How to Get Your Productivity Out of Hibernation It's easy to fall into a rut during the winter months. This past year felt especially long, full of tragic and stressful events that seemed to g...

It's easy to fall into a rut during the winter months. This past year felt especially long, full of tragic and stressful events that seemed to go on forever. Now that the world is finally returning back to normal, it's time for you to get your life back on track as well. You want to get back on track — and you're ready.

Get Your Productivity Out of Hibernation

With spring in full bloom and summer on its way, don't let your productivity continue to hibernate. There are ways to kick yourself into high gear. You are ready, able, and have the power and steam to hop on what you need and want to do now. Here are some tips that will help you rise and shine every day for the rest of the year.

Supercharge Your Morning Routine

During the pandemic, you likely spent some time working from home. In fact, there's a chance you still are. Working from home allows for incredible flexibility, which is both a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, you get to spend more time with family and can enjoy more extracurricular activities. On the other hand, you can easily fall into bad habits that cripple your productivity.

A good morning routine will help you get out of those bad habits. One of the easiest habits to fall into while working from home is sleeping in and staying up too late. This can cause you to feel sluggish in the morning and cause you to panic when deadlines come up shortly after you've awakened.

Don't underestimate the value of an evening routine as well. Your morning routine shouldn't be used to undo the damage of poor nightly habits.

Set Your Sights High

What are your goals for this year? Many of your past goals might have been put on the backburner during 2020 as new items became temporary priorities. Bring up some new goals to kick yourself into gear and get your productivity back on track.

Let's say your new goal is to find a new job that pays more or to get a raise with your current employer. What do you need to do to achieve that? List out what you need to accomplish and get to work.

You'll have greater success pursuing your goals when you break them down. Use your Calendar to set weekly and even daily goals that get you moving toward the finish line. If you only set one major goal to complete, the distance and size of the goal can make it easy to procrastinate until it's too late.

Phone a Friend

Sometimes all you need to get up and going is a helping hand. Grab a friend and hold each other accountable for being productive every day.

Perhaps you and a buddy want to take up golfing as a way to get outside more and fill time with something other than watching sports every night. Sign up for classes and coordinate times to head out to the course together. If you were going by yourself, you might not be as committed, but knowing you have an obligation to another will get you out the door.

You can sync up schedules using your online calendar. Share events with just a click, and make sure you and your friends are always on the same page. The less time you spend planning, the more time you spend doing.

Fill Your Calendar

You'll have a much easier time being productive if you fill your Calendar with tasks and activities. As long as there's something scheduled, it will be harder to come up with an excuse to be idle.

Having a hard time getting yourself to exercise? Specifically, plan times to do so in your Calendar. You won't be able to say that you don't have time to go to the gym when it's explicitly listed in your schedule.

Filling up your Calendar will also help you during work hours. When you flip back and forth between tasks with no direction, you're hardly getting anything done. Using your Calendar, add specific times to complete tasks throughout the day and watch how much more you're able to accomplish.

Analyze Your Time

One of Calendar's best features is Calendar analytics. With every event you create in your Calendar, your time is automatically tracked. This will tell you how you're spending your time and what you can do to improve your productivity.

Start by making sure your Calendar has an accurate recording of your time. Next, take a look at the charts your Calendar generates displaying your time usage. Use this information to manage your work-life balance, schedule work meetings, and maximize your most productive hours.

Reward Yourself

All your hard work has earned you a reward. In fact, rewards can help you stay productive. The use of incentives is a method as old as time that helps people to productivity even on the toughest of days.

A sales manager might challenge their team to make a certain amount of sales by the end of the month. In exchange, they qualify for some rewards, such as gift cards, bonuses, or even a new Playstation. These carrots on a stick will get them to work harder than they would under normal circumstances. In fact, a 2018 study by Genesis Associates showed that incentive periods raised weekly profits by over $100,000.

You can set your own rewards program however you'd like. Maybe the promise of a chocolate milkshake will push you to complete an essay for school. Whatever will push you to be productive will work out in the end.

After a few weeks, look back on your Calendar to see how much you've accomplished since today. Have you noticed your productivity go up? Continue to strive for improvement, and as you track your progress — you'll see you've gained the power to smash every goal you face.

Top Image Credit: andrea piacquadio; pexels; thank you!

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