6 Ways To Improve Your Productivity
The biggest constraint that most online marketers face is a lack of time. Despite what the gurus say, most marketers just don’t seem to ever be in a situation where all they do is work 30 minutes a week while their PayPal accounts flood with cash.
Instead, most of them spend hours a day glued to their PC or laptop screens trying to make their online business work. Over time, they get overwhelmed and burned out. This idea of ‘easy profits’ seems to be an illusion that will never materialize.
The hard truth of the matter is that if you wish to reach the stage where you have a passive income that rolls in like clockwork, you’ll need to do a lot of work in the beginning. You need to set up automation systems and have a plan and schedule that you assiduously follow.
Over and above all, you must be as productive as humanly possible. Many beginners spend hours in front of the computer but get nothing done. They spin their wheels faster than a car in a Vin Diesel movie and yet go nowhere.
They mistake activity for work.
Time and energy is expended on things that don’t matter. All their effort is spent on learning instead of doing. They’re not productive where it matters and that’s why their efforts don’t matter.
In this article, you’ll discover 6 tips to increase your productivity. It’s imperative that you put them into practice so that you can get more done in less time. If you’re after the ‘laptop lifestyle’ where you earn an income while you sip cocktails by the beach, being productive is the most important skill to master.
1. Breaking Away from Social Media
Schedule specific times of the day where you’ll check your social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. As an online marketer, you’ll be on the computer a lot. It can be very tempting to sneak off and check your Facebook feed only to realize that you’ve wasted 45 minutes reading political posts and the vitriolic comments of people engaging in pointless debate.
As an online marketer, time is money. Facebook can be a major ‘time suck.’ So, only check your social media at specific times for specific durations. If you’re addicted to it, you can enable the Chrome extension ‘Stay Focusd’ on your browser. This will restrict time that you spend on sites that distract you. There are many other similar apps too.
Find one that works for you and limit your time on social media.
To generate an income online, your focus should be on income generating activities. The cat videos and inane political debates can wait.
2. The 2-minute Rule
The 2-minute rule is a very simple rule. If you have a task that can be completed in 2 minutes, get it over and done with then and there. If you have an email to answer and you can do it in 2 minutes, reply that email.
If you have a plugin to install on your website and it takes a minute, do it quick. You do not need to make a to-do list and put all these little tasks on it. Clear off all the little tasks quickly. This will reduce your feeling of overwhelm and you’ll have less work carrying over each day.
3. Delete, Delete, Delete
Deleting your emails and old files off your hard drive is akin to decluttering in real life. When clearing your emails, delete whatever you do not need. If something catches your eye, move it to a KIV folder and come back to it when you’re free.
If you’ve bought infoproducts, delete them off once you’re done going through them. Ideally, you should take down written notes that summarize these infoproducts into a streamlined blueprint for you to take action on.
Don’t turn your hard drive into a cemetery for digital products. Delete whatever you don’t need and be merciless about it. By removing all the ‘noise’ you’ll only have to face what you need to focus on.
4. Quit Multitasking
As mentioned earlier, you must have focus. With focus comes productivity. Don’t have 27 tabs open in your browser so that you can keep track of many things all at once.
If you’re writing a blog post, give it your full attention till it’s done. Checking your website statistics? Focus on that instead of trying to listen to an audio track about traffic generation at the same time.
Your workflow should basically be you focusing on the income generating tasks that take up the most time. This will be followed by completing secondary tasks that support your business. Then you can set aside time for learning what you need to and finally, everything else that is less important. One task at a time and you’ll complete them in record time.
5. Removing Distractions
Some people work better with music, some prefer background noises and some prefer total silence. You must know what works best for you. Usually, silence is the best.
However, many people prefer going to a café and working from there. They like the sound of the hustle and bustle.
Yet, the constant movement of people can be very distracting. You’re better off using a site like https://coffitivity.com/ that recreates the ambient noises. So, you have the background noise without the physical distractions.
If you work from home, make sure your family knows when to give you space to work on your business. You need total focus when you’re working. That’s the only way to be productive.
6. Work in Batches
This is a very useful tip. It means doing several similar tasks at the same time. For example, if you have 5 blog posts to write per week, batching your work will mean doing research for all 5 posts at once. When you sit down to write, you’ll be able to write all 5 posts much faster. Instead of researching for one post then writing it and then researching the next one and so on.
The same applies to all other tasks too. Doing video marketing? Edit all your videos at once. Upload all of them at once. Optimize all of them at once. Doing your tasks in batches will save you a lot of time spent going back and forth.
Batching is similar to doing work in a factory line repeatedly. You’ll be doing the same task over and over. You’ll get faster at it since it’s a routine and you don’t have to keep switching tasks and thinking too much.
Adopt the 6 productivity tips above and you’ll notice that you get more done and free up time for yourself. Of course, there are many other tips such as outsourcing, time management, task management and much more. However, for starters, implement the 6 tips above and you can move on to the rest later.
Productivity is not just about doing more. It’s about creating more impact with less work. Get more productive today!