8 Productivity principles we all could live by
Projects are delightful to dream about but can sometimes take up hours to execute without us coming close to actualizing what’s in our head, eventually the execution phase can become a torturous one as we can’t account for what we have done with our time.
However, there are always productive methods to employ to ensure that we work in the shortest time possible.
Below are some tips on improving your productivity and getting work done faster!
1. Spend more time thinking
The reason many of us spend longer hours on simple projects could be because we hurriedly try to to execute ideas which have not yet been fully developed and thus die after a few minutes of exposure.
An idea has to be looked on as a babe inside a mother’s womb; It has to be nurtured and nourished by our own energy via constant thinking.
The length of time for this depends on the nature of your project and its novelty but when you think more on an idea it becomes more logical.
You can try writing them out like Chloe Sinclair from Quora does in order to visualize better the steps you have to take and not waste time in back and forths.
2. Inspire yourself
A great way to execute an idea faster is by viewing ideas similar to yours. As no idea is new, there’s always some variation of it that can be found on the internet.
Viewing work similar to yours, will motivate you to bring your own idea to life and could even provide guidelines to help you reach your desired goal faster.
A graphic designer for instance could look up Dribble, Behance or pinterest to see how other designers are executing a similar idea.
It’s advisable to not spend too much time on the inspiration phase however, as you still have your own executing to do.
3. Stick with your choices
There are always hundreds of choices you can explore when a project is involved, approximately 35,000 in fact but we should always pick one and follow through with it.
Many of us are however guilty of falling into the deadly loop of exploring all the options available to us.
We want to know how A looks and how B Beside C would also look. All of these takes time and this affects our ability to get work done faster!
There is nothing wrong in exploring several options to see what works best but we all agree that the final option we go with was amongst the first five we examined hours ago!
Try developing the confidence and discipline to stick to a route and avoid exploring other routes as this negatively takes up your time.
4. Be prepared to abandon ship
Sometimes our favorite things even when we stick with them don’t end up becoming suitable for a project and its best to have the courage to abandon them rather than spendtime trying to make them work.
This sounds a bit contradictory to what was said earlier but it’s the other side of the ideation coin where sometimes our solutions will never fit the problem at hand and its best to go in search of another one early on.
5. Work during the day/sleep at Night
Many people prefer to work at night for the sake of the peace and quiet which they believe increases their productivity but working at night is first of all counter-productive; during this time the body is under the influence of the rest hormone called melatonin and functions at half-power.
Thus you might just be spending twice as much time than you ordinarily would if you worked during the day not to mention working at night and sleeping during the day could create hormonal imbalances that disturb your circadian rhythm.
6. Avoid distractions at all cost
Whether you work during the day or at night distractions can be present when you let them be present.
There are first of all mental distractions. These include anxious thoughts which slow you down during work. Fixating on what your boss might think about your presentation as you work on it, or how good you would feel once you get a task completed are all mental distractions and would slow you down a ton.
It could also be physical such as notifications from your phone or people moving about as you work.
The best mode to get work done faster is the single mindedness mode. Here only thoughts related to your work predominates and else is kept at bay. To get into this mode consider turning off notifications during work hours and moving to a place with zero to sparse people traffic.
6. Start simply
In the work cycle the simpler a thing is the less time it takes and if you want to get your work done faster, start with the simple things first then work your way towards a grand finale.
7. Take Breaks as part of the creative process
Schedule breaks within your allocated work hours. Don’t assume you have to work throughout as Brain fatigue could set in and when left unattended would drag your work through time without you noticing it.
8. Gauge your work
There are two ways to gauge work.
The first could be by time. Here you set yourself to accomplish all that you can within a time limit and the other method where you set yourself to achieve specific tasks regardless of how much time you spend on it.
Gauging productivity might seem like putting yourself under pressure but it’s a great way to help you measure your productivity and identify the areas that slow you down.
Final thoughts
Without time management principles while we work we are sure to spend time aimlessly and might never achieve our best. Productivity is however the crowning of creativity, as we get a sense of fulfillment from transforming our ideas into living realities
