Tuesday, May 8th, 2007...3:31 pm
Secrets To Being Productive
Ben Yoskovitz from the Instigator Blog has created a group writing project and is asking for peoples secrets on productivity. Charlene from Essential Keystrokes, Maki from Dosh Dosh, and Zep from In-Sect have all invited me to join in.
Before I jump into my own thoughts on productivity I wanted to mention some points Charlene and Maki brought up in their own posts.
Charlene’s secret to being productive is you have to love what you do. You’d be hard pressed finding someone who disagrees with that. When you have passion for your work you can lose yourself in it so easily. Whenever I’m involved with a project that I have a passion for I end up so absorbed in it I often go days with very little sleep and sometimes none at all. It might be tough on my mind and body, but man am I productive in that time.
Maki also mentioned something that bears repeating. He talks about diversifying ones projects and focus. Not only is this a good idea from a money making perspective, it also addresses one of the major issues bloggers have to deal with, which is burnout. When you feel yourself close to burnout the best thing to do is take a break. If you can fill that void with another project you can continue being productive while you re-energize and regain your motivation.
Zep’s tip is something most of us avoid. Get the mundane tasks out of the way first so you can focus on the bigger picture without distraction. This is something I really need to work on myself.
My Productivity Secrets
There are two practices I feel are important to being productive:
1. Set goals.
If you don’t give yourself something to aim for you’ll never hit anything. I try to be realistic with the goals I set. There’s no point in knowingly setting a goal so high you’ll never reach it. The key is to know your limitations and to work within those boundaries. Setting daily and weekly goals helps me to focus my efforts as well as giving me a way to measure my progress.
2. Prioritize.
This is my biggest tip to being productive. Prioritize and be ruthless about it. If something isn’t going to help you go forward, move it to the back of the queue or cut it loose. Time is a precious commodity and I never seem to have enough of it to get through the workload I set for myself, but I get close. If I didn’t prioritize my productivity would come to a standstill.
What are some of your secrets to being productive?
Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts or write your own post on the subject. Be sure to check out Ben’s blog to see what other tips productive bloggers have shared.
13 Comments
May 8th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Daniel,
I totally agree! Goal setting and the decisive ability to prioritize is really important. I think they are one of the biggest antidotes to procrastination as well
May 8th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Thank you for participating, and thank you for adding your own thoughts to the mix.
A quick note - my last name is “Yoskovitz” not “Koskovitz” although the latter looks pretty cool *smile*
May 8th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
i couldnt agree more. when i am in love with a project i am so engrossed that sometimes i dont sleep for days. i hate when i have to walk away from what i love to go to my day job, but until i can do what i love all the time, i have to spend my time wisely (like goals / priorites)
May 9th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Sorry Ben.
I’ll change that.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I like your spin on this! I have such a hard time with setting goals and priorities on a daily basis. I still try, but I don’t always do a good job following them because something I love doing will suck me in and blow my whole schedule out of the water.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:36 am
The X-factor - plain luck. It’s amazing sometimes how we plug away tirelessly and if was not for that one stroke of luck, much of it would go unnoticed. The question is, do we wait for the lucky stars to shine on us or do we create our own luck?
May 9th, 2007 at 9:13 am
@ daniel,
first time here. nice one, i like tat post
“blogging is more diff than you think”
i ll write up a post on your website, a sort of review and let know my friends about it..
As of this post, you are right.
no goals ,no output!!
May 9th, 2007 at 10:15 am
In some cases not letting negative emotions take control can help with productivity. Especially in creative endeavors self doubt can creep in and take you off your game. Label those pesky thoughts as unproductive and get rid of them.
May 9th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Secrets for productivity… But what about time?
I’m also in leck of time. I do not have enogh time to find and read many valuable resources, not even to write…
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