You know how it is. You wake up in the morning and think “I’m going to be productive today!” But then you get busy with meetings or emails and by the end of the day you’re not feeling very productive at all. Sound familiar?

Well, I’ve come up with five tips that will help you get stuff done no matter where you are. Just follow these simple steps and before long your inbox will be full of things that you have checked off your list!

Plan your day

Planning your day is an important part of being productive. It can be difficult for people to stay on top of their work and projects but planning a schedule in advance can help you to stay organised and keep track of what needs to be done.

Planning is also worthwhile because it helps you to map out how long certain tasks will take, so that you know how much time you have available before each deadline. This means that if there are any other jobs or projects that need doing at the same time, they won’t get forgotten about because all the necessary information has been included in this initial plan.

This way, even if something unexpected happens during the day, there’ll still be enough time left over after all planned activities have been completed (or taken care of).

Define your priorities

Define your goals and priorities. If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard that important advice dozens of times. But the reason why this is so crucial is two-fold:

• It’s not what we do that matters; it’s how we define it
• Our priorities help us make better decisions about how we spend our time trying to meet our goals

Schedule your time

If you’re looking to maximise your productivity, the first thing you should do is schedule your time. If you don’t know where the hours of the day are going, how will you know what needs to be done? You might even find that some things aren’t worth doing at all!

In order to effectively schedule your time (and therefore get more done), try scheduling out your week in advance. This can be as simple as writing down a list of things that need doing each day, or even just making a note of one big project or goal every Sunday evening before bed.

Take advantage of the useful tools available online to help you plan and schedule such as Trello, Asana, Slack, Clockify and Google Docs. I personally luuuurve Trello and use the Google suite of products regularly. Your planner can be something as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as a super-dooper CRM that manages your tasks for you.

Of course, even after you’ve scheduled everything there’s still no guarantee it’ll actually happen. But by taking an hour on Monday morning to map out the week’s schedule, it becomes much harder for distractions like social media posts and cat videos to distract you from getting real work done.

Reward yourself

Make sure you’re taking care of yourself too! You don’t work hard all week to not have a reward at the end of it. Treat yourself to a massage or get some retail therapy with that new pair of shoes you’ve been eyeing up on sale. Anything that makes you feel good and helps take your mind off work is fair game, as long as it doesn’t distract you from your overall goal of GETTING. SHIT. DONE. You need to save those rewards until after work hours are over!

During work hours remember to schedule in some time for a 15 min break here and there – go outside and get some fresh air or move around your office and grab a drink. Taking time to clear your head between tasks will make the day seem easier.

Recognise your limitations and be realistic in your planning

This is the most important tip. If you don’t get this right, nothing else will matter. Be realistic in your planning! Don’t over-extend yourself and try to do too much. Sometimes it’s better just to walk away from a project and come back when you’re fresh and ready for it again. Don’t let yourself get stressed by deadlines or take on more than you can handle in one go – that way lies madness! If you have other team members, learn to delegate to everyone’s strengths and have regular check-ins to see how tasks are being handled and if they are on track.

Plan, Prioritise, Schedule, Reward and Recognise.

• Plan
• Prioritize
• Schedule
• Reward and Recognize

This is not a new concept and it may seem like common sense, but many people do not take the time to plan, prioritise and schedule their day. Often they leave it until the last minute. Or worse still, they don’t even start until it’s too late to make any progress. These tips will help you get ahead of your work so when everything else falls apart (as it always does), you can focus on what matters most and make sure that nothing slips through the cracks!

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Article by Pop Media