Quick Tips To Boost Your Productivity
Like many of you, I work in front of my computer 6 days a week, 6-10 hours per day.
Until very recently, my major downfall was getting distracted and becoming unfocused– therefore wasting A LOT of time and making myself completely useless for long intervals.
I tried everything and finally came up with this “winning formula” that allows me to work very productively each and every day.
1) Read the Book Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. Amit from Super Affiliate Mindset recommended it to me, and it’s AWESOME!
2) Plan Your Day the Night Before
This gives your brain all night to think about the day ahead of you.
3) Become Extremely “List” oriented.
Write specific goals for the year. Then break those goals down by month. Then by week. Then by day.
Each day, you should have an “Action List” of all the tasks you want to accomplish. Get a notebook or legal pad and write down the 10 or 20 things you want to accomplish for the day.
Next, assign by priority. I assign “A” to IMMEDIATE & URGENT things that will directly contribute to increased revenue. These are my “frogs” to eat first thing in the morning. “B” items are less important, but still relatively necessary. “C” items can wait or can be done at another time.
Now, I put numbers next to each letter, like “A-1, A-2, A3, B-1,B-2,B-3″, etc. Do the A-1’s first, then A-2, etc. Do those first thing in the morning, if possible, even before checking your stats or email.
4) Learn About Time Management.
Another great book recommended by Amit is No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs. Read it.
Time management is extremely important to being productive. Here’s what you need to do:
Figure out how much you want to make per year. Let’s say $200,000. Next, divide it by 1,760 (220 working day x 8 hours per day). So you get $113/hour. But, you probably won’t work 8 hours per day. You might only have 6 “productive hours” per day. So multiply $113 x 1.25 = $142/hour.
Now, figure out how much you need to make per minute. $142/60 = $2.36. So, my time is worth at least $2.36/minute or $142 per hour. Figuring out the per minute amount is a good exercise, so I suggest you do it.
Next, you need to outsource EVERYTHING that you can which you can pay someone less than $142/hour. For example, I’m hiring a copywriter and web designer in India and paying them $8-15/hour. This allows me to focus on my 3 core competencies which are niche research, Adwords, and project management.
5) Download and make good use of Interuptron.
This FREE tool allows you to track, log, and graph your productive hours and non-productive hours. It also allows you to take “break” every x minutes. I work 60 minutes and then take a 7 minute break and then take 45 minutes for lunch. I work from my house and aim for 7.5 “productive” hours per day. I demonstrate this in my video:
6) Say NO To Stats Checking, Email Checking, AIM, Chatting, Getting up to Eat, or anything else that causes you to lose your focus!!
Everyone has their weakness. I think A LOT of people in the affiliate marketing space have the weakness of reading RSS subscriptions. This is a killer down fall. I’m not saying to never read blogs, but at least set a specific time– ideally 15-20 minutes right after lunch when most people are the least productive.
Tim from 4hourworkweek.com recommends checking your email no more than twice each day. The first time ideally AFTER lunch.
If you have one of those little email checkers that blink if you get an email, then delete that program from your PC! The idea is to remain completely focused during your “60-min productive session”. You don’t want ANY distractions at all if possible.
7) Focus on ONE thing at a time. I used to have the habit of multi-tasking. For me, this is a KILLER. If I work on one thing at a time and don’t move on until I complete the task, I’m WAY more productive then if I’m trying to do multiple things at once. I’m also more focused and make less mistakes.
8) Make sure everyone around you KNOWS that you DO NOT want to be disturbed! I make it very clear to everyone around me how much it bothers me to be interrupted while I’m working. I try to be as polite as possible, but it’s important that you don’t let other people distract you when you are working.
9) Stay positive, optimistic, well rested, and in good spiritual and physical health.
I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night. I wake up at 6:40 AM every morning and run for 20 minutes and then work-out for 40 minutes. Then I do a bible study for 20-30 minutes. I eat breakfast and start work around 9AM. When I start work I’m refreshed and ready for the day. My desk is clear and my office is clean.
10) Each day, try to do better than the day before. If you ran 1 mile, go for 1.2 miles. If you checked your email 3 times yesterday, check it 2 times today. Basically, try to continually optimize your systems, processes, and knowledge each and every day!
Basically, that’s it! If you follow these 10 tips I guarantee you will boost your productivity by 100% to 500+%!
January 28th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Josh - great advice, and one recommendation. As often as possible, eliminate the word “try” from your vocabulary. This is general advice for everyone, absolutely NOT criticism. I love your blog, and your giving attitude.
The word “try” implies failure. Either it implies that you will fail, or that you might fail. You don’t really “try” to get 7 hours of sleep. You either DO it, or you DECIDE not to because something else was more important. “Try” kinda makes it seem like you are not the one in control. It’s more productive and positive to use different words.
Have you ever asked somebody if they would be able to make it to a certain social function you invited them to, and their reply was “I’ll try” … we all know what this really means.
So instead of “trying” to be more productive, just actually do it instead. This advice came to me from my NLP coaches a few years back, and it has stuck with me ever since.
Onward and upward …