Thursday, January 8, 2015 / by Matthew Freda
Easy Ways to Make Your 2015 Great
Easy Ways to Make Your 2015 Great
It’s unlikely that you woke up this morning with the goal of being mediocre. In fact, if you’re like most of us, you want today to be better than yesterday and tomorrow better than it was today.
More importantly, you want to be productive and get things done.
It’s a reasonable request and fortunately, much of the outcome of each day rests in your hands. What’s even better, there are easy things that you can do consistently to ensure that your day ends as well as you hoped it would when you got out of bed this morning.
We’ve compiled a list of some simple strategies that can help you get the most out of each of your days. We hope you enjoy the list and this first edition of the Monday Morning Mojo.
Happy New Year!
How to Be More Productive
See the future in advance: Sometimes the work we have to do each day is overwhelming. Other times it extremely routine. In either case, the work needs to get done (and usually as fast as you can do it.) If you take the time to visualize what you’re going to do the night before, the less energy you’ll have to spend on getting them done. This frees you to tackle more projects and get them done.
Stay on your toes: Well not literally. During your workday, stand as often as you can. This increases blood circulation, burns more calories and allows more oxygen into your lungs – all things that give you more energy to keep working.
Touch it once: The late, great business strategist, Chet Holmes recommends that you touch things you’re working on only one time – and decide then and there if you’re going to work on it then, delegate it or put it into your task management funnel for the future. A lot of time and energy is wasted constantly re-evaluating whether or not you’re going to work on something.
Schedule return calls and emails: Calling back a client or digging into email can send you down a rabbit hole that can take you very far off track from your current tasks. Schedule 3 to 4, 15- to 30-minute times in your calendar to deal strictly with phone calls and emails. That way, if you get caught up on something, you can give it your full attention and not vampire time from another project.
Take a break: Our brains need rest even in the middle of the day. If you’ve been working diligently for a couple of hours, take a step back and give your brain time to regroup. Five minutes of taking your mind off the task at hand will not only recharge your batteries, but it will give you a fresh perspective on your current activity (which might help you get it done faster).
There’s no shortage of great ideas to help you get more done each day. The important thing is to be deliberate in employing them in your daily activities. Take the time to put these strategies in place and you’ll be on your way to making 2015 your best – and most productive – year ever.
