8 Healthy and sustainable ways to boost work productivity for 2024
Imagine you could free 1 to 2 hours daily just by being more productive. How would you invest that extra time? I hope your answer is not: work more.
Whether you have your own small business or are employed, having more time during the day for creativity, friends, and family sounds so intriguing, doesn’t it? Being super productive on the long run, without burning out.
Well, it’s all up to you! To be fair, in times when all of the internet is screaming for your attention, it’s very easy to get distracted. And working from home adds many more possibilities for wasting time. So how to stay focused and make the most of your day?
I’ve put together my personal 8 favorites, outside of the common advice like “good sleep,” etc., for you. I want to focus on things you can easily influence; good sleep is often not one of them.
Why would you listen to me?
Progressing from a role as a Google Ads representative to leading the creation of YouTube Ads for Revolut, one of the world’s biggest fintech companies, in just three years, has been a wild experience. It feels like a recognition of my dedication to productivity. The swift achievement wouldn't have been possible without maintaining a consistently high level of output.
So let me share my personal 8 hacks with you, and please grab a free download of my productivity booster sheet on the way out.
I’ve divided this blog post into two sections because I find working on long-term projects requires extra clever tricks to keep on going; those you’ll find in the end.
How to Boost Your Productivity for Short-Term Tasks:
1. Listen to Your Body and Biorhythm
You might think you are at the top of your game for 8 hours a day, but your body and its biorhythm most likely think differently. I, for instance, cannot handle data and numbers after lunch, when my body is checking out to go for a food coma and would prefer to nap.
Therefore, I do not schedule meetings for at least an hour after food intake. Instead, I use this time for tasks that require less concentration, like answering emails or reviewing ad creatives. If I force myself to work on data during this period, at times I find mistakes the next day. Not very efficient.
Watch yourself
and figure out what works best for you; is there a pattern?
When during the day does a little energy dip occur?
When does a specific task especially annoy you?
It might be connected to your body’s own plan, and you should work with it instead of against it.
Also, I have a dedicated weekly to-do list for low concentration phases. This way, I can use even the dip efficiently.
2. Leverage AI Tools (and Their Free Options)
One of my new favorites: AI tools are great for boosting my work productivity!
I would lie if I didn’t give at least 50% of the credit to ChatGPT. Long gone are the days when I had to endlessly research how to connect one technical thing to the other. My favorite language model will just guide me through it. It’s almost as if Chechi (my word for my lovely friend) evens out everything I’m not good at.
LLMs (large language models) might be the star, but let’s not forget about the rest of the band:
Chatbots
from HubSpot or Manychat keep you from answering the same client questions over and over again.
Virtual assistants
like from Fireflies.ai or Otter.ai will take notes for you during meetings and send you a better summary than you could write.
AI CRM tools
like from Pipedrive will keep your customer data in check or automate workflows like sending out lead gen emails.
Accounting
will be simplified by Bonsai, especially handy for freelancers with their invoice reminders and time trackers.
Admittedly, many of these tools are yet only AI-powered and not pure AI tools. But we are on the brink of a revolution here, and you should get acquainted with your support system early on.
Also, if you want to skip the trial and aggravation phase of testing different products, let me help, as I have checked them all out for and in my video course “Boost Your Productivity - AI TOOLKIT’ and can share my knowledge in less than 1 hour there with you.
3. Identify the One Ultimate Lever for the Week and Day
Recently I read a blog post on productivity; it advised starting with the hardest task in the morning because the brain is still fresh and juicy. While I agree with the second part, I recommend starting with the most important task first. You never know what the day holds, and it’s too easy to get carried away by other people’s demands.
To be able to start with the most important thing, you need to identify it first. I always have a Northstar project or task in my weekly to-do list: what is the ultimate lever that will bring me or my project the farthest?
This Northstar will guide me through my week and inform me of the ultimate lever task for the day. I believe it's crucial, and all successful leaders follow this rule: prioritise ruthlessly and be very deliberate with your time. If they do it, why shouldn’t you?
4. Write Out Your Workflow for Medium to Big Tasks
I mentioned the internet as an attention magnet before, and even if you put social media and your phone on exile during your work hours, many tasks involve the world wide web. One rabbit hole can lead to the other, with you getting lost like Alice in Wonderland.
Therefore, it’s clever to clearly outline your workflow so you can always go back to your simple bullet point list and check the next step. Even more so when decision fatigue creeps up on you after a long day.
Or when you have to switch tasks or answer that “very urgent” message on Slack. Every time you contemplate what your next step was, you lose valuable time and mental capacity.
Your new work crutch can be straightforward; let me show you an example:
My Workflow for writing this blog:
Research keywords on Keyword Planner and SEMrush
Decide on angle
Write blog post
Download pictures from Pexels
Decide on title
Copy my pomodoro sheet and adjust for readers
Create blog page
Add banner for my course
Add Productivity Booster Sheet
Add newsletter widget
Publish or schedule
This is especially handy for things I often do, so I don’t have to think of this every time anew I file my whole work flow collection in a dedicated place.
5. Pomodoro Method
If you are a productivity nerd, you must have heard about this one before. Initially developed for learning and studying, but just as good for deep work. The principle is simple: you break down your day into 30-min work cycles, followed by 5-min breaks.
The idea is that the brain works better if the high-intensity focus phases are time-limited and interrupted by a pause in diffuse mode.
Decide for yourself what works best for you, but I see a decline in my output if I stretch the work cycle to more than 45 min. I’ve integrated the pomodoro technique into the Productivity Booster Sheet because it does wonders for me. Get yours right here:
Long-Term High Productivity
Keeping productivity high is hard enough. Keeping it high for a larger project, possibly where you can’t reap any of the seeds you are planting for a while, is triple that hard. All 3 tips that follow have helped me through recording my video course I mentioned before. So buckle up; we’re about to enter the rocket!
6. Create a Reward System to Motivate Yourself
I was seriously surprised by how well this worked for me! Who would have thought swinging the carrot in front of myself would do magic? When I started to develop my video course, it felt as if I was standing in front of a big mountain and I didn’t know how far the top was. It’s easy to let attention fizzle out during these phases when nothing is tangible yet.
So I decided to implement a reward system: after every completed module, I would treat myself with something nice. I chose incentives like massages, a spa visit, or a private dance class. I’m not much into shopping, so time spent nicely is what works for me. And damn it did! It was so much easier to keep on working on the course after I had implemented the system. I was literally eager to get modules done.
I do this now for every unpleasant assignment like filing my taxes. Think about what you would usually have a bad conscience allowing yourself and set up a dedicated budget for it. And be surprised at how easily you can bribe yourself!
7. Find an Accountability Partner
Around the same time when I started my own small business, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to be his accountability partner. I was immediately sold on the idea because I tend to ideate like a dreamer but implement like a sleepwalker. So not at all.
Today my accountability partner actually doesn’t have to do much actively, it’s more the passive part that makes it all work: I commit to a plan and feel ridiculous if I make up excuses for not pulling through in front of somebody else. We meet once a month, tell each other how things are going, what we are planning to do. He really gives me invaluable advice that helps me take the helicopter view and it’s so great that I have someone clever to grow next to and watch grow. Plus we track our goals in an Excel sheet that the partner can look into anytime.
In the beginning, we were leaving each other comments, inquiring about this and that, but that’s not necessary anymore. And as you see, I'm writing this blog here right now, so I'm not sleepwalking anymore. So Diogo, this is partly thanks to you, and I appreciate our monthly sessions a lot.
8. Track How Much of Your Day You Allocate to Certain Tasks
Remember Number 2, where we decided we want to prioritize certain tasks? Well, identifying the biggest lever, is only one part of it. Especially for long-term projects, we also have to steadily allocate the most attention to it. Do you know those days when in the end you have no idea what you actually did, except for some stupid admin tasks?
Maybe because subconsciously you are afraid of the outcome of finishing your big dream/project/whatever. What if it will not succeed? Much easier to get distracted, fumble around, and lose time. Well, as charming as this solution sounds, it will also keep you from truly learning and developing. So instead, track each day which project you worked on mainly during the cycles. I’ve allocated you a spot in your PRODUCTIVITY BOOSTER SHEET for this. CLICK HERE or sign up above.
From now on, every time you select a non-priority task, you’ll feel a little sting. It says: Why the hell are you not working on XYZ?? And soon you’ll see yourself copping out less and less.
I hope this was really helpful for you!
I’d love to hear what your favorite productivity hacks were and if you have tried any of these yet? Please leave a comment; I would love to know!
