Ever feel like the day just slips away, and your to-do list stays stubbornly long? You’re not alone. The key to productivity isn’t working longer—it’s actually starting. Whether you're juggling work, school, family, or creative projects, these strategies will help you take back control of your time and get more done in a day—without burning out.
- Start With a Simple Daily Plan
Most people that procrastinate and fail to get things done that they want fail top plan. Planning what you want to do on a given day is the first step. Companies meticulously plan work for their teams. You can do the same things for yourself. You don't have to accomplish all of the tasks you assign yourself, but you do have to start.
Pro tip: Use a notepad-style planner or a minimalist app like Turnboards to avoid distractions.
2. Find a Starting Point
You may not need to do this with one-off things, but for bigger projects, breaking them up into smaller tasks gives you a place to start. One thing leads to another, and you end up doing a lot of the things on your todo list. Once you get moving it's easier to keep going. Once you get one thing done, it's easier to work on the next thing.sdf
3. Make Subtasks Small Enough to Do in a Day
If it's going to take longer than a day, your work item is too big. Break it up into even smaller subtasks. You don't want to be in a position where your trying to tackle something that's too big.
4. Minimize Distractions
Put down your phone and leave it in another room. Get rid of anything that could cause you to lose focus. Companies don't allow their employees to sit and scroll on youtube all day, so you're not allowed to do that either.
5. Take Breaks Like You Mean It
You don't have to spend every moment of the day working on the things you have planned to accomplish. Do some work, take a 30 minute break, and pick back up where you left off.
6. End with a Wind-Down Review
At the end of the day, do a self assessment. Figure out what you were able to accomplish and how things went. This is called a review or retrospective, and it helps you figure out what went well, what didn't go well, and how you can better optimize the way you are working.
As an individual, this can be really quick. I would sit down with my notepad or task list, see what I checked off, think about how long each item took, and then use that data to plan your next day. Doing this every day might be a bit much - maybe you only need to do this once a week or every few days. The point is to assess how you are working and optimize that.
7. Be Realistic With Your Daily Planning
Especially when you're pIanning work for yourself, it's easy to be over confident and think you can do way more than you actually can. As a general rule, I have found that it takes three time a long as you think it will take, and the more complex the task, the easier it is to underestimate the time to completion. It's impossible to think of all the pitfalls, problems, and just issues that can arise during the project when you are planning it. You might know something is going to be really hard, but you don't know how hard until you really get in there and start doing work.