5 Tiny Habits That Will Transform Your Productivity

Barbara Bickham -

Sadly, there are still only 24 hours in a day, meaning no matter how hard you try, you can never accomplish everything you want to. Or can you?

Becoming more productive is the Holy Grail for most of us. We want to get more done in less time so that we’re freed up to do other things that are more fun. But how do you go about doing that when your time is limited, and you don’t know where to begin?

You start with tiny habits that will transform your productivity.

  1. Ask yourself what your role model would do. If you get stuck on a project or even just an answer, think about what the person you look up to most in your industry would do. Typically, you’ll find this clarifies the situation very quickly.

  2. Do a review at the end of your workday. Taking five minutes to make a quick list of accomplishments helps you leave work with the feeling that you’ve gotten some work done today. But making another list of things you wanted to do but weren’t able to (along with the reasons why you couldn’t) is pure gold. Seeing where you became derailed helps you plan better for tomorrow. It helps you put a plan in place to keep it from happening again.

  3. Turn off your phone. If you need to get something done, then you should silence all notifications and make a point not to check your email for a certain block of time. That assures you interruption-free work time so that you can focus better.

  4. Stave off requests with a simple promise to check your schedule. By not giving an immediate answer, you have the opportunity to ask yourself if you have the time or energy to dedicate to that request. Chances are you don’t. That keeps you from impulsively overbooking yourself to the point where you can’t get anything else done.

  5. Visualize the goal. Spend five minutes every day just sitting quietly and thinking about what it is that you ultimately want to accomplish, along with the steps and stages of getting there. Creative visualization has proven to increase your chances of success, which makes it well worth the time investment every day.

Tiny habits, unlike the habits we usually try to build, have a way of sticking when all else fails. Why? Because the change you’re trying to make is so small that success is practically assured. Dedicate yourself to these small habits and your productivity will soar - leaving you free to… well, do whatever it is you’ve always wanted to do.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?