4 Productivity Tips That Changed My Life This Year Time-blocking. Prioritizing. Limited multitasking. Process. Have you tried any of these?
By Brandon Turner Edited by Dan Bova
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This year was a big one for me. My income quadrupled, my workload decreased and business expanded faster than I could have imagined.
How? Simple: Intentional productivity.
Related: Become a Productivity Monster by Eliminating These 5 Time-Wasting Habits
I want to share four of the biggest productivity tips I utilized this year that helped me make the past 12 months the most amazing year of my life. I'll also share how you can apply these to your life to make 2016 your best year yet!
Employ time-blocking.
Having a to-do list is not a bad thing in and of itself. But why do so many people create a huge to-do list and never accomplish the items on it?
This year, I decided that a list was not enough. I needed to actually schedule time in my day to accomplish those tasks. This concept is often known as "time-blocking," and it's simple and powerful -- you might kick yourself for not doing this earlier.
Simply take your to-do list and give each item a place on your calendar. It doesn't matter if you use a physical calendar or an online one; simply block out time to work through each item on your list.
Then, when you are in your time block, don't allow yourself to get distracted. Shut off your phone, don't check your email (unless you are in your "check email" time block) and get it done!
Related: This Productivity Hack Completely Changed My Life, and It Can Improve Yours
Do your most important work first.
When I really boil my day down, there are usually only one or two things that absolutely must get done to move the business forward. Yes, there are countless tasks and items on my to-do list. But one or two things are significantly more important than the rest.
In the past, I often procrastinated on these items, because they required the most effort or had the biggest "unknowns." I would check email, schedule meetings and do a hundred other tasks before I reluctantly, if at all, went about my main task.
As a result, the one thing I really needed to do to drive my business forward often never got done, and business growth was slow.
This year, I made a change. I decided to tackle my biggest task first, before anything else. For me, that was writing a book. Each day, I woke up, and before doing anything else, I wrote 1,000 words. In exactly 100 days, I completed my first draft of The Book on Rental Property Investing, which we launched in December. We sold $150,000 worth of copies in just ten days.
By scheduling your most important task of the day first, you set the tone for the rest of the day, and your business will likely be all the better for it.
Related: The 7 Rules of Personal Productivity
ShutterstockMultitask appropriately.
Multitasking rarely works, despite what nearly everyone says. When you multitask, you simply accomplish each task less effectively. Your brain tries to switch back and forth between different tasks, and a significant part of your day is lost.
This past year, I made a commitment to multitask less and focus more on the task at hand. When my wife talked to me, I put down the computer. When driving, I refused to text. When I was on a Skype call with the rest of the BiggerPockets team, I kept the browser window closed.
Of course, I still struggle with this. Being completely present in the moment is difficult for me, as it is for a lot of people. But this past year, I made a conscious decision to multitask less and focus on one thing more.
Of course, the one exception to the "no multitasking" rule is listening to audiobooks. I've talked about this before, and I'll say it again now: Listening to audiobooks or podcasts can be one of the best ways to change your life, and it doesn't require any extra time. You can listen while driving, working out at the gym, cooking dinner or even falling asleep. It's a great way to multitask effectively and become a better person.
Use the power of processes.
This year, I started to think of everything as a process -- a system that could be documented, repeated and outsourced. Rather than "doing a webinar," I created a complete "webinar process" that allowed me to host more than 50 live real estate investing webinars, each one brand-new, with just a few hours of work per week.
The best part about making everything a process is that the work can be outsourced. I worked with one virtual assistant specifically on this webinar system, and he was able to take 80 percent of the workload from me. He now sets up the webinars, drafts the emails and tracks the conversion results. I just need to show up and teach.
Related: 7 Healthy Habits That Maximize Your Productivity Every Day
