Little Steps Towards A More Productive Day
There are some days that I sit at my desk from morning till night and when I look back on my day and I'm a little baffled to what on earth I've been doing. We all have those days and something I want to live by this year is work less with more focus, I'm terrible for not being focused enough on my time. Not having typical working hours is a blessing and curse so I've been making a few little changes to help me have more productive work days and here a few of them.
Removing my phone from my workspace: As a bid to spend less time with my phone in my hand anyway this has been really working well for me. I now leave it on the other side of my room on a soft surface so when it does vibrate that I can't hear it. Not checking Instagram or Twitter throughout the day is really helping me having a more productive day as it is amazing how much time can be lost by scrolling through social media.
Setting aside time for admin & organisation: Things like filing away receipts, updating my finances and planning out my time between this blog, A Little Opulent and then working on freelance work in between needs a lot of time and it's easy for it to get neglected. Every day I set aside 1-2 hours to get all those done and by being more organised it helps me spend my time wisely.
Single-task: Probably my worst work habit is that I never focus on one thing at once, I'm constantly flipping from one thing to another. I need to just put all my energy into one single task so that it's the very best that it can be.
Have a break: It's pretty easy for me to be sat at my desk all day and sit and eat my lunch and dinner with my work. This is something that is pretty tough to get out of the habit of doing but by eating elsewhere it helps me to refresh and go back into work with a clear head. I'm looking forward to it being warm again so I can spend my breaks outside instead of being cooped up inside all day.
E-mails can wait: Although I always want to be punctual with my replies I also have to realise that people don't expect an answer within 5 minutes. Something I do every day at around 3 or 4pm is reply to all the emails that I have and then do the exact same the next day, of course some e-mails do need an instant reply. By only doing it once a day it helps me stay on the task that I'm working on and stay focused.
Write a list: Me and my to do lists are best friends but something I've definitely learnt over the past year is how to write myself a functional one instead of writing down 30+ tasks which is just daunting to look at. Having a manageable lot of tasks to get through leads to much of a productive work day and an awesome sense of accomplishment when you get to the end of them.
Leave a task alone when it's taking too long: Sometimes the creative juices just aren't flowing and when I'm trying to photograph something and it just won't come out how I want or I'm trying to write a post and the words just won't come out and before I've spent hours banging my head on my desk feeling so frustrated. Nowadays when those moments occur I just move on with it because you cannot force something, no matter how hard you try.
Leave a task alone when it's taking too long: Sometimes the creative juices just aren't flowing and when I'm trying to photograph something and it just won't come out how I want or I'm trying to write a post and the words just won't come out and before I've spent hours banging my head on my desk feeling so frustrated. Nowadays when those moments occur I just move on with it because you cannot force something, no matter how hard you try.
Do you have any tips for a productive work day?
