No matter how focused on achieving our goals we are, productivity seems to escape us. It’s a common problem among all kinds of professionals.

When we are productive we are happier, more satisfied, optimistic and so on. Our days seem to be spent in a good way. But laziness and procrastination seem to set in often and we waste time while getting more and more anxious about everything that we have to do.However, there are some techniques that you could use to be more productive and get better results in your life and work.

Here they are:

Do the most important tasks first

One of the best ways to be productive is to make a decision to do the most important tasks first.
These are usually the hardest ones as well so doing them first takes a huge load off your back. You’ll be less anxious and the rest of your day will just fly by.

Eliminate distractions

We live in an era of distractions. They stop us from being productive and that’s not good for our end results. However, you can learn to eliminate them.

“When doing something important, turn off your TV, your phone alerts and sound. There are also programs and apps that make this possible like the Forest. Don’t touch your phone until you are done working. You can play some productivity-boosting music as well”, – says Ben Gillespie, a blogger at Writemyx and 1Day2write.

Break down hard jobs

This is a famous technique – you do more by breaking the tasks down to smaller tasks. However, you can mix it with the pomodoro technique for studying and do a lot more.
For instance, you have to clean the house. Instead of doing it all at once, break it down a bit. Do the dusting and take a five-minute break. Then, wash the dishes and take another break. Do this with all of the tasks.

You won’t get tired because you took plenty of breaks and the jobs weren’t that hard because they were mini-tasks.

Schedule and protect your time

A good friend to productivity is, of course, scheduling and planning. Create daily, weekly and monthly schedules.

For daily schedules, don’t go into too much detail. Having 20 tasks on your list is scary. Bundle those tasks into bigger ones, which you can again break down later when you start doing them by using a technique we’ll discuss in the next point.

Weekly and monthly schedules will help prepare your mind for those tasks.

“Protect your time by saying “no” more often. Never do things that you don’t want to and prioritise your own tasks over someone else’s”, – says Timothy Bell, a content manager from OriginWritings.

Stop procrastinating

Procrastination is haunting all of us. We want to do something about it – but tomorrow.
So, you keep leaving the tasks of today for tomorrow, forget to do things, get too lazy but still anxious about all that work waiting. And you’ll do something about it… At some point.
However, you need to stop this right away.

It’s the biggest enemy to productivity.
Everything you can do today, you shouldn’t leave for tomorrow. Having a fun day with your friends beats cleaning the house but when you return the house will still be dirty. And it takes fifteen minutes to clean it.

There are a few useful techniques to this.

The first one is the 3 seconds rule.

For instance, your alarm went off. It’s five in the morning and you don’t want to leave your bed. But you have to. Make a decision that you will get up at the count of three. 1,2,3 and you are up.
It’s hard at first but it gets easier after a while.

The second technique is something that parents use on their children but you can use it on yourself.

For example, you are playing a game on your phone but you have work waiting. Tell yourself that you will have to leave your phone in 10 minutes. Set a kitchen timer. Once five minutes pass, tell yourself that you have five more minutes. Repeat after two minutes. When the timer goes off you will leave your phone without struggling.

Conclusion

Productivity is the key to success. However, being productive is hard to achieve. That’s why you have to help yourself get organised and ready for work. Employ some of these techniques to become more productive, and soon, you’ll start noticing results.