Did you know that the average person makes about 35,000 decisions a day? How can people expect to keep track of their personal productivity? Decisions need to be made in both personal and professional life, the tips we cover today can help you in both areas of your life. If you need help understanding productivity, we will be exploring the power of the mind to get more done in your personal and professional lives.
The Bigger Brains Science of Personal Productivity Course covers the thought and science behind these productivity boosts.
Utilize a Schedule
Research has shown that when people utilize a schedule for their day, they increase profit, sales, and productivity. This can help anyone, no matter what position or business they work in. Utilizing a schedule helps us focus on more important tasks rather than busywork. By doing this, we train ourselves to move beyond the urgent and focus on the important. Once we get the important work out of the way, the rest of the day becomes a breeze. We discuss how to optimize your schedule in our Science of Personal Productivity course.
Use an Accountability Partner
When people have someone holding them accountable for doing something, they are 65% more likely to complete the goal. Even though personal productivity does increase when someone holds you accountable, it is ultimately up to the individual to hold themselves accountable. Contrary to the popular belief, it is not your manager’s job to make sure you do what you are assigned – employees should handle this themselves. Because things can be overwhelming at times, having a partner helps keep you on track, not to mention to remember what you are supposed to be doing! Having an accountability partner helps avoid blame and shame. It just helps people focus on the work at hand.
Forgive and Forget
Everyone can find other people annoying simply because they do things differently. This is important to remember because, to someone else, we might be that annoying person! It can be easy to hold grudges, but by doing so people end up wasting energy on unproductive tasks. It is important to forgive others and even ourselves. Guilt and hard feelings do little good. Resolving unproductive feelings can reduce stress, blood pressure, and help you enjoy your day. Handling workplace grudges more intentionally is part of our Science of Personal Productivity course.
Keep it Clean
Most people might not realize it, but having physical clutter around you can drastically reduce your attention. Why? Because our brains are designed to be sensitive to external stimuli. By cleaning the clutter from your home and workspace, you can improve your happiness and creativity both inside and outside of the office. How reducing clutter can benefit you in numerous ways, is covered more in-depth in our Science of Personal Productivity course. Music is another external stimulus that can impact your personal productivity. Contrary to what most people think, music does more to distract your brain from your work than to keep it focused. It is important to be aware of these distractions as they directly impact personal productivity.
Make the Most of Your Time
We often find ourselves caught up in the rush of things that need to be completed. Most of these tasks are unimportant, or less important than other tasks. One popular task that usually consumes time is emails. Most people think they have to read the email once it arrives, but are unable to respond to it and consequently have to re-read it again when they have time to reply. This is a huge time waster. Additionally, spending time in unfocused meetings can be a time-waster. Thankfully, there are solutions to these issues and we discuss them in our Science of Personal Productivity course.
