I recommend that you begin looking at becoming more productive by viewing the video above, first. There are so many cool ways you can use placebos or state dependent memory hacks.
For example, the places and/or the times that you choose to work. Colors on or at your desk, paper and device screens. What you listen to when working, the drinks or snacks at your work station.
The trick is to only use them whenever you begin work or intend to work and not at any other times. This way, they become mind switches or triggers whenever you wish to be more productive.
Try out those tips and those listed below for more than just a week or two. Once they’ve become a part of your regular routines, check in if there has been an improvement. Whether it’s Pavlov or placebo, use what works for you and experiment often.
At the end of this article are two more great productivity resources for you to use. Be sure to check them out too!
How Productive People Think
If you want to become more efficient, it helps to understand how productive people think. Even if this way of thinking doesn’t come naturally to you, you can adopt these principles and apply them to your own work life.
Priorities matter
People who are the most productive are clear about their priorities. They know that some things are more important than others and they’re able to attack the most important things first.
If this isn’t your usual habit, start each day by making a list of tasks and placing them in order of priority. This will help you to get the most important things done first and even help you to eliminate tasks that really aren’t necessary.
Understanding priorities also makes it easy to delegate tasks and avoid things that might take away from reaching goals.
Plan for success
Productive people generally make a plan. They may schedule their next day at the end of the current work day. This makes it easy to jump right into work the next day without having to take time to decide what’s next on the list.
Eliminate time wasters
There are many things throughout the day that could threaten to take away from productivity. Productive people know how to put those time-wasters on the back burner and stick to the important work.
Make changes in your mindset to become more productive? Small changes over time can lead to big results. -Thea Westra Share on XIt could be social media, chatty coworkers, emails, text messages, phone calls, or reading online news that prevents you from getting business done. Set those things aside and schedule a specific time when you’ll allow yourself to participate in those things.
Take responsibility
People who are productive are happy to take responsibility for both their successes and their failures. Rather than looking to point the finger at someone else, they make sure to stay accountable for their work.
Productive people are aware that they will make mistakes, however they look to learn from them. -Thea Westra Share on XLearn from mistakes
When you’re working to be more productive, it helps to understand that mistakes are learning tools. Productive people are aware that they will make mistakes, however they look to learn from them instead of letting mistakes throw them off course or cause them to quit.
Efficient tools
Productive people also know it’s important to have the right tools to do the job. That means having a high quality computer, the proper software and even the right desk setup. When you have what you need in your workspace, it helps you to get more done.
Think about your own productivity levels. Where can you make changes in your mindset to become more productive? Small changes can lead to big results.
How to Be More Efficient
You hear all the time that you or your company needs to be more efficient. Yet, do you know how to accomplish that?
Efficiency seems like a word that is thrown at as the end-all be-all answer to problems within an organization. Without a proper plan, the likely result will be confusion and chaos. The following tips can help you when you are given the initiative to be more efficient.
Time management
If you and your team are not managing your time efficiently, you are going to find it hard to move the company forward. The team will constantly be missing deadlines and playing catch up. This makes the group look bad and causes undue stress on the team. The likely result will be high turnover at times when team members are needed the most.
Learning
Always be on the lookout for how to improve your job or your teams’ jobs. This often requires learning new skills. The more you learn, the easier it will be to find alternative methods that work better.
Organization
If your office environment is cluttered and there is no sense of organization, it can impact the productivity of the entire group. There are professionals who can assess your current situation and make recommendations on how to improve the environment. This can include such aspects as desk clutter, filing and even ergonomic issues or proper placement of fixtures or furniture.
When you feel fulfilled and happy you’ll be more productive. -Thea Westra Share on XAutomation
When you find ways to automate, this frees up your staff to work on more important tasks. Mundane tasks that eat away the time of your staff are the best candidates for automation. It is possible to go overboard with automation which can cause slowdowns when the automation processes fail. Try to determine the best tasks to automate without overdoing it.
Delegate
If you are micromanaging the work of your team, you won’t have time to handle your own tasks. Your team won’t respect the fact that you are doing tasks that they should be doing. You hired them for a reason. Let them get their jobs done. It’s okay for them to come to you when they get stuck. However, you should guide them rather than simply doing everything for them.
Outsource
With corporate cutbacks, delegating may not be easy to accomplish. Companies are expecting their employees to do more with less. Yet, managers still need to get their work done. In such cases, it may be worthwhile to consider outsourcing some of the tasks of your team. The benefits of outsourcing are that it does not increase the company’s headcount.
Prioritizing Your Work
One of the best ways to improve your productivity is to prioritize your work. If you’re new to goal setting and time management, it can be tough to know how to do this. Read on for tips on how to prioritize your work and get the most out of your time.
Brainstorm
The first thing you should do is make a list of everything that needs to get done. This includes tasks for clients, tasks for yourself and other tasks that need to get done to further your work. Exhaust every piece of work you think you need to do.
Determine time-sensitivity
Some tasks need to be done urgently while other tasks aren’t as time-sensitive. Take the list you brainstormed and divide the tasks into two categories: urgent vs. not urgent. Urgent things are those that are related to deadlines.
Determine importance
In addition to knowing what’s important time-wise, it’s also important to look at the importance of each task. A task is important if it supports the overall vision of your business and supports bigger goals and priorities.
Some tasks are not as important, yet need to get done. You may even find there are tasks that aren’t really that important at all and can be deleted from the list. Rank both the urgent and not urgent lists by importance.
Know your limits
You can become overwhelmed if you give yourself an unrealistic number of tasks to complete. Be realistic about what you can accomplish in a given amount of time. Overloading your to do list can cause you to become paralyzed and get less done.
Set time limits for tasks
If you tend to spend too much time on a task seeking perfection, you need to give yourself time limits so that you won’t focus on one thing for too long while neglecting other tasks. That may mean throwing some of your perfectionism out the window.
To instantly increase your productivity, you need to throw some of your perfectionism out the window! -Thea Westra Share on XSet deadlines
When you feel like you have all the time in the world to complete a project, you’re less likely to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Set deadlines so that you can be motivated to finish in less time and get more done.
Allow time for personal projects
Sometimes you’ll find there are things you want to do for your business that aren’t necessarily critical at the time. Remember to give yourself the time to work on projects you enjoy. When you feel fulfilled and happy you’ll be more productive.
When you learn how to prioritize your work you’ll know which tasks need to be done right away and which ones can wait. In the end you’ll get more done and you’ll feel better about the work that you do.
Read this too and watch a short video of a 100 Year Old Way To Get More Things Done, where you’ll also see a free ebook for you to download. It has 34 free time abundance tips you’re sure to love.
Lastly, download the (ad) Super Productivity Secrets free ebook by my friend Carolyn Hansen.
Explore This Idea Further
Optional prompts to help you make the ideas your own.
I use AI as a thinking companion, not as a replacement for my own thinking. These prompts are simply another way to explore the ideas in this article and see how they might apply to your own life.
You don’t have to use AI to benefit from them. You can copy a prompt into a notebook, write about it in your journal, talk it through with someone you trust or simply sit with the question and see what comes up for you. If you do use ChatGPT or another AI tool, treat its responses as a starting point for your own thinking. You remain the person who decides what is useful and right for your life.
How to use these prompts: Choose the one that appeals to you, copy the complete prompt and paste it into ChatGPT or another AI tool. You can answer its questions and continue the conversation as you go.
1. Apply This To My Life
Use this prompt when you want to connect the article’s ideas with productivity in your own life.
Use the Forward Steps article “How Can You Become More Productive?” as your primary source.
Help me discover which of the article’s ideas could make the biggest difference in my own situation. In particular, consider the article’s ideas about priorities, planning, eliminating time wasters, taking responsibility, learning from mistakes, using helpful tools, managing time, organization, automation, delegation, realistic workloads, time limits, deadlines and allowing time for projects that make me feel fulfilled.
First, ask me a small number of relevant questions about what I am currently trying to accomplish, where I lose time or focus and what is making productivity difficult for me. Keep the conversation natural rather than making it feel like a questionnaire.
Then help me identify which ideas from the article are most relevant to me and explain how I could apply them to my circumstances. Stay grounded in what the article actually teaches rather than replacing its ideas with generic productivity advice.
Build on my answers as we continue, and help me discover practical ways to become more productive that fit my actual life.
2. Reflect More Deeply
Use this prompt when you want to explore what your productivity might be telling you.
Use the Forward Steps article “How Can You Become More Productive?” as your primary source.
Help me reflect more deeply on what this article says about productivity and the way I approach my own work and responsibilities.
Rather than summarising the article, help me notice things I may have overlooked. Explore with me questions such as: What do I currently treat as a priority? Which tasks may be consuming time without being important? Where might I be taking on too much? Could perfectionism be slowing me down? Am I making enough room for work or projects that I find fulfilling? What mistakes, habits or patterns might actually be opportunities to learn and work differently?
Ask me thoughtful questions one at a time or in small groups, then respond to my answers and help me explore what they reveal. Point out useful patterns, assumptions or possibilities when they emerge.
Keep the reflection practical, encouraging and grounded in the actual ideas of the Forward Steps article. Do not turn it into a psychological or clinical exercise and do not substitute generic self improvement theories for what the article teaches.
3. Turn It Into Action
Use this prompt when you are ready to do something about your productivity rather than simply think about it.
Use the Forward Steps article “How Can You Become More Productive?” as your primary source.
Help me choose the one or two ideas from the article that could make the most useful difference in my situation and turn them into practical action.
First, ask me a few brief questions about what I need to get done, what is currently getting in the way, and what I would most like to improve. Then help me choose a realistic starting point based on my answers.
Use the article’s own ideas about identifying priorities, planning ahead, setting aside time wasters, being realistic about how much I can accomplish, setting time limits or deadlines, improving organization, using helpful tools, learning better methods, delegating or automating where appropriate, and making time for fulfilling projects.
Help me create a simple plan with only the most useful next steps. Do not overwhelm me with a long productivity system or generic advice. Make the plan realistic for my circumstances and focus on progress rather than perfection.
After I try the first step, invite me to come back and tell you what happened. Then help me adjust the plan using the ideas from the article.
Tip: You don’t have to use all three. Start with the one that feels most useful to you right now.
Hi, I'm Thea Westra at Forward Steps (forwardstepsblog.com)
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