The Secrets to Skyrocketing Your Productivity

Being productive on a daily basis is difficult. It requires a lot of coordination, motivation and focus on the task ahead of you.

You also have to keep an eye on the target and allow yourself enough time to rest. It’s a mundane task in many ways, but it’s something that has to be done.

One of the best ways that helps in staying productive is keeping a master calendar for your business. When you have one calendar that keeps a track of all meetings, schedules and tasks, you’re a lot more productive than when you have multiple.

Hiring a VA or a secretary is also a great time saver as they can help you out with scheduling and keeping a record of all your meetings.

But is staying productive really that complicated?

Are we always going to be going down a tough road?

Maybe. But we can plan ahead and be ten times more productive with these key secrets –

#1 Brainstorm all recurring events and dates –

Right before you want to create a calendar with all your events tracked down, you want to be able to brainstorm on every possible recurring event that can come up.

These could be training sessions or digital marketing seminars or even personal tasks.

Jotting down all recurring activities makes it easier to club that time so that its blocked out for the future. E.g. if you have recurring client consultations and team meetings, you can try to schedule that block together so that you’re out of the office for an extended period of time and don’t need to double shuffle between locations.

#2 Set boundaries for the people in your life –

After you’re all set with jotting down your list of recurring tasks and activities, you can set aside that block of time so that its’ uninterrupted.

You have a mental checklist of blocking a certain time out (let’s say 45 mins) and you can play your day according to that schedule daily. Depending on the priority of that task and where you want to schedule it your energy is spent on that day.

For example... If you know that you live a couple minutes away from your client’s office, then scheduling that recurring task towards the end of the day makes sense. This way, you can set boundaries at work, so that you’re at home by 5:30 pm and you have 4-5 uninterrupted hours to spend with the kids.

This helps in regulating the work-life balance and keep everything smooth sailing. Otherwise what happens is that everything gets mixed up and then you don’t realize where the time just flies by.

#3 Choose an alert color for high-priority events –

When you’re done with a meeting at a certain time, you want to be able to colour code different meetings with different colours. You get a visual map in your mind of all the dates and colours so that you can colour code your memory as well.

It’s like remembering blue blue red – which means client client bank. In other words, you have three meetings. Two of them are with a client and the third one with a bank.

When you recall the meetings with colours you can remember them better and have stronger recall about what you did last week.

#4 Build breaks and downtime into the schedule –

One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to scheduling is not having enough breaks in the middle of the schedule. When you go hard for 5-6 hours straight you burn out quicker, and don’t have enough time to recover in between.

Remember to schedule a break in between meetings or right before a long stretch of time.

Also remember to eat well and not skip on any meals or snacks. Get your nutrition right every time and your productivity will be through the roof.

#5 Don’t make anything rigid –

The funniest thing about being rigid is that it affects productivity. When you’re rigid about your schedule and there are last minute cancellations, you’re stuck.

You have nothing to do for that chunk of time and rescheduling will take time. Therefore, ensure that you have enough flexibility between meeting times so that you can easily break free of the schedule in case something happens.

#6 Get creative with tool combinations –

When it comes to building a master calendar, there is no one single approach that works. You can work with a variety of tools to your benefit and create something that works for you.

For example... You use Google Calendar you can have it as a constant companion. You can get easy reminders, messages, routines, etc.

You can also go ahead with Basecamp which is slightly more advanced and has multiple features for professional use.

#7 Use it as a place to capture information on-the-go –

The moment that you get a good idea, you should write it down quickly. You know what happens when you don’t write it down? You forget about it. Do this until it becomes second nature and you don’t even have to hesitate.

#8 Assign a “Calendar Keeper” to someone on the team –

Designate someone on your team to be the calendar invitation manager. This person’s duty is to ensure that all the calendar invites are sent out and everyone’s accepted.

#9 Give everyone access to the calendar –

Let your calendar be public, so that not only does it serve as an inspirational piece of hard work, but also, it’s a great way to see where someone can fix a meeting with you. You want the calendar to be inclusive and collaborative

#10 Make it centrally located for everyone –

Make the calendar be easily located for anyone to access it anytime. If you make sure that your calendar has the ability to be accessed from anywhere, it will be used more often. Whatever technology you use, make sure that its easy for anyone to access it.

Conclusion

You want to be able to leverage technology and become more productive using the power of a centrally located always online calendar. You can color code and be flexible to maximize your productivity.