5 Small Tips for Better Productivity

Since I started focusing on becoming a more productive person, I’ve made a lot of changes to my life. Some of the bigger ones include starting a Daily Work Log, switching to a third-shift work schedule, omitting fruitless activities and finding my one true passion in life. But even with all of those changes, there are some things that I’ve done on a much smaller scale that I haven’t really talked about much. But they’re just as important as the big things when it comes to becoming a more effective person.

Here’s my list of small changes that are helping to make me a more productive person.

1. Time Management with RescueTime

What happens to a lot of people when they start trying to develop a more efficient lifestyle is that they immediately jump to tracking where their time goes and trying to figure out ways to cut out the time-wasters. They use time-sheets and advanced software to keep everything in order, and for the most part this is a great idea.

The problem comes when we start to spend more time managing ourselves than we do actually working. The time management software and tracking processes that we go through act more like the time-wasters than something that is helpful.

I am a self-proclaimed time management addict. To solve this problem, I’ve installed a simple software called RescueTime, which runs in the background on my computer at all times. Taking 30 seconds every so often to write how much time you spent on a task is 30 seconds not well spent. With RescueTime, the software tracks and analyzes that time for you, and gives you a weekly report so that you can see what things you are doing the most.

As an example, I spend about 4 1/2 hours a week in Gmail. By knowing how I spend my time, I may be able to cut back that activity by an hour, or even more. The company also has a blog where they write articles about Time Management and business, like this one on reasons why Facebook continues to redesign its interface.

2. No More Statistics Widgets

I love opening up Mint to see what visitors have recently come to the site, but this has eaten up many precious hours every month that could be spent elsewhere. One of the biggest culprits was a Statistics Widget that sat on my desktop and gave me the latest count of unique visitors. Without any hesitation, every 30 minutes I would stop what I was doing and go check that little widget for changes. If even one new visitor had appeared since the last time I checked, it was time to open my browser and see where they came from, how long they stayed and what pages they read.

This just simply isn’t going to be healthy for my work ethic, and so I’ve recently decided to remove the widget and hide the browser bookmark from immediate view. I still love checking my statistics, but only once a day when I first get started (to see how things went while I was asleep). By removing any mentions of the software from my view, I’ve also kept it from my thoughts.

3. Cleaner Desktop with Fences and Color

To confess another sad addiction that I have been plagued with, I like to change my desktop backgrounds. After a while, I just get bored with looking at the same image for a long time, and so I feel a desire to change it. Recently, though, I made a discovery that is pretty priceless – solid colors don’t get boring at all. In fact, since I’ve changed my desktop background to a solid color I’ve completely forgotten about it every time I have to look there (rather than pausing to look at the beautiful background, or thinking about some other image I should change it to).

With a solid color background, it leaves me free to use a software called Fences to organize the remaining icons into groups for easy browsing. I have two fences right now – “Quick Links” and “To Do”. Each other them houses several folders or files that I either need quick access to or need continued reminders to do something with them. When I’m finished with an item, I put it away in another folder that isn’t on my desktop. 5 seconds to copy a file is worth it when the alternative is to continually be baffled by why an old file is left on the desktop.

4. The Tablecloth is No More

Remember when I shared with you that I was starting to use a tablecloth on my computer desk to keep things looking clean? Well, it worked great for about a week, and then I started to get paranoid over spilling something on it and getting it dirty. By the time that I had shifted it around to hide the dirt (a process which involves taking everything off of my desk and replacing it) I knew that I was wasting time on something that was unnecessary.

I no longer have a tablecloth, and now feel completely free to spill whatever I want on my desk as often as I please.

What this little thing has taught me is that if I change something in my surroundings and I start to think about it more than a few times a day, then I’m taking my focus away from my work, and that is exactly what I DO NOT want to do. Another example of this is a small piece of art on my wall which I hung crooked (on purpose). I’m constantly thinking about turning it (so now it’s time to do so).

5. Checking E-mail Twice a Day

So I haven’t honestly gotten to this point yet in my day, but I can see myself moving in this direction. Since switching to third-shift I’ve found that there are really only two times a day that I need to check my email. Once at 4 PM when I wake up (because everyone was asleep when I sent out the emails in the night) and once at around 11 PM when I am in the middle of my work.

Each time that I check them, I try not to work on any projects that take more than 5 minutes to finish. I complete the task (or look up some information), send the reply, and archive the email so that it is no longer in my inbox. Priority emails that will take more than a few minutes are added to a ‘To-Do’ folder which shows me how many messages are in there. Then later, when I start my work ‘night’, I open that folder and get to work on the projects that are most important.

The trick here is to keep focused on one task at a time and mix them up to keep my mind fresh. If my list includes writing three articles, developing a new website and giving tech support to customers in the Forums, I write one article, give tech support, write a second article, develop the website and then finish by writing the third. I don’t want to get bored or burn myself up during my work hours.

Since no one replies to those emails from the time I send them (12:00 AM) till the time I am finished with my work that morning (6:00 AM) I am free to ignore my email completely and work on the tasks that require my attention.

Of Course, There’s Always More

This list is far from complete, but it’s a good place to start. I’ll be making a lot more changes over the coming weeks as I focus more and more on ‘cutting down the steps’ to get jobs done faster. Do you have any tips for me or the other readers here?