7 Ways To Increase Your Productivity

Here are a few things you can do to keep your productivity up while working, regardless of whether it is for 5 minutes or 5 hours:

1) Stop Playing Games! Yes, desktop tower defense is fun but it is such a time killer. I can’t even begin to imagine how much further along I would be with my projects if it wasn’t for those dumb little flash games. Even games like Quake 3 Arena (which still rules by the way) and World of Warcraft should be avoided at all costs. Better yet, just unplug yourself from the world and turn off that TV and game console when you should be working.

Plan some game time each day, that way you don’t go overboard and have dreams about fragging little creatures.

2) Get A Good Browser. I don’t use Firefox on my main computer (which is an iBook, Firefox runs slow on it) but I use it on my Windows box. I cannot stress enough what a timesaver plugins like SEO For Firefox are. Even plugins that do something as simple as auto detect duplicate bookmarks can save a ton of time. Whenever I use Safari or Camino on my iBook I think to myself “I miss Firefox”. It is just that good.

3) Use Your Bookmark Toolbar. Having a well organized bookmark toolbar is as much of a timesaver as having a good browser. Mine is separated in quite a few sections:

Basically the first 3 folders on it are for my website stuff, forums just gives me some quick links to the dozens of forums I visit, banking is for my bank and PayPal stuff, and the rest of it is pretty self explanatory. If you’re like me and run multiple sites/blogs having an organized toolbar is a huge timesaver.

4) Get Some Sleep! When I don’t sleep well I can sure feel it the next day, and some people are like that every night. If you’re like that then you seriously need to relax and take a nice hot shower before bed. Getting off your computer and reading a book before bed can also help.

5) Plan For The Future, While Planning For Today. Calendars are excellent for planning major things, but how do you plan your daily life? Do you have some sort of schedule that is 90% the same each day? Sure that can get boring, but constantly doing everything different each day can kill your productivity. I’m not saying you should be a stiff and do the exact same thing every day, instead you should try to plan some family time, free time, gaming time, and work time each day.

6) Don’t Make A Big Deal Out Of Little Problems. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen is when someone gets a paper cut and makes it seem like the worst thing that could have possibly happened. I guess in the blogging world this would be when they have a day with zero Adsense clicks. You know, shit happens. This is why you should plan for the future. You’ll always hit little bumps on the road but as long as you stick with your plan it will all work out.

7) Learn Keyboard Shortcuts. Even a mediocre typist will find that keyboard shortcuts are much faster than using the mouse. The keyboard will be what rules the computer until voice recognition and brain-wave recognition go mainstream (in the year 2019). Doing something as simple as remembering what “g and s” does can speed up feed reading by 900%. And every bit of time saved is more time you have to do something else.

If you use Google Reader why not check out this article? It’s how I can manage to read 150+ feeds a day while keeping my sanity.

Oh, and if you use OS X become best friends with Expose - Best Creation Ever!

A Couple Of Pro Tips. In addition to my tips I also decided to e-mail a few professional bloggers with a quick question about what their top productivity tips are. I got back 2 responses, if I get back any more I’ll add them to the list:

Daniel Scocco - Daily Blog Tips

My productivity tip is simple: unplug.

Blogging comprehends a myriad of activities (e.g, posting comments, researching, reading RSS feeds, designing, promoting your blog), but a minority of them will generate the biggest results.

For most bloggers these big results will come from original and quality content.

In order to write quality stuff, however, you need to be completely focused on that. That is where the unplug comes into place. I am only able to write top-notch stuff when I am don’t have a browser, email client or instant messaging software open.

I couldn’t agree more with Daniel, distractions like Desktop Tower Defense (which I played all weekend) are horrible wastes of time. You’re much better off just focusing 100% on what you’re doing, even if you are like me and can only do it a few minutes at a time.

Seth Godin - Seth’s Blog

aim for the long haul.

no emergencies.

Seth’s answer was incredibly concise, but covers an important point. Having a long-term goal is one of the most important things you can do. For every blog that pops up and becomes famous in a month there are 5 million that don’t. Out of those 5 million blogs 4.99 million will go stale quickly because the bloggers don’t have a long-term goal.

And when you think about it being able to plan for the future and dream is what separates Humans from all other animals.

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