1. Tracking your productivity

(Okay, technically 15 hours a day this week. Total hypocrite.)

Improving your productivity starts with understanding how productive you are to begin with, and taking steps to improve it. Without a reference point, you won’t know if you’re actually being more productive, after all.

If your work is mostly done on a computer, my favourite tool to use is RescueTime, which tracks all of your activities (applications and websites you have open) and ranks them on how productive they are.

Each day you get a neat report online with a productivity score, as well as a breakdown of the activities you spent your time on. It’s free, so you can’t go wrong.

You can see if your score goes up when you implement new practices.

2. Auditory stimulation

I am sure most people have heard the expression “music to my ears”, which is well known for a reason. Us humans respond very acutely to sound, and certain audio-frequencies can really hit a chord, so to speak.

Along with my 1-litre shake and nootropics each morning, I start my day off with Brain.fm. It’s an insanely effective app created by neuroscientists that can either get you in the zone, or mellow you out.

I put it on meditation mode for 30 minutes while I prepare my breakfast, which kicks off my day with a calm and positive vibe. I follow this by putting it on intense focus mode for the 2 hours after I start working.

This really helps me get into the flow of things and start my day off in hustle or die mode.

Here’s a few other good sources for work music:

3. Prioritising

Credit to myself for this graphic.

Above is the method I use for prioritising my tasks. It’s all about selecting the most high-impact actions.

It’s a combination of the important vs urgent matrix and the 80/20 rule (aka the Pareto principle).

Once a week I take a high-level look at ALL the tasks I have in my backlog, and schedule them using the diagram above. I select items in the top tier (important + urgent or important), and worry about everything else later, or delegate it to others in our team.

After I have a list of the top picks I then narrow it down to the 20% that will likely yield 80% of the outcomes I desire. This 20% must be done before any of the other 80% is started.

This is the whole “eat the frog” mentality, which promotes doing the most important and undesirable things first to get them over and done with. This premise is quite logical, given you want to be doing the most important stuff when your energy is peaking.

4. STOP multitasking

You have already heard this a billion times, but let me say it again: STOP MULTITASKING IT’S DUMB!

The phrase “less is more” is certainly applicable here. Working on multiple tasks in parallel is literally killing your productivity, because you’re constantly diluting your concentration.

Second to that it takes up to 25 minutes to get into a flow state, which means that every time you switch task you’re starting that timer again, thereby creating a ton of cognitive load which will exhaust your energy levels much quicker.

So whenever you’re working on stuff focus on one task at a time, and don’t switch to a new task until the first one is done.

Which leads me onto my next point…

5. Limit distractions!

I get it, you’re popular. You’re like Justin Bieber in his prime being bombarded with notifications and hot red panties. Okay, maybe just the former, but you get the picture.

When you’re working you need to be fully immersed in getting the job done, not intermittently checking your Facebook feed or messaging your friends. All those little pings are taking your eyes off the goal and dragging you down to average land. You don’t want to be there.

A few great tools for limiting distractions are Self Control, Waste No Time and RescueTime, all of which allow you to block access to distracting websites for a certain amount of time, forcing you to get stuff done.

To further limit distractions, you need to eliminate notifications! Thankfully this is a really easy thing to do. Simply enable DND during working hours on all of your devices.

I also use the RescueTime “Focus mode” as soon as I kickoff my Brain.fm focus-session, to ensure the only outcome I produce is pure productivity.

6. Say NO!

Yes men and women are people too kind to put their productivity first, thereby limiting their time and energy on what’s actually important. Again, these are people willing to settle for average just to please others. People too kind to take charge of their lives. BIG MISTAKE.

The ratio should be one yes per every 10 no’s. Just saying no or not now to things is powerful, because it keeps your schedule laser-focused on what matters, while pushing back or rejecting things that don’t.

Don’t worry, it’s not your problem whether other people get offended, it’s theirs. In fact people will respect you more for being able to focus so hard. If you’re responsive for other people and their lives depend on your performance, you best bet you need to say no more.

7. Manage your tasks better

Every time I see someone managing their to-do list via post it notes, notepads or unorganised systems (cough waterfall cough), my blood boils. I literally feel an immediate urge to tell them there’s a better way (not to say my way works for everyone, but it’s pretty damn slick!).

So if you don’t have a simple and effective way to manage all of your to-do’s then you’re in big trouble. It’s very important to organise and schedule your tasks so that you know what needs to be done.

You may have heard terms like Agile, Scrum and Kanban before. No? They’re all task-management methodologies. You can learn more about them here.

My favourite tool by far for managing tasks is Trello. Here’s a demo of how it works: https://youtu.be/xky48zyL9iA

Pro tips:

You will be a task-completing machine in no time with Trello.

8. The 10x rule

Although I think most “motivational seminars” are for fools, I am quite a fan of Tony Robins and Grand Cardone.

I find that you NEED to be highly energetic, passionate, unrelenting and delusionally-positive to keep up with the demands of running a company, and I personally find these two very motivating and inspiring!

Lately I have been fully embracing “The 10x Rule” by Grand Cardone, which is all about thinking bigger. If you think a task is going to take a month, shorten that time by 10x. If you want to generate $100k of sales this month, times it by 10x.

DO 10X WHAT OTHERS DO EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The philosophy is all about being more ambitious and telling average to GTFO, because you don’t want anything to do with it.

Instead of aiming low and being happy when you accomplish mediocre goals, it’s all about aiming for the starts, hustling your heart out and being content when you make it further than you otherwise would have.

I highly recommend getting the 7+ hour audiobook, as well as his “Be obsessed or be average” audiobook. They will rock your world.

9. Take natural nootropics

Are you a coffee lover? Perhaps somebody who chugs down a few cups a day to stay alert in the office? Or maybe you’re a tea fan (green tea in particular). Well my friend, congratulations because you already take nootropics! And you probably didn’t even know it.

If you haven’t heard of the term nootropics before, aka “smart drugs”, they are cognitive enhancing supplements that can optimise several systems in your brain, to help improve your concentration, memory and alertness, as well as reduce stress and mental fatigue, all of which can improve your productivity.

Read more about them in my article below:

Nootropics are something I am very passionate about, given I run a health and wellness company that formulates them! That’s the second disclaimer in a single post, I just broke a PB.

They are a powerful asset to your toolkit of productivity boosts, and allow you to go beyond the standard “coffee crash”. Here’s a list of some good ones to try.

10. Stop thinking you get another shot at life

Although this isn’t a conventional piece of advice for boosting productivity in the workplace, it’s an important one to be aware of.

Many people are careless and think they get another shot at life. Believe what you will, but I am personally living under the assumption that this is the only shot I get. It’s the only shot I am sure of.

It’s a hard fact to admit, but one which you can be empowered by instead of crippled by. You can look at it as an opportunity and not a problem. An opportunity to give it all you’ve got in this world, and die without the regret of not trying hard enough.

Once you lean to fully and truly embrace the finiteness of life, you will be a different person. You will literally wake up everyday with more drive and motivation, because you know the clock is ticking and that list of to-do’s isn’t got to tick itself off.

You can read my full post on this here:

And that’s it folks! I guarantee that if you implement some of this advice into your workflow you will really start to see results. I want that for you.

May productivity be with you, friend 😀

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Be happy and stay healthy peeps 😀

— John, CEO at Hapi.