How to increase your productivity without working longer hours (and accomplish those big goals!)
Do you ever find yourself nearing the end of the day with a to do list as long as your arm, feeling like you’ve been pulled in a hundred different directions all day with nothing to show for it?
Do you ever look at the clock to realize 3 hours have past and you’re barely halfway through a project that you thought would only take 2 hours to finish?
I hear you. Loud and clear.
As a work from home mom, I have to work in short bursts, which makes designing and getting in a rhythm really, really difficult. It’s taken me until just about my kid’s third birthday, but I finally have a system in place that helps me maximize EVERY PRECIOUS MINUTE.
I’m going to show you how to implement your own productivity system.
Work from home parents…I’m talking to you.
Freelancers and solopreneurs…I’m talking to you too.
I’m also talking to you busy students juggling studio projects and other classes and you established professionals with a boatload of projects and employees to manage.
To make sure you are successful in implementing your own system, I’ve created a free productivity planning guide – you can download it in the resources section and follow along as we go.
Before we begin…
There’s a few things to take care of before we actually get to scheduling. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do these first few steps every time; in order to be intentional about how you’re scheduling, though, it’s important to start from the beginning
1 Understanding your “available to schedule” time
The first step to getting more done without working more is to understand your unique schedule. Where are your biggest blocks of time ideal for complex tasks? When can you squeeze in quick little tasks? Are there certain days of the week better suited to some tasks over others? Use the calendar in the planning guide to map your “available to schedule” time. This is all the time you have available to dedicate to your tasks, projects, appointments, etc. Be sure to note how much time you have in each block as it will really help you increase your efficiency.
Here’s a glance at my weekly schedule.
You can see at a glance where I have longer periods of time for big projects and complex tasks as opposed to quick activities that can easily crossed of my list.
2 Understanding your preferences
In addition to understanding your schedule, you need to understand yourself. Think about when you are most productive. Is it first thing in the morning or in the peace and quiet of the late-night hours? Do you like to sip on a cup of tea or have a bowl of munchies close by? Write down your preferences in the planning guide so you can schedule accordingly. For example, I work best in the mornings when my mind is fresh, and I haven’t worn myself out chasing my daughter, cleaning the house or dealing with crises that popped up. To take advantage of this I make sure to schedule tasks that need more focus, such as client projects, writing or working on my course, for first thing in the morning.
3 The Eisenhower Decision Matrix
The next step to understanding how to maximize your productivity is to understand the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. It’s a simple box divided into four quadrants used to sort tasks based on whether they are important– meaning tasks contributing to your long-term goals and values – and/or urgent– meaning tasks requiring immediate attention:
Quadrant 1 is for Important and Urgent tasks that require immediate attention and work towards fulfilling your business and life goals; such as emails regarding job offers or new business opportunities, school deadlines and medical emergencies. Some of these items are out of your control, like if your significant other ends up in the hospital or you get a call from your kid’s school nurse saying they are sick. Others, such as project or school deadlines, can be planned for accordingly and would more often belong in Q2.
Quadrant 2 is for Not Urgent but Important tasks. These tasks are typically the most fulfilling and help to forward your long-term goals, but because they aren’t demanding our immediate attention they get put on the back burner. When you put a larger focus on this quadrant, you are living more intentionally and proactively working towards your long-term business and life goals. Examples of these task include business growth projects (working ON your business rather than IN your business), taking a class, exercising, enjoying a rewarding hobby, studying (for the ARE perhaps?),and extra family time.
Quadrant 3 is for tasks that are Urgent but Not Important. They are very good at demanding our attention; for example, phone calls and text message, social media or email notifications. They make us feel like we are getting a lot done. However, they don’t help to achieve any long-term goals and are more important to others – those waiting for your reply – but not as important to you. In order to actually make progress these tasks need to be balanced with activities from Q2.
Finally, Quadrant 4 is for things that are Not Urgent and Not Important…essentially, distractions. Watching TV, scrolling through social media, playing video games. Have you ever checked your notifications on YouTube and then an hour later found yourself still watching random videos that caught your eye? Yeah, these activities are time sucks. Don’t expect to be scheduling anything from Q4, but if you find yourself with a finished task list and 10 minutes to spare…by all means, help yourself to some crazy cat videos.
The matrix is great for sorting tasks, though the four equal boxes aren’t a good illustration of how much time should be allocated to each quadrant. The image belowshows the proper proportions for someone who as good time management and knows how to use their time efficiently. THIS is the goal, people!
4 Breaking down long-term goals
Besides being more productive and accomplishing our day-to-day tasks in less time, we also want to start making progress on those long-term goals. The ones that take months, or years, to accomplish and often seem overwhelming. You know, the ones over in Q2 that are Important but Not Urgent and always find themselves getting put off until later because there just isn’t enough time to go around.
We’re going to break down these goals into manageable tasks that can be completed in one of your blocks of time. Never underestimate how motivating it can be when you cross things off a list (there are actually a lot of studies about this)! You’ll have a sense of achievement each time you cross a task off the list and create a visual reminder of how far you’ve come towards reaching your goal.
Using the goal worksheet in your planning guide, I want you to list each step you’ll take on the way to achieving your goal. Print out one page for each goal you are working towards, including career growth, business growth and life goals, and post them on the fridge or over your desk so you watch as you get closer. For example, if my goal was to learn how to make the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my list would look something like this:
On to the Scheduling!
In the past, I used to sit down with my planner and fill in my tasks as I thought of them. Inevitably, I would forget something and have to jam it in later or run out of time and push off those precious Q2 tasks until the next week. I used to lay in bed at night, wide awake, thinking of everything I had forgotten to write down. Now I schedule in two steps; making a list and scheduling tasks based on the blocks of time already mapped out on my calendar. You’ll understand why when you see it in action!
First, the list
After much testing and tweaking, I have found that the ideal amount of time to schedule is one week. Any longer and you risk getting way off track because, you know, life is unexpected, and something always pops up. Any shorter, and you’ll spend too much valuable time planning and not enough doing (this doesn’t include other types of schedules such as marketing calendars. These do work well in periods of a month or more). So, pick a time each week, such as Friday night before you close out for the weekend or Sunday night before the week starts up, to do your scheduling.
When you’re ready to begin, I want you to take a piece of scrap paper, or use the blank list in the planning guide (get it here if you still need it), and write down everything – EVERYTHING – that you have to do. Include all your appointments, project tasks, and items/people to follow up on. If you have recurring tasks, such as writing a blog post every Thursday or updating your website on the 15thof each month, write those down as applicable.
Make sure you include AT LEAST ONE step from the list(s) you made to achieve your long-term goals. If you think you can tackle more than one step based on your “available to schedule” time, then great, but if not definitely include one so that you continue to make progress each week. Once everything is out of your head and on the paper, label or color code each task based on what quadrant they fall into, because this is the order you’ll be adding them to your schedule.
Finally, the schedule
Once your list is ready, you can start filling in your calendar. The trick to maximizing your time is to balance between your “available to schedule” time and your work preferences.
Let me walk you through it:
- Start with Q1 tasks and fill in all your appointments, conference calls, and other commitments that are set in stone. Cross each one off the list as you go; this step usually goes pretty quick.
- Q2 tasks – so here is where I would schedule the first step towards my goal of making the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is research and test bread types for ideal consistency and flavor. For this task, and each other Q2 task, my first question is going to be “how long do I think this step will take?” I plan to dedicate 2.5 hours to studying bread types. Next I ask “what time block will this fit best in?” Well, when I refer to my calendar I see that I have 2.5 hour blocks on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and 2.5 hours each night after my daughter goes to bed. So my third question is “how difficult is this task/will it take a lot of focus for me to accomplish it?” I think that I'll find this task relatively easy to accomplish, so I schedule it for Monday evening. This leaves my 2.5 hour morning blocks open for more difficult tasks that are still on my list.
- Rinse and repeat step 2 for each Q2 task.
- Take your Q3 tasks, as well as activities like responding to messages, and fill them in wherever you have time left in your schedule.
Here’s another thought for you: I did an email challenge by Steph at Fizzle awhile back and I found her metaphor to be particularly helpful; she described quadrants 1 – 3 as rocks, pebbles and sand. Picture filling up your schedule as filling up a jar. If you filled it with sand (Q3) first, there wouldn’t be much room left for the more important rocks and pebbles (Q1 and Q2 respectively). But if you filled it with the rocks and pebbles first, then the sand would fill in the cracks and you’d be able to fill the jar more efficiently.
Following the two guidelines – amount of available time and your personal preferences – go through your list in the order of the quadrants and add each task to your calendar. You can use your own planner or the calendar in your productivity guide.
T-t-t-that’s all, folks!!
If you’ve been following along in your guide, then by now you should have a list of crossed off tasks and a calendar scheduled right down to the minute that maximizes your Q2, goal-achieving tasks. Did you leave yourself a few free minutes to celebrate?!
In case you didn’t download the guide yet, you can get it here.
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