Getting things done on time can remove a lot of complications and stress from our life. But that’s sometimes easier said than done… and we either end up doing everything else than the one we were supposed to do, or nothing at all with a dozen reasons why it would be a good idea to shift things to tomorrow. And that feeling of nothing happening, feeling stuck in life makes us feel even more unmotivated
So, let’s see what helps us be more productive… ways to boost productivity and eliminate procrastination so that we can keep showing up effectively and more consistently to keep the momentum up in life.
3 Ways to boost productivity
1. Maximum results from minimum effort
The first one is to have the right strategy in place to get the maximum result from whatever effort we are able to put in on any given day.
Things like batching tasks that require similar skills, setting the rule of no multitasking, and realistically time-blocking each task, all help us stay focused longer and actually get things completed.
No multitasking -
When we try to multitask, we are not really doing two or more things together, just switching from one task to another and that slows us down, hurts the accuracy of our performance because of the brain’s task switch cost. It essentially means we take longer and make more mistakes when we multitask than when we stay with one task.
Task batching -
Batching tasks together that require similar skills means we don’t have to keep shifting gears from say doing something creative like coming up with new ideas, then shifting to thinking in numbers calculating expenses, and then back again to thinking creatively crafting a plan for something.
Time-blocking
And when we time-block each of these tasks, set a specific time to work on them, we get things completed more efficiently.
The key is to be realistic about how long each task would take, not setting aside too little time because that would just stress us out. But also not setting aside too much time because according to Parkinson’s law “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”, which means if we set aside an hour for a task that should realistically take only 20 minutes, we will end up spending an hour on it.
2. When you can't start or stay on the task
The second way to boost productivity is to eliminate procrastination when we keep shifting starting things to later or can’t stay focused on the job because we keep getting distracted with other things.
When we keep coming up with reasons why it would be a good idea to do something later, it’s usually because we feel the task is either too tough and there would be a lot of hurdles for completing it successfully, or that it’s too easy and boring. Nir Eyal explains why this is so in his book Indistractable.
Procrastination -
One effective way of dealing with this is to have a plan for when things go wrong. This will tone down a lot of that feeling of resistance to starting because knowing we would be able to solve any problems popping up, makes the task feel easier, within our range.
The other one is to keep breaking down the task until each step becomes a no-brainer. So simple that it feels, “yeah, that’s easy. I can do it.”
Distraction -
When the task feels mundane or boring, we keep getting distracted with things that seem more exciting, or at least different. Our brain likes fresh experiences, it brings a rush of dopamine making us feel happy… and so getting distracted is normal. But, distractions use up time and disrupt focus hurting how efficiently we finish something
- And one effective way to boost productivity is to use these very things… the things distracting us as rewards for completing the task. The task gets completed without distraction and we also get to enjoy what we like.
- Another way to deal with distractions is to use the situation support technique – knowing our distractions beforehand and removing them from the space of work or at least from sight.
3. Setting yourself up to be more productive
The third way to boost productivity is to set ourselves up to be more productive. What that means is to set up those systems in life that make us by default more effectively productive.
Watch the video up top to know how to use concepts like the Zeigarnik effect and the peak productive time of our brain to know which techniques would best set you up for effective productivity.
