Being really honest, (#REALTALK) I have a horrible tendency to procrastinate, I’m not the greatest at time management, and productivity isn’t always my strong point. But I love the feeling of being organized, completing a task, finishing a To Do list entirely, and that awesome accomplished feeling you get when you know you’ve been successfully productive.
As of late, It’s been a goal of mine to conquer procrastination, manage my time better, be more productive, organized, and focused! Since taking up this challenge, I feel so much better about what I accomplish in a day. I am more motivated to get things done. I’m much more driven. And I cross so much more off of my To Do list. I’m not saying there aren’t times where I’m doing something that really could be saved for later…I’m by no means perfect at this! But I have found a system that has definitely been successful for me thus far!
If you want to join me on this journey of making the most of the time you’ve been blessed with, then here we go!
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Start by…
Identifying the causes of wasted time. Evaluating how you typically spend your time, is the biggest step towards putting a stop to bad time management/procrastinating. Because you then know what your distractions are and can address them accordingly.
What is it that negatively sucks up your time? Is your phone a distraction? Social media? Texting? Netflix? Other things you’d just rather do? Make a list of things that keep taking your eyes off the task at hand or that encourage procrastination. I also find that sometimes, my procrastination isn’t always because of a single distraction, but can stem from simply feeling overwhelmed by all that I have to get done. And sometimes, I’m just tired.
Find ways to prevent them. “Starve your distractions, and feed your focus.” (Author Unknown) Is a great quote to keep in mind. Upon knowing what those distractions are, start coming up with ways to prevent or lessen them. Do you need to turn your phone off? Tell your friend you’ll talk to them later? Limit your time on Netflix or time spent browsing your favorite online stores? Whatever steps you need to do, take them. Otherwise these things will keep getting in your way and you will see little to no improvement.
Decide to make time to overview goals, tasks, and simply refocus. Set aside time daily or weekly to sit down and put down all you need to get done. Haha, I call these my “Brain Dump Sessions”. It helps me feel less scatterbrained, more organized, and less all over the place.
Pray about it! No, it’s not too silly to pray about. If laziness is a for real struggle of yours, pray about it!
Daily Productivity & Time Management
Write out (or type out!) your short term goals and tasks. Things you’d like to achieve in the next week or over the next few days.
Separate big tasks (high priority ones) from smaller ones (not so important ones). Divide them up over the next few days/week as necessary. Whether that be all of your top priority ones in one day, and then your smaller tasks throughout, or vise versa. Whatever way you feel you will be most effective in your getting them done. And maybe you’ll have to experiment with different things. And that’s okay too!
Personally, it’s most effective for me to divide them all up over the course of the week, putting my highest priority tasks at the beginning of each day. And if I’m feeling extra productive or have more time, then I’ll do some of the things I have set for another day. I feel like this helps me not to try to cram everything into one day. This way, I don’t feel overwhelmed. I have a short attention span, so this also helps me feel like I’ve accomplished something without doing EVERYTHING and struggling to stay focused. Remember that one of my stumbling blocks is having too much to do and avoiding it? Well, this is how I have overcome that issue, is to not overload myself if possible!
Keep lists and cross them off as you go. I’m a hopeless list maker. If you’ve read this post, you’ll know that I love lists and have to have a list for everything! But it really is so helpful to stay on track throughout your day. Whether that be a list on your phone or on paper, whatever ya gotta do! There’s something about crossing those tasks off as “complete” that is so satisfying! Seeing all the stuff I’ve crossed off of my list makes me feel more productive, making me feel satisfied, and therefore more motivated and encouraged to keep it all up!
Long Term Productivity & Goal Reaching
Do the exact same as you did for short term. Take a look at all the steps that are required to reach goals that will require much more time than just a few days. Set them up over the course of the next few weeks/months. Make sure to review them often to stay focused and keep them in mind. Continue to incorporate the steps to get there into your daily, weekly, and monthly task list to ensure that you stay on the way to achieving them!
Motivational and Helpful tools
Using a yearly/monthly paired with a daily planner has helped me bunches. I was really just using a monthly planner at first but I have found that adding a separate daily planner has helped me tons! I use my monthly planner to write down events coming up, places I need to go, scheduled events, when bills need to be paid, etc.! My daily planner however is entirely different!
On the daily, I use a Custom Design Your Day Planner! With this planner I am able to brain dump at the beginning of each week by writing down everything I need to get done for the week. On my daily pages, I have a list of goals/tasks in order of priority alongside Time blocks and Time Taken for each! This helps me stay focused on my “Big tasks” and organized by what is most important for me to get done that day! There’s also a space for reminders for any extra details throughout my day.
My very favorite aspects are the “Self Evaluation” and “Productivity Rating” sections! Self Evaluation is where I can look back and see what I would change, get done faster, and improve on productivity wise! Not only see what I could have done better, but there’s also a place where I can take note of what I accomplished and am proud of getting done for the day. I then can give myself an overall productivity rating from “Below Average” all the way to “Excellent”. This keeps me seeing how productive I’m ACTUALLY being.
Colorful sticky notes, cute pens, etc. make planning so much more fun, enjoyable, and are motivating in my opinion! It’s fun to use fun stuff.
Use reminders on your phone or paper ones! Typically, there’s the digital people and then there’s the paper people. Some people like to do all of their planning, organizing, reminders, etc. on a device! I’m a paper gal myself, so sticky notes and paper to do lists are my thing! But whatever works for you, do it!
Remember…
That its okay to rest. Whether that be in between tasks or to take a day off. Regroup, refresh, recharge. Don’t overwhelm yourself if you don’t have to. Sometimes you can’t avoid just being crazy busy, but if possible, take breaks and breathe. You work better when you have energy, are awake, and aren’t frazzled. So don’t feel bad if you just need a break. There’s a difference in procrastination and resting. Resting is productive, procrastination is just a bad habit.Â
