Working for a startup or working for yourself is very different than working in a corporate job. You can’t allow unproductive hours because you often have a tiny budget and limited resources.
That’s why it’s important to learn the basics of productivity and apply them to your work. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to search and digest all the information available online.
But in my experience you really have to just apply a few basic concepts if you want to double your productivity.
When people apply these rules for the first time, they are amazed by the amount of new time they gain.
Here’s how to double your productivity with three easy steps.
1 – Remove distractions. The first tip is to remove all distractions like emails, feed reader, chat, etc. Try to limit checking emails to only two times per day, and never at the beginning of the day. Also turn off notifications and make clear that you don’t want to be disturbed. If you work with other people, try to agree on a time when it’s ok to be interrupted.
2 – Work on the most important tasks. It’s easy to walk all the day through the office talking on the phone and moving papers. Wow, that guy must be productive! Nope, chances are that he’s doing low value activities. Do the stuff that provides the highest results in your business, and do it first thing in the morning. Remember that if you want to see results, you have to create stuff, and in order to create stuff, you have to work on what’s really important.
3 – Delegate. If you have the opportunity to do so, delegate as much as possible and free your time. If you receive lots of emails for example, consider hiring a virtual assistant. You can hire someone for $300/month in some parts of the world, and still deal with exceptional and educated people. If your time is valued $20/hour and you can save two hours per day by hiring a virtual assistant, then you can potentially gain $800/month assuming you work twenty days per month. With those new hours you can focus on working on the important tasks and pushing your business to the next level.
Being productive is possible if you focus on the important stuff and eliminate what’s consuming your time. The Pareto rule states that 20% of what you do produces 80% of the results. Learn to apply the Pareto rule on what you do, and then apply it to your business. Focus on those clients and activities that produces the highest results and work to maximize them.
If you apply these rules, you’ll start to see real results and more money at the end of the month, or you could also save hours to go to the beach and do what you want.
Oscar Del Ben writes about productivity, personal development and lifestyle at FreestyleMind. Check out his website and subscribe to his RSS Feed.
Photo By – kwerfeldein
