5 Productivity Tips to Work Smarter, Not Harder

Skills Soft Skills Time Management Article

These five productivity tips will teach you how to work smarter, not harder.

Everyone has 24 hours in their day, but it seems like some people are more productive than others. What is the secret to productivity? Do they have secret productivity tips that we don’t know about? Simply put, the answer is time management. You might think that you have your tasks organized, but take a look at your schedule and see how you can make the most of your time.

We all want productivity tips to be more productive. And there are a lot of different ways to achieve that. Some people say that the key is to work fewer hours. Others say that you should take more breaks. And still, others say that you should eliminate all distractions.

The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all productivity tip when it comes to productivity. What works for one person may not work for another. And what works for you today may not work for you tomorrow. The important thing is to find what works for you and then do your best to stick with it.

Here are five productivity tips that will help you get more done:

Prioritize Your To-Do List

Keeping a To-Do list ensures you never forget a task—plus it’s satisfying to check something off after you complete it! But a running list of jobs isn’t enough to stay organized.

When you create your To-Do list, prioritize each item. This means you’re ranking them in order of importance. If you need to do something immediately, it goes to the top of the list. A task that isn’t due until the end of the week can be closer to the bottom.

No one likes a deadline, but they’re effective at keeping you on task.

Making time to rank your jobs helps you see what you need to do and what you can put off until later. This helps you feel less stressed when you look at a To-Do list that’s 20 items long.

If you want to level up your time management skills, create To-Do lists for every day, and even one for the whole week. This helps you see what you’ll spend time doing each day. The broader timeline of a week allows you to see how the tasks play into your overall schedule.

Create Deadlines

Weekly To-Do lists go hand-in-hand with deadlines. No one likes a deadline, but they’re effective at keeping you on task. Knowing when something is due helps you break it into manageable pieces.

Say you have to give a presentation at a lunch meeting on Friday. There’s your deadline. Sure, you could wait until Thursday and pull an all-nighter, but your anxiety levels would skyrocket. Instead of procrastinating, create personal deadlines for this presentation.

You have to let your boss look it over on Friday morning, so really, your deadline to complete the work is Thursday. You have to research the topic first, so your deadline to compile notes is by the end of work on Monday.

That gives you Tuesday to write the presentation, Wednesday to format the slideshow, and Thursday to practice and catch any errors.

When you create deadlines, you’re empowering yourself to make the most of your time. You’re also ensuring that you won’t feel stressed about a project, or have to work late to get it all done.

Don’t Multitask

It might seem strange to learn you shouldn’t multitask when you’re trying to be more productive, but it’s true. Multitasking diverts your attention away from one task and potentially causes you to make more errors.

Even if you think you’re multitasking when you work while watching a TV show, you’re not paying attention to both things. You’re working, and when you look at the TV, your brain is rapidly switching over to process what’s happening in the show.

Asking your brain to constantly shuffle back and forth between tasks can waste about 40% of your time. This doesn’t even take into consideration the time spent reacclimating your mind to the guidelines. After you’re distracted, you probably spend a few minutes thinking, “Where was I?” and trying to remember where you were with your work.

You might hear the dialogue in the background, but it’s probably not making much sense to you. If it does, you might look at your work and realize that you’ve been typing what you’re hearing. That’s because your brain was listening more intently to the show than it was focusing on your work task.

When your brain is constantly jumping back and forth between two or more things, you’re not able to give your full focus to anything. As a result, it takes you longer to complete one task than it would if you gave it your full attention.

Set Time Limits

Setting a time limit to accomplish a task can help you understand how much time you have and how you’re using it. It can also make it more bearable to work on a dreaded task if you know it will only last a certain amount of time.

The Pomodoro Technique is one of the most popular methods for this style of time management. You break your work into chunks of 25 minutes, using a timer to keep you on track. When the timer goes off, take a five-minute break.

During your break, you can answer texts or emails, scroll social media, refill your coffee—anything! Even a short break will make you feel more energized when it’s time to come back for another Pomodoro.

After you complete four Pomodoros, which takes two hours, you can take a longer break. It’s surprising how much work you can get done in 25 minutes, especially when you know you’ll get a short break once you’re done.

Take Time Away

Pomodoro breaks give you the idea of how time away from work can recharge you and help you come back stronger. Taking longer breaks is also important, including taking a day off.

Modern society feels the need to always work, or at least always be available. But that’s detrimental to your mind and overall health. If you work continuously without relaxing, you’ll burn out. It’s important to let your brain and body rest so they can replenish your energy.

Even spacing out is an effective way of taking a break. Your brain is checking out for a moment and thinking about anything and everything. When you refocus, you might find that you felt like you had a power nap, and now have great ideas for the task at hand.

Final Notes

Time management isn’t hard to master, and these five productivity tips will help.

When you create deadlines, focus on your priorities, set time limits, and take breaks, you take control of your schedule and make the most of your time.