Hello everybody, and welcome back to my channel.
In today's video I am going to give you 20 productivity tips so you can get more done
at work.
If you want to know my secrets to getting more stuff done, then keep on watching.
All right.
My very first tip is super, super important, so take notes right now, and that is to start
the day on your own terms.
Now, you've probably heard and were expecting for me to say wake up early, and yes, that
can be part of it, but it's really, really up to you.
There is a huge difference between being a woken up and waking yourself up.
One is where you're being very reactive to everything that happens to you and the other
is being very proactive with your life.
Yes, you might have heard wake up early.
That can be a part of starting the day on your own terms, you starting the day making
your own choices versus the flip side where perhaps you sleep in and you hit the snooze
button a million times and then, oh crap, you have to be in work in five minutes and
then everything else.
You're just reactive from there.
If you are able to choose not to snooze and you start the day on your own terms, everything
else is going to have a domino effect from there and you are going to have a significantly
better day by doing so.
Now, my next tip is to get ready.
If you take that extra time to get ready, to look good, you will feel good and that
will just transfer into all the work that you do.
It doesn't have to be something crazy over the top, it doesn't have to be a 24-step makeup
routine.
I know for me, my kids were sick for the past three weeks straight, so I wasn't really able
to work, I wasn't able to do the YouTube videos because I couldn't take my kids to the sitter.
I really couldn't get much done, and as a result, I didn't get ready.
Today is the very first day that I have truly been able to get ready.
As soon as I got ready, I just felt so alive and so fresh and so ready to go, and I got
a ton done today.
Take my word for it, this really does work.
It's not about vanity, it's about when you look good, you feel good, you do good.
All right.
My next tip is to automate parts of your routine, especially very repetitive parts and things
that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Now, there are a ton of little decisions that we waste so much mental energy on, guys.
Things like what am I going to wear, what am I going to eat, how should I do my makeup
today, how should I do my hair today.
These are things that if you automate them as much as possible, you will be that much
more productive because you won't be wasting so much time on stupid things that don't matter.
With what I'm going to eat, I eat the exact same thing for breakfast every single day.
Chocolate protein shake with banana, three scoops of protein, boom, so easy, it's done.
I don't even think about it, ever.
Speaking of makeup routine, an example of this is to have a very simple and effective
makeup routine that you can do very quickly.
You can do effectively and you look good and feel good as a result.
Now, if you want to take this to the extreme, other ways that you can automate your beauty
or makeup routine is to microblade your eyebrows so that way you never have to touch your eyebrows,
or you could do eyelash extensions.
I had them for over four years, and what I loved about them is that I didn't feel that
I had to do tons of eyeliner and eyeshadow.
I could just do foundation and, boom, I was ready to go because the lashes did all the
heavy lifting for me.
All right.
My next tip goes along with the last tip, and that is meal prep.
You can waste a lot of time making food every single day.
Like I said before, I automate what I'm going to eat for breakfast and the same thing goes
with lunch.
Every Sunday I will make all of my lunches for the week, and it's usually something pretty
simple and pretty healthy so that way I'm not making bad choices, but then also I'm
not wasting valuable time making a new lunch every single day.
What I do is I will usually grill up a whole bunch of chicken and vegetables and then I
will put them in my little containers, pack them in my lunch, and off I go.
Now, if meal prepping is not your thing because you don't have the time, energy, or patience
to do it, I get it.
There are amazing companies out there that will just do this for you.
You just pay them and they bring you meals and you're done for the whole week.
It's amazing.
All right.
My next tip is to have a to-do list.
You can have a daily, weekly and monthly to-do list and this will really help keep you organized
and focus.
There are so many productivity systems out there that are complicated, you do this, this
and that, and those are great, but really, down to the bare bones, make a list, prioritize
the list and go from there.
Really, if you want to increase your productivity and you are not doing to-do lists, just start
with this and you will be surprised about just by simply writing down what you have
to do, how much more you get done in a day.
All right.
My next productivity secret is to have a plan.
If you wake up and you feel amazing and you get already and you automate all these different
things in your life, it's going to do you no good if you don't have a plan for what
you're going to do that day.
You're going to walk into your office feeling good, looking good, and then say, "Huh.
Well, what am I going to do now?"
Since you already have a to-do list for the day, you're going to want to then take that
list and pick the very top three things that you want to get done today.
Then from those three things, pick the number one most important thing.
If you could only accomplish one thing, what is it?
By that, you will be able to structure your day in a way that you get those things done.
All right.
My next tip is to schedule everything.
Yes, everything that you're doing that day should be in your calendar.
Even if it's small, even if it's stupid, your morning routine, schedule and block aside
time to do that.
When are you going to eat lunch?
When are you going to work out?
When are you going to work on that big number one thing that is your goal today?
Schedule one, two, three hours to get it done.
That way, during the day when that little voice in your head says, "Huh, what should
I be doing today," you look at your calendar and, boom, there you go, you know exactly
what you're supposed to be doing.
By scheduling and putting it out on paper or in your calendar, you will be that much
more effective and successful at getting it done.
This also goes along with one of my favorite principles in the world, which is Parkinson's
law.
Basically, the gist of Parkinson's law, it states that a task will take the amount of
time that you give it.
If you said it's going to take eight hours for me to clean my room, guess what?
It's going to take you eight hours to clean your room.
But if you have guests coming over in an hour and you say, "Crap, I have 30 minutes to clean
my room," somehow, some way, you will find a way to get that task done in 30 minutes.
By putting a time constraint on something, it allows our mind to really focus and get
the job done because there is a ticking time bomb.
Putting things in your calendar and scheduling out, okay, I have three hours to get this
done, will be a trigger in your mind that, hey, it's three hours, we've got to get it
done.
All right.
My next tip for productivity is to write everything down.
If you have a thought, "Oh, I need to do this, I need to do that, I forgot that," have a
little notebook or have a little notepad on your phone and just write it down.
Get it out of your head and onto the paper.
Again, it's basically a to-do list brain dump, so that way those things, you're not having
to spend time in your brain trying to remember these things, even if it's subconsciously.
By getting it out on paper, you'll be able to have it, it's there, it's recorded.
Then every night you can go through and you can either put something on your daily to-do
list for the next day, put it on your weekly, you could get it done right there, move it
to your monthly to-do list, whatever, but at least that way it is recorded, it is out
of the way and it is not taking up space in your precious brain.
Now while recording this video, I realized I completely forgot to record tip #9.
So here it is!
Tip #9: focus on the easiest tasks first or the hardest tasks first.
No this really depends on you and your personality and what works for you, but some people like
to get in and start their day and bust out a whole bunch of little easy tasks.
So that way, they have a whole bunch of wins under their belt, they feel very accomplished,
and then they can start on the hard things.
While other people like to hunker down and get that really hard, difficult, annoying
task out of the way so that way the rest of day is as easy as pie.
All right.
My next tip is to turn off all distractions.
If you want to be more productive at work, you have to get rid of all those distractions
that happen throughout the day.
Turn off notifications.
If you have email reminders, anytime you get an email it pops up and it has a big ding,
get rid of that.
You did not need that right now.
That is just getting in the way from you getting done what you need done.
So turn them off on your phone and put it on Do Not Disturb mode, put it in your backpack,
put it in a drawer.
Get it out of sight, out of mind so you're not tempted to pick it up and mindlessly scroll
and scroll and scroll.
All right.
My next productivity tip is to multitask during your driving or wait time.
For me, I absolutely love audiobooks and there are podcasts that I do not miss.
What I do is while I am driving to work or while I'm driving to an appointment or something,
I will listen to those things in my commute.
That way, when I need to be working I'm not tempted to listen to those things because
I know I have a designated time or place to listen to those.
You can do this while you are doing the dishes, while you're taking your dog for a walk.
Those are times when you aren't necessarily going to be working, so you might as well
maximize that time while you have it.
All right.
My next tip for productivity is to park in the same parking spot every single day.
Again, this is all about limiting those little dumb decisions that take up time in our life.
Now, when I worked at an office, I would park in the freshman lot.
It was a little bit of a walk, but the reason I parked there is because I know no one else
was parking there.
I always had a parking spot, versus the time where I would try to park close to the building
and I was too late and there were no spots and I would waste time driving around looking
for a parking spot, hoping that something would open up.
It wouldn't, and I wasted three or four minutes just looking for a spot and would eventually
have to drive to a different parking lot.
The way that I completely just minimized this altogether is I just parked in a spot where
I knew no one wanted to park.
Let's be honest, people are lazy and they do not want to walk.
So not only would I get the same parking spot every single time, but I'd also gets a little
bit of exercise before I had to start working.
I'd get the blood flowing, so that way when I got into the office, I felt good and I was
ready to go.
All right.
My next tip is to have a designated workspace.
If you work in a corporate job, this is probably very simple and easy and you don't even have
to think about this, you probably have a cubicle or office or space assigned to you already.
But if you work from home, you just want to make sure that you have a place that you go
to and you work every single day.
You have an office, you have a computer, you have a space that is set up.
Or if you're going to a coffee shop or a coworking space, just know ahead of time what that is,
where it is, so that way you know where to go to start getting work done.
Having a designated place will really help trigger your mind, sort of like Pavlov's bell,
that, hey, I'm in here, this is work time.
All right.
My next tip is to prepare your workspace the day before.
This will make it so as soon as you walk in your office, everything is in its place and
ready to go.
Make sure your space is clean and tidy, just put everything away.
For me, I drink a ton of water so I have designated cups.
I will make sure that I will go and I'll fill those cups so they are ready to go in the
morning so I can just drink them.
In my case, I know that if I'm going to be recording a YouTube video the next day I will
get all of my lights and equipment out and ready to go, so that way in the morning I
can just walk in.
I'm already ready, hair's done, makeup's done, and I can just sit down, boom, and get ready
to go instead of wasting 30, 60 minutes getting my lights set up.
Where is this cord?
Where's this?
Is this charged?
No, get all of that done the night before so that way when you walk in the morning,
you aren't ready to work.
All right.
My next productivity tip, do one thing at a time, just one.
Not two, not three, not 17 things.
One thing, okay?
Got it, done.
This is pretty obvious, but by focusing on just one thing, you are going to be able to
get that much closer to completing that one thing.
If you're switching between answering email to doing a project, to doing project number
two, to doing project number three, you're going to get nowhere and at the end of the
day you're going to feel like such a loser because you didn't get anything done.
Just take it from me, focus on the one thing.
Next up, batch tasks.
If there are things that you can do all at once, do those together.
For example, when I do YouTube videos, I record a whole bunch of YouTube videos all at once
because my lights and equipment are already ready and set to go, my makeup and hair is
done.
Everything is already there, so I can be more effective if I can just record a whole bunch
of videos and then call it good and then I can just work on editing all of those videos.
Other work things is you can answer all of your emails all at once and then you're done
with email for the next few hours.
Or maybe if you have people who report to you, you can have all of your meetings back
to back to back so that way those are all scheduled and ready to go and you can in the
groove for those.
When you're working on things, you really do get in a groove.
If you can batch like things together and just bust them out, you'll be so much more
productive and spend way less time working on those things.
All right.
My next tip is one of my favorite productivity tips and I use it every single day.
It's called the Pomodoro technique.
It's also known as the tomato timer.
What the Pomodoro technique is, you set a timer for 25 minutes and then for those 25
minutes you only focus on that thing.
It does go along with my other tip before, however, it really gives a time boundary to
this thing.
During this time you have very strict blinders on, where you do not focus on anything else.
You do not look at your phone, you do not check email, you do not talk to your coworker,
whatever it is.
For 25 minutes, you are all in.
This is really great for things that you hate doing or you just feel like keep getting pushed
and you never seem to do it, but you have to do it.
I'm telling you, by setting that timer, you will focus and you will get in such a groove
that you might finish it in that time or you might want to keep going.
But the way the Pomodoro technique is, is that after 25 minutes you stop and you take
a five-minute break and then you start again, either on the same task or a different task.
Again, this is just a way to really help hone you in, get you focused so you can get more
done.
Now, my next tip I love to use with the Pomodoro technique and that is to use white noise.
A lot of people like to listen to music or podcasts, but I find I really just can't focus
with music or things that have words, so I use white noise to really block out everything
and just to focus in.
One of my favorite websites, it's called Noisli, and I love it because you basically get to
create your own white noise cocktail.
I want a little bit of this, I want a little thunder, I want a little railroad track, I
want a little rain.
I love it because there's just certain things that, to me, help me focus.
Again, it's called noisli.com.
It's my favorite, especially with the Pomodoro technique, because by having that white noise,
you can just put it on your computer or you can put it in your headphones, and having
that static noise just really helps to block out all distractions.
If you work in a common space where there's lots of people, definitely do this because
it will help minimize you focusing in on, hey, someone's talking about my favorite TV
show or someone over there.
It's a really great way to block out any audio distractions.
These productivity tips really do encompass all five of the senses and the sense of sound
and minimizing sound distractions is really, really important.
All right.
My next tip is to take active breaks.
We're not machines and our bodies were not meant to sit at a computer for long hours,
just grinding, grinding away.
You will be so much more effective when you stop and you move your body, whether that's
just standing up and taking a stretch break or walking around your office, or even better,
walking outside, getting out of the environment so that way your brain and your mind and your
body can recover.
For me, when I worked in an office, I loved to just walk outside, do a quick lap around
the building, or I even had a quick one-mile loop that I would do and I would do it once
or twice a day.
Then when I got back to my work, my brain was just in a better place to start working
again.
It doesn't get fatigued out.
It just gives it the break and the rest that it needs so you can get stuff done.
You'll find that you get so much more done when you just take a stretch break, when you
take a walk break, when you get outside.
I'm telling you, your body loves getting outside and your body loves moving, so your brain
and your work will thank you.
Okay, my very last tip is to take lunch away from your desk.
Our brains and our bodies are not machines, and so if you can take yourself out of the
work zone and go into the eating zone, your brain will appreciate that and it will be
able to unplug and recharge.
Plus, getting out of your office, if you have a communal area to eat, it's really great
just to get social interaction and to talk with coworkers and to talk about things that
aren't necessarily work.
Yes, you can talk work, but you could talk about your family, you could talk about your
life.
If you take your lunch away from your desk, I promise you, you'll be so surprised about
how much more excited you are and ready to get stuff done and to work when you sit back
at your desk versus if you try to just plow through lunch.
It's not good.
All right guys, that is all that I have for this video.
Those are my 20 productivity tips.
Now, be sure to let me know in the comments below what are your favorite productivity
tips.
I'm sure there are things that I did not even talk about here, so let me know.
I am interested, because we can all be more productive.
If these are all new to you, let me know what's the one thing that you are going to implement
starting right now?
You don't have to do them all, what's the one thing that you are going to start doing?
Be sure to subscribe to my channel because I have a whole lot more tips and tricks to
make you more productive and to get more done with your business.
If you're going to start being more productive right now, give this video like and be sure
to subscribe because I have a ton of videos for you that's all about how to get the most
out of your business.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.