5 Get Your Life Together Tips For Better Productivity – Tomorrow Cant Wait! Thursday 13 November, 2014
If your a procrastinator and you know it clap your hands! All the real procrastinators read this post and automatic said I will think about clapping my hands later am I right? This is to all my friends out there who think they are alone, overwhelmed and just wants some assistance on how to cure this bad habit. I want to first say, procrastination isn’t the worst thing in the world and every human has there bouts with it from time to time. This post isn’t to put anyone down or to belittle you and say “Hey You Slacker, Get Your Butt Up and Do Some Work”! That’s not very helpful or encouraging now is it (I’m talking to you Everest College Commercial Guy)? Or maybe you’re not a full procrastinator, you just don’t know how to balance your time accordingly.
One of the biggest concerns for people who lack proper time management is that they are already overwhelmed with other priorities or tasks. When one is already overwhelmed, it makes a person least likely to want to do something and it becomes a chore, something you would push to the side (similar to how your mother would tell you to do you laundry in high school and you kept pushing it off). You will recognize that you have to do something, but your immediate solution is usually I will handle it later, I will work on it another time.
I wrote this post because I have a confession, my name is Kiwi and I am a procrastinator {everyone say hi Kiwi!} . I will not share this information without admitting I’ve had a long-term issue with procrastination. Here is my take on it, it’s not so much that I was lazy but that I work extremely well under pressure. It’s something about meeting deadlines and completing them right when I needed to do it. I would cram, pick up the pace and speed do a task at hand, and pretty much overwork myself in the process. Once I completed my task right before I beat the clock, I felt a sense of accomplishment but also worn out. I talked about me even getting blogger burn-out and how I overcame it, and time management to my productivity definitely is a big help!
Let’s be honest, I don’t know about you all but sometimes I feel like I have ADD (I don’t I promise), my mind wanders with all my creative thoughts and ideas. I will push tasks to the backburner because all of a sudden I want Chipotle! Email alert for 50% off my next online purchase time to go shopping, Facebook notifications going off must keep checking them, and Kim Kardashian did what now?! Let’s face it we live in a digital world and statics are saying, one of the #1 reasons why you are distracted in your productivity is because of social media. Social Media is fun but it can be your distraction enemy, and an easy way to let time slip away from you getting caught up in the cyber matrix.
Do you see how easily we get sidetracked? It just take a split second and your plans that you had can go completely to the back of your mind. For all the multi-taskers out there, this can be even worst you are already doing a task and then you pile more and more workload on you and that can be stressful enough. For me I realized I need to control my life and tighten up on my prioritization, I wanted to meet goals and do them ahead of time and not race the clock. Repeat after me, Time is not your enemy (don’t make me tell you again procrastinator, I know you didn’t say it). No more waiting until later, no more stressing out until the last minute to do important things there is solutions for it RIGHT NOW! It’s time to do some self-cleaning within your life, let’s help you get your life together with these five tips for better productivity.
1. Plan in Advance + Set Alarms. Whats Your Gameplan? When you have a task or goal at hand, do you have a management system for time? Make friends with a calendar and start filling out your planner on what needs to get done or jot down important dates. Set goals and then create alerts for yourself as reminders. You can get a physical calendar, a daily planner, write notes on your refrigerator, add it into your phone calendar and guess what, there is even an app for that! If you let yourself know in advance when you have to do something, you can always go back and check, and if you forget that’s when the alerts can assist you!
2.Get Comfy – A great deal on how people can get overwhelmed when they have to do something is that they aren’t even comfortable in their space. Do you like the chair you are sitting in? What about the scenery? Do you like to listen to music while you work? De-clutter areas that are also an eyesore as that can be subconsciously distracting you. Set the mood for yourself so that you are at ease when you are working.
3. Start Small – Do not try to do too much all at once, especially if its a huge job at hand. That seems like you are being real productive, but it can turn into a burnout really quickly. It’s ok to pace yourself, do your task in increments. If you feel like you are starting to get worn out, it ok to step away from what you are doing. Give yourself a breather, but make yourself go back and complete some more work. This is the part where people tend to start going backward and push their task off until later, discipline yourself to get back into your duty and keep going.
4. Dismiss Your Distractions – You can get comfy, but don’t let yourself get too relaxed where you become easily distracted. We live in a technology age where its on 24/7. Tell yourself that you will not indulge in social media or even outside distractions while you are in the zone of completing your task. Dont you drift off into la-la land, put your phone down (or silent if you need to) and keep your focus. Focus is key to staying on track.
5. Complete Tasks + Celebrate Most importantly completely your task. Don’t continue to have unresolved goals or unfinished buisness. When you do finish or reach a goal celebrate! Big or small accomplishment treat yourself and acknowledge that you did it! Give yourself some motivational props for doing something ahead of time or doing what you said you were going to do. Sometimes the best praise comes from yourself and you deserve to reward yourself so do that!
In life we all need a little motivational push. If you are someone who struggles with time management and prioritization don’t beat yourself up. I believe better productivity is all about the energy surrounding yourself before a task at hand. These five steps are truly helping me out and it gives me a since of accomplishment that I am correcting my old ways and developing better habits to reach my goals quicker. Everyone feels good when they accomplish something, so reward yourself and start using these five tips today!
I said today not tomorrow. I’m serious…did you just think about starting to use these five productivity tip later? Implement today, if you can get on Facebook and Twitter you can start planning now! You can do it….TODAY!
From A Former Avid Procrastinator
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I’m horrible about this, absolutely horrible. I’m forever flitting from one thing to the next.
I am a planner! I try to have all my ducks in a row!
Breaking a task into chunks always helps me be more productive. That way I don’t get overwhelmed.
Great List. I always push myself to get things done.
I was so organized and planned until I started homeschooling my one daughter and now I’m all over the place and haven’t looked at my planner in days!
Love your tips and ideas for better productivity. It is true that we all waste a lot of time. I’m good at balancing it and gladly share my tips, too.
I think that everyone gets distracted and suffers with time management from time to time. These are all great tips to keep that under control!
I had a list of pressing things to get done tonight. I got one thing completed, and it wasn’t because of social media. Once I got into the task at hand, I worked super long and hard to get the project DONE. (And now I don’t have to worry about it tomorrow.) I’m a list maker.
I’m also a social media addict. 😉
I am somewhere in between. I hate not having a set plan, but some days I just can’t seem to get it together.
I find that setting expectations for myself helps. And being ok with myself if I don’t do it.
Those are great tips to help stay on task. But a few extra hours in the day could really help me.
I use a Chrome extension called Focus Booster to help me stay focused. The bad part is that social media is a large part of my blogging day so its hard to not get distracted.
You said ‘chipotle’ and I thought, ‘squirrel!’ hahaha I absolutely can relate.
I’m a social media addict too! Don’t feel bad just step away from you phone when your working lol
I never heard of Focus Booster! I am going to install now thanks for the additional info!
Yeah my mind will sometimes drift to food. It happens we are human and our brain multi-tasking I still have to self-talk to focus that a con to being a creative.
I get sooooo distracted! I guess 2 kids will do that to you!
I have always been a planner. There is a time to go with the flow tho.
Celebrating is such a fun idea! I always get caught up in what to do NEXT that I forget to enjoy the moment!
I’m totally guilty of being distracted by social media. I have to limit myself especially with the kids, so I can be more present with them.
I need to plan to get tasks done. I have notes for everything.
I am easily distracted. I like to write lists but then I forget about them. I really need to start using them again.
I am actually not a procrastinator at all – I’m pretty organized and proactive. I can tell you that these tips, they really do make a big difference – that is pretty much the stuff I do to keep on track!
I have only become a procrastinator over the last 3-4 years… never, ever was before. When I was younger, I always did things early. Like if I had a paper to do in college and we had 6 weeks to do it, I had it done within the first week. Yet, now, I’m a procrastinator. But it is because I’m sucking at time management. Right now I’m so overwhelmed with deadlines because I had a family issue that had me put my work on the back burner for a few days and now I cannot get caught up to save my life. I’ve also realized that multi-tasking really isn’t a good thing. I always thought it was good to be able to do two or more things at the same time, but what you do when you do that is NOT give 100% to any of the tasks. So this weekend I am getting caught up, and hopefully I start Monday off on the right foot. 🙂
Yep, I needed to read this post today! Awesome tips and they are easy to implement!
This is a great post, at a time, when I find myself lacking focus today. I usually am extremely productive working from home but I have those days where I Just cannot focus.
One of the biggest things for me is just to not allow distractions. I always keep a checklist of things I have to do, and once I’ve checked them off then I can be distracted!
Great post and so many valid points! My husband needs to read this like asap.
These are all great tips. I need to set alarms maybe I might actually get something done.
Absolutely love these tips!!!! I’m all about learning new ways to be even more productive ;-)thanks 🙂
I think prioritizing is really important in time management. If we know what are prioritize are, we can focus on them and end up with more time.
Thank you so much for your tips. I’m so easily distracted by facebook, lol.
There are times that I lose my train of though and need to stay on task. Thanks for all the great tips.
I have become far more productive after I started going to the gym, it has made me feel so much better about myself!
I couldn’t imagine life without a planner or making lists of things I have to do, as those are the most surefire ways I can stay organized. You’re also right about if one’s not comfortable in their space that this can cause a distraction. I know I’m unable to focus if I’m ever surrounded by clutter.
I agree that Social media is the #1 distraction.. From the moment you wake the first thing we do is to check our phones, our social media accounts.. Love this post.. Thanks for posting this 🙂
I have really great management and organizational skills. I love sharing my tips with others, too. You shared some good ideas and I’ll share those with my friends, too.
These are great tips. I really need to try a few of these for being more productive.
Those are great tips. I turn off distractions when I work on something. It helps a lot with productivity
Time management is a big issue i have. These are all great tips.