Have you always been wanting to finish that project you have started or start your awesome idea but months after months, they are still there.
If you have, you are not alone. I had issues with procrastination too and I have ADHD which can be challenging for me to focus and be productive. However, I found some ways that helped me become more productive and achieve a lot more so in today video I will share with you 3 ways that will boost your productivity and achieved any goal that you set.
First I want to talk about Procrastination.
So I found out that Procrastination and being lazy are two things. We often feel guilty for being lazy because we did not finish our work or did not achieve our goals.
In my personal experience, I do not consider myself lazy. I worked really really hard, however, I had issues with procrastination too, especially after I started running my own business. So at first, I thought there was something wrong with me and why I became lazy. But after some reflection, I realised that starting and running my own business requires an enormous amount of works because I started everything from scratch. I also need to manage all departments and the works by myself. And I dream big, I have a lot of ideas and a lot of time, I feel overwhelmed thinking of how much works, effort, time and how many things I need to do to achieve my business goals.
So I realised that the overwhelming feeling is what I try to avoid so I delay doing all my works.
Once I realised what triggered my procrastination, I figured out these 4 steps that helped to keep me focused and productive throughout the day.
Step #1:
Break down your big goal into smaller and more achievable tasks.
For example, I want to complete copywriting content for my website and there are many pages and details that I would like my client to read. It can be overwhelming and it is hard to know where to start. So what I did was I broke it down into pages. I will register each page as 1 goal so I can focus on that single goal until I finish.
I also set a deadline so I will be more discipline to complete on time.
Step #2:
Set intention and daily goals before your start work
It is important for us not to rush ourselves into work and not having our day planned so make you set the wake-up time to give you enough time to get ready and plan your day without rushing.
I am personally not really a planner myself, however, planning my daily goals helps me achieve much more without missing out on any tasks.
I usually spend 5 - 10 min reflecting in the morning to set my intention for the day and jot down my daily goals.
Writing it down gives us a better picture of what we need to do.
I use Evernote for my content writing and keeping track of my daily goals and achievements. However, you can use One Note or any Note App that you are currently using.
Step #3:
Set a time spent for each task without any distraction.
We can have many tasks in a day because as we work, things may come to us and it may interrupt whatever we are doing. In addition, some tasks may take longer than a day and you cannot just do 1 task for the entire day and forget about the rest. What I usually do is that I will set 1-2 hours focusing on doing that and keep this on my daily goals for the next few days depending on the timeline you set for this goal.
For example, it may take me 10 hours to finish my project, I will set 2 hours daily for 5 days straight to finish it.
That's why having to plan our daily goals will help us keep track of things we have to do and not forgetting any.
Step #4:
Tick off your list and reflect how we can plan better for tomorrow:
As we tick off all the completed tasks by the end of our day, we feel productive and it keeps us motivated. Reflect on how we did for today and if there is anything we can plan or do better tomorrow.
And lastly, if any task that only requires less than 5 min of your time, please force yourself to do it immediately. This will avoid pilling up tasks necessarily.
If you have any ways that help you improve your productivity and achieve more, let me know in the comment session below.