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Productive Or Busy?
Feeling overworked and struggling with deadline panic? Do you wish you had more time for the things that bring value to your life? If your answer is yes, then continue to read this post because today I’m revealing my secret to be insanely productive and get way more done in less time (without sacrificing your personal life!) Without further ado (because who’s got time for that?!), let’s dive in!
PS. Don’t forget to grab your FREEBIES (there are LOTS of them)!!!
Productive vs Busy
Productive vs Busy
" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/holisticlifebykate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Productive-vs-Busy.png?fit=212%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/holisticlifebykate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Productive-vs-Busy.png?fit=566%2C800&ssl=1" data-lazy-sizes="(max-width: 566px) 100vw, 566px" srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7">Plan Your Mornings Strategically
Morning sets the tone of the day because the way you spend it directly impacts how you will feel within the next couple of hours. What you do during the first half an hour after waking up affects your state of mind, productivity levels and wellbeing. That’s why it is crucial to start your day the right way. And what better way to do that than by planning in advance?
Strategic planning is a powerful tool to transform the morning chaos into a daily focus. Without it, you will have to rely on your morning mood and willpower to accomplish your daily goals. And that’s just too risky. Because you never know whether you will wake up in good spirits or not. Sometimes we wake up grumpy without a legitimate reason. So instead of leaving your daily success to fate plan your day in advance.
Having it all planned out and scheduled will help you to regain mental clarity, organize your thoughts and boost your mental focus before you even grab your first-morning coffee. So instead of waiting for things to happen, take a pro-active approach and create a schedule, make a prioritized to-do list, plan some powerful breaks between your tasks. And don’t forget to schedule free time in addition to deadlines in your calendar.
Pre-Work Brain Dump
A brain dump is an act of getting rid of all of your thoughts out of your head and putting them onto paper so that you can focus on your top priorities. This simple method is a powerful tool for decluttering your mind and freeing up mental space to avoid being distracted, confused, and overly stressed while working on important projects.
The human brain never stops its activity. It’s working all the time categorizing ideas, mapping everything we experience, and processing all the information we take even when we sleep. And because we live in the Misinformation Information Age the amount of external stimuli is insane. Our brains are busier than ever before trying to make sense of the information that we take. No wonder we feel overwhelmed and overstimulated.
Too much information, thoughts, and ideas create confusion, stress, and anxiety making you unable to focus on one thing at a time. As a result, your productivity, wellbeing, and overall health are seriously compromised. So if you want to organize your mind, increase your mental energy and boost your focus, a brain dump method is exactly what you need to achieve that. So take a piece of paper and a pan and put your thoughts, ideas, plans, and feeling onto paper. Free your mental space so that you can focus on your top priorities.
Identify What Is Essential In Your Life
The concept of Essentialism also called the power of less or the art of prioritizing basically means doing more of what is important to you and cutting out of what isn’t. It’s the ultimate solution to the problem of running out of time. Because we all have the same amount of time (during the day) we just use it differently.
Our resources are limited. Time, energy, money, mental capacity, attention, physical space, willpower or even talents are all limited. This means that if say “YES” to one thing you automatically say “NO” to another thing. That’s why it is so important to choose wisely how you’re going to use all the resources you have so that you achieve your goals faster and more easily.
The main difference between highly productive and extremely busy people is that productive people choose their priorities intentionally and focus their effort on the most essential tasks instead of doing random things that don’t bring them closer to their goals. By contrast, busy people prioritize every task equally making everything urgent, and in consequence, in consequence, they are highly ineffective.
So if you want to become highly productive you should start with identifying what are the most essential things in your life.
Ask yourself this question:
What are the things that bring the most value into my life?
And then, once you identify the most essential things in your life, make sure that you will invest enough time in doing them.
Create A Focused List Of Goals
Once you’ve identified what is essential in your life, it’s time to set the right goals that will help you to create the life you want.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. What do I want to achieve in every area of my life? (Target)
2. Why do I want to achieve it? (Purpose)
3. How I’m going to achieve it? (Method)
Then create a focused list of your goals to gain clarity of what do you really want to achieve.
And finally, create an action plan for each of your most important goals.
From my experience, I can tell you that one of the best ways to approach a big goal yearly goals is to break them into small manageable goals with nine-monthly, six-monthly, quarterly, monthly and weekly deadlines. And to help you with that I created free worksheets of action planning that you can grab below.
Prioritize & Simplify Your Tasks
- Are you prioritizing every task equally?
- Are you saying YES to every single opportunity that you encounter?
- Do you feel overwhelmed by the complexity of your tasks?
- Are you confusing SHOULDS with MUSTS?
If your answer is yes to any of these questions, it means that there are too much complexity and confusion that literally kills your productivity. The solution to that is to simplify and prioritize your tasks before you even think about taking action. And what better way to do that than by using The Eisenhower Box?
The Eisenhower Box, also called the Eisenhower Matrix is a visual method designed by President Eisenhower that consists of 4 quadrants:
- DO - urgent and important tasks that need to be done immediately (ex. crisis management, pressing deadlines, urgent problems)
- DECIDE - important but not urgent tasks that aren’t your top priorities (crises, emergencies, hard deadlines) but you should schedule them to ensure that progress is being made (ex. strategic planning, organizing, investing in yourself, prevention, personal development, strengthening your personal relationships, new opportunities)
- DELEGATE - urgent but not important tasks that need to be done but they can be done by someone else (ex. responding to some emails, meal prep)
- DELETE - not urgent and not important tasks that don’t add value to your life (time-wasters, distractions, unnecessary decisions, non-critical choices)
To make the most of The Eisenhower Box method you should:
- Write down all the tasks and activities you think you need to get done right away
- Look at each of these tasks/activities separately and ask yourself:
- Does THIS need to be done?
- Does THIS need to be done right now?
- Does THIS need to be done by me?
And then, once you know the answers start filling out the Eisenhower Box worksheet that you can grab below.
Grab Free Worksheet
This workbook (53 pages) is designed to help you maximize your productivity and increase your effectiveness without sacrificing your life balance.
Whether you work from home during the Coronavirus Pandemic or thinking about starting a side hustle, this workbook can help you build a more thoughtful work-from-home strategy, bring structure to your workday and create a healthy work-life balance.
INCLUDE:
- Tips for Working from Home Effectively
- Tips To Stay Organized & Motivated
- Work from Home Motto
- Tools for designing your own schedule, rock your to-do list and create an ideal daily routine
- Time Management Tips (The Eisenhower Box, The Pareto Principle worksheets included)
- Yearly, Monthly & Weekly Goal Setting (+ Goal Progress Index)
- Yearly, Monthly, Weekly Planner
- Daily Plan & Schedule
- Monthly & Weekly Organizer
- Time blocking method schedule
- Daily Routines for Successful Entrepreneurs
- Work Task Checklists
- Powerful Work-Breaks Planner & Checklist
- Yearly, Monthly, Weekly Project Planner
- Creative Worksheets
- Password Keeper
- Healthy Meal Planner
- Flow State & Mindful Motivation Checklist
- Professional Skills Development Tracker
- Healthy Habit Trackers
PERFECT FOR:
- Entrepreneurs
- Small Business Owners
- People currently working from home due to Coronavirus
- Work from home Moms & Dads
- Direct Sales & Network Marketing
- Online Shops
- & more!
Grab Your Free Printable Workbook
Use The Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle, also known as the rule 80/20 developed by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto states that 20% of your actions produce 80% of the outcomes. This means that if you focus your attention and resources on key tasks you will get the results you want much easier and faster.
The 20/80 rule can be applied to pretty much every area of your life, it’s just more visible in regard to work and career. So if you want to boost profitability, enhance effectiveness and increase efficiency, the best way for this is to take advantage of the Pareto Principle.
How can you apply the Pareto Principle to increase productivity in the workplace? Find the answer here
Batch Similar Tasks Together
Batching similar tasks together has a lot to do with entering flow state and getting laser life focus which is crucial if your goal is to get more things done in less time.
This simple act of grouping similar tasks together such as responding to emails, making important phone calls or doing errands will not only save you a lot of time but it will also increase your efficiency immediately.
I am sure you’ve already noticed that if you switch from one task to a completely different task you lose continuity, effectiveness and flow state. If happens because after having completed one task our brain needs a little time to prepare itself for addressing a completely different issue.
According to a University of California Irvine study, “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.” That’s an awfully long time to prepare yourself mentally to be able to focus on a completely different task. So if you want to increase your efficiency, maximize your productivity levels and get more done in less time, then batching similar tasks together is your solution!
The Ultimate Productivity Bundle
The bundle consists of 29 products and 9 BONUSES that will help you to:
- maximize your productivity levels without sacrificing your personal life
- master your to-do list
- develop daily routines for getting way more done in less time
- conquer procrastination once and for all
- reach your professional goals
- free up more time for yourself
And best of all, you can get the entire package (29 resources) for just $37! But before you make any decision, read my review HERE and then you can decide!
9 BONUSES In The Ultimate Productivity Bundle
- *EARLY BIRD* The Momentum Planner from Productive Flourishing worth $19.97
Productive Flourishing is a community for people with the vision to see how the world could be, the smarts to figure out how to make it happen, and the grit to do the work. They offer everything from planners and e-courses to business coaching and community-building. The bedrock of their mission is to focus on how to channel time, energy, and attention into finishing the stuff that matters.
- 2 months free of Stencil Unlimited from Stencil worth $40
Stencil is the web’s favorite graphic design tool! It is the fastest and easiest way to create engaging visuals for small business owners, bloggers, social media marketers and more! No need to hire expensive designers or take time to learn complicated software. Stencil is the one tool you need to source beautiful stock photos, fonts and icons to create beautiful images faster than you ever thought possible.
- $25 Credit from SaneBox worth $25
- Printable Sticker Pack from From Mimm with Love worth $24
Mim Jenkinson helps action-taking women and online entrepreneurs ditch overwhelm and create their dream life!She shares planners, stickers, courses and programs that bring productivity, joy and creativity into the lives of busy women all around the world.
- Aromatherapy Blend Roller Ball from Puro Co. worth $18
Puro Company specializes in unique aromatherapy blends, artisan soap and skincare products. Every product is handcrafted and formulated by Kristyn Bango, a Certified Clinical Aromatherapist, Herbalist, and Dietary Supplement specialist to provide holistic tools to compliment overall wellbeing and success.
- 1 FREE month of access to Supporti, the accountability partner app worth $15.99
Supporti pairs goal-oriented people together as mutual accountability partners through a mobile app. Supporti is more than a matching service (although it does find you incredible buddies!)—it’s an entire accountability system designed to motivate you to stick to daily behaviors through the power of one-on-one peer support. If you struggle to follow through on your own goals or can’t seem to work on them consistently, experience the game-changing difference of an accountability partner with Supporti!
- 3 Months Free Trial from Focuster worth $44
Focuster automatically schedules your To Do list in the empty slots in your calendar. Now you can focus on what’s important, rather than the tedium of managing your schedule. Focuster updates your schedule to maximize your productivity when your calendar changes. And if you don’t finish, Focuster will move it to the next available time. Recover your focus from distractions or interruptions with intelligent notifications that will remind you until you complete your top priority.
- LXR Brain Fuel (3 pack) from Beekeeper’s Naturals worth $29.99
Optimize your mind—queen bee style. B.LXR is the caffeine-free, nootropic fuel your brain craves to fight brain fog, hack productivity, and naturally support memory, focus, and energy.
- Exclusive 45 Day Free Trial from FacileThings SL worth $33.60
The Ultimate Solution to Get Things Done. Without Stress. Get Organized Effectively.
Register For FREE Class On Essential Daily Routines
Are you happy with what you get done each day?
No…? I just wanted to remind you about a free class to help! It’s called 3 Essential Daily Routines for Getting More Done in Less Time
You’ll be learning from Jennifer Roskamp, uber-productive blogger and homeschooling mother of nine. She’ll teach you how to:
- Get out of bed energized and motivated every day
- Practice self-care and make your health a daily priority
- Simplify mealtimes so they don’t feel like a chore
- End every day with something you’re looking forward to
- Create simple plans to set yourself up for a great tomorrow
Save your seat and be ready to soak in Jennifer’s practical tips and experience when you attend this FREE class today or tomorrow.
Just pick your time and register for the free webinar HERE
See you there!
Get Your FREE Planner
Get the Momentum Planner for FREE (just pay for shipping).
The Momentum Planner will help you:
- identify your big goals and projects
- break projects into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly action items
- plan when to spend time on action items
- track progress on goals and projects
Get your 250-page, faux leather-bound planner ($19.97 value!) + the Ultimate Productivity Bundle when you buy before midnight:
Get the Momentum Planner for FREE HERE
The Ultimate Productivity Bundle is on sale until Thursday, but the Momentum Planner is only available with your purchase through Midnight tonight!
Get Your FREE eBook
What if you could find productivity tips that work for real people, people who have kids, jobs, and a busy life (but don’t have maids, chauffeurs, or executive assistants)?
Well, the team at Ultimate Bundles did it for you! By asking bloggers real-life strategies for leading productive lives, they created a free eBook called 26 Productivity Tips: from Real People with Real Challenges.
Now you can take these practical strategies and apply them to your life. Learn more and download your FREE copy HERE
The Best Productivity Apps Of 2021
- Trello - project management app here
- Any.do - get seriously organized here
- Todoist - task management software here
- FocusList iOS / Android - productivity app that helps you get more DEEP work done
- Y Productive here
- TickTick: ToDo List Planner, Reminder & Calendar (Android / iOS)
- Hours - Time Tracking App Online here
- Toggl - Free Time Tracking Software here
- RescueTime: Fully Automated Time Tracking Software here
- Google Calendar
Get Your FREE Worksheets
Prioritize & Simplify Your Tasks Worksheets
Learn About The Parkinson's Law
Most people are afraid of tight deadlines because they think that stress and pressure to get things done in a short amount of time will make them unable to focus on their work. In fact, the opposite is true: a little bit of pressure makes people more productive and focus on their goals. Furthermore, tight but realistic deadlines force you to use your time more effectively and practice good time management skills.
While loose deadlines are not only elusive and actually they invite procrastination. Parkinson’s Law explains this perfectly. According to this principle stated by a famous British naval historian, Cyril Northcote Parkinson “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. This means that if something must be done in a month, it will be done in a month and not a moment sooner.
A simple example - studying the night before the exam.
Productive people set smart goals, break them into small manageable steps and give themselves strict time limits to actually achieve them. Busy people, on the other hand, confuse motion with action. They are always busy yet aren’t doing anything productive. And in consequence, they fail to meet deadlines. Only by working productively and effectively, you can achieve intended results.
Make 2021 Your Best Year Ever!
- How To Organize Mind For Maximum Productivity & Balance: 9 Powerful Tips HERE
- 11 Awesome Tools & Apps To Plan & Organize Your Life In 2021 + FREE printables! HERE
- 11 Simple Ways To Develop Self-Discipline & Have Fun Along The Way. HERE
- Maximize Your Productivity: 6-Step Method To Get More Things Done In Less Time. HERE
- Perfect Morning Routine to Reduce Stress & Anxiety HERE
- How To Organize Your Life For 2021: 7 Simple Steps HERE
- How To Set Goals For 2021 And Achieve Them HERE
- 8 Steps To Make 2021 Your Best Year Ever. HERE
- Powerful and smart ways to manage your time efficiently and effectively HERE
- 9 Best Financial Goals For 2021 & Powerful Tips To Actually Achieve Them
- 11 Powerful Habits That Will Make 2021 Your Best Year Ever. HERE
Stay positive, be mindful and start doing MORE by doing less!
xo Kate
