To boost your productivity, it is important to become aware of the elements that are holding you back from achieving your goals. Whether you want to launch your own project, increase your sporting performance or perform better at work, you must first become aware of your bad habits and put an end to them.
If you’re ready to boost your productivity, Business Cool highly recommends adopting these six habits. Once you integrate them into your routine, your performance will only improve! Will you become the future valedictorian?
1 – Focus on results and not the process
“That the strategy is beautiful is a fact, but remember to look THE result” –Winston Churchill
While it is important to focus on the process, the results remain the key element on which you should focus your attention. Productivity is defined neither by the work you accomplish in an hour, nor by the impeccable organization of your calendar. It is mainly linked to the results you generate. If they stagnate, it means that your productivity is not improving and that something is wrong with the way you operate.
Highly productive people deliver tangible results and make things happen. Start by defining your goals to achieve and make sure your results come close to them. You can opt for the OKR approach: objective-key results. This approach allows you to better structure your approach and thus ensure that you get close to the results you are aiming for.
2 – Avoid looking at your notifications early in the morning
Of the research conducted by Deloitte show that 88% of people check their notifications directly after waking up and 55% check their emails before even going to work. However, this is one of the worst reflexes to adopt when waking up. Your concentration, productivity and motivation will suffer greatly.
It may seem trivial to you, but feeding your mind with unnecessary information, checking your emails or even responding to your messages directly after waking up will put you in a state of stress and non-productivity throughout the day.
Productive people, on the other hand, do not let the various constraints of the day interfere with their goals. When they wake up, they focus their mental, emotional and physical energy on their priorities and adopt a healthy and motivating routine.
To avoid these distractions, we advise you to leave your phone in airplane mode when you wake up so as not to receive notifications. Instead, take advantage of your morning to do some stretching or a little sport (5 minutes is enough) or even prepare a good breakfast.
3 – Put an end to distractions at work
Our concentration is interrupted on average every 3 minutes and 5 seconds due to daily distractions (messages, calls, social networks, etc.). At such a frequency, it will be impossible for you to concentrate properly and get the most out of your day if you work while answering your text messages.
Furthermore, multitasking is absolutely not compatible with the functioning of human beings. It is also important to emphasize that your cognitive abilities are sensitive to the environment in which you work. If it is disorganized or cluttered, your mental performance and concentration will not be there.
Productive people, on the other hand, do not give in to constant distractions and focus primarily on their missions. They work in an organized and clean environment.
4 – Work reasonably
Working late into the evening to finish an assignment is sometimes necessary, but is not a recipe for long-term success. If working to exhaustion becomes the norm, your last few hours of work probably won’t even be effective anymore.
A productive person knows how to set limits not to be exceeded and to stop when fatigue begins to make itself felt. It is important to keep in mind that our cognitive abilities are limited: we only have around three hours of maximum mental performance per day. Dedicate these hours to completing the most important tasks. It is essential to rest and know how to stop to perform even better the next day.
5 – List your priorities
“ What is important is rarely urgent and what is urgent is rarely important. » – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Everything that appears on your to-do list does not have the same importance. If you want to boost your productivity, it is recommended to focus your energy on the most important tasks and not just the most urgent. This will allow you to achieve the best results every day.
Before you start working, start by ranking your tasks in order of importance and devoting your first hours of maximum performance to those that will bring you the most results.
6 – Set limits for yourself and those around you
Bragging about working 12 hours a day while accepting every offer to go out is not a sign of productivity, but rather an indicator of a lack of boundaries. If your goal is to boost your productivity, it is recommended to keep your goals in mind and not get distracted.
Productive people organize their day according to what suits them most and serves their goals. For example, if they are a morning person, they will take advantage of the morning to progress efficiently on their work and schedule their calls or meetings for the afternoon.
