How is it possible that business leaders, politicians, and even every other friend you have in school gets more stuff done during their day? How can they use their 24 hours in day better than you? We all have the same number of hours, so what makes them so productive?
You might spend two weeks on that report for school. Reading a chapter out of a book takes over an hour. Finishing homework just never seems possible. You have those shows in Netflix to watch. You have those texts and messages to reply? You have all those tweets and posts to catch up on throughout the day.
I think you might see my point. We all fill up our time. Some of us just actively choose more productive tasks.
So how do you get more productive?
It’s not hard. It’s actually just small steps you can take that can make big results. Use one or all of these tricks to supercharge your productivity mode.
1) The Pomodoro technique – This idea got really popular in the last few years. I suspect it’s partially because Pomodoro is fun to say and it sounds like a pizza special. It’s really just a way of thinking about time. It involves taking a set period of working time with a break in between. Do 25 minutes of work, and then take a 5 minute break. Do this 4 times and then take a 30 break. It keeps you charged up and focused.
2) Work until the wall – This is a saying among swimmers. They don’t look to their coach to tell when they are finished. They look to the wall. When they get to the wall, it lets them stop. Set a “wall” for yourself. Decide when something is done and set that as your finishing point. Do not stop, get distracted, or do anything else until you “touch the wall” or finish that task. Then you can allow yourself to stop.
3) Promise yourself it’s only short – As personal trainer Michelle Bridges would say, if there are days when she didn’t feel like training, she would promise herself only 10 minutes. If she still didn’t feel like it after 10 minutes, she would allow herself to stop. Most of the time, she wouldn’t stop because she already begun. If you don’t feel like doing it, tell yourself to do only 5-10 minutes. Anybody can sit down and do 5 minutes of work. Once you stop, you’ll have momentum and you won’t want to stop again.
It doesn’t take some massive mind shift or some awesome motivational speech. It just takes some small tricks and simple techniques to get supercharged and get stuff done. Start now and promise yourself it’s going to be 5 minutes more.