frees up your schedule and empowers you to get more done. You feel productive and invincible. Writing everything you need to do down ensures that you don’t miss a crucial step in a project or process. It also feels great seeing how much you’re able to achieve in a day.

Limit the Number of Meetings You Attend Each Day

Meetings eat up a big portion of your day, making you and your team less productive overall. Do everything you can to remain communicative with your team without needing to call a meeting every few hours. Instead, focus on limiting the number of questions asked by sending out a mass email addressing people’s concerns. You won’t experience “time suckage” to the extreme by hosting unstructured meetings that drone on and on.

Timewasters come in many forms. During meetings, long question and answer sessions are better dealt with by email or pointing your team in the direction of a written resource such as the employee handbook. You can save your company hundreds of dollars in labor costs each month by being deliberate with the meetings you host and keeping them short, sweet, and structured.

Some tips for getting your meetings under control include:

• Reduce the length of your meetings by 25 percent.
• Chat at your work colleagues’ desks for a quick update rather than sitting down to have a discussion.
• Take a look at your calendar and start crossing the meetings off that you know that you don’t need to hold.

The productivity hacks listed here make it easier for you to get more done throughout the day without bringing your work home with you or sacrificing sleep. Instead, you’re able to do everything that you need to do and still have time to spare. The idea is to work more efficiently without cutting corners or lowering the quality of your work.

The more you get done today, the less you’ll need to do to remain productive tomorrow. That’s why you must use the hacks listed above regularly to maximize your workday. You’ll feel your best when you know your crossing checks off your to-do list expertly. It’s amazing how a few simple changes in approaching your day can make it feel more productive!

This article has been published in accordance with Socialnomics’ disclosure policy.