There are lots of different tips and techniques that can be used to maximise your productivity, many of which can be used in combination with each other. You can use a combination of these tips and techniques (as well as one of our goals notebooks) to come up with a plan to maximise your productivity and get things done.
01. Understand your Goals and Objectives
Start by understanding your big goals and objectives. Write about your future, where you see yourself in 5 years time. What do you want to achieve this year? Use our goals notebook to plan out your future goals and objectives.
02. Identify and Rank the tasks
Identify all the tasks that you need to undertake. Some of these will directly relate to your goals and objectives but others will not. However, they may still be important. So use the Daily Task Dump or Eisenhower box to sort and rank your tasks.
03. Break Down any Large Tasks into bite-sized chunks
Breakdown any tasks into manageable bite-sized tasks/subtasks so that you have actionable tasks to work on.
04. Schedule and Commit Time to Working on your Goals
Sometimes it is easy to just get busy. It can be useful to schedule time to work on specific goals and objectives to make sure that you get everything you need to get done, done. Timeboxing can be a great way to make sure you are progressing your goals. Try and write you weekly to-do list at the beginning of each week (if not before) including scheduling any timeboxing.
05. Write your To-Do List
As well as scheduling in time to do tasks, you should combine this with a good old fashioned to-do list (using a to-do list method that works for you). Write your to-do list the day before, scheduling any time blocks, and prioritising (and batching) your tasks.
It is important to remember these simple key rules:
- Schedule your Frog first.
- Each item on your to-do list should be actionable (without a dependency). Keep a separate “waiting for” list if this is useful to have.
- Batch similar tasks together for efficiency. For example, I often batch my emails together.
- Schedule Not Right Now and Waitlist tasks.
Then crack on and action your to-do list!
