How to Make Small But Significant Tweaks to Your Productivity

Rick Goodman — May 19, 2017 Follow @DrRickGoodman

I’m a motivational business speaker by trade, which means that productivity is something I hear about pretty regularly. Basically, everyone wishes they could be more productive, but not everyone knows how to make that happen. The conventional wisdom is that, to truly make yourself more productive, you’ve got to institute some big changes—waking up at 4 am, working on Saturdays, or something similar.

But that’s not the case at all, and in fact, the best productivity boosters tend to be the little tweaks to your daily routine. Let me offer you some examples of what I’m talking about.

Quick Tips for Improved Productivity

Segment your time. What if, instead of staring at your screen for hours at a time, you broke your day up into segments of activity—say, 25 minutes of focused work followed by five or 10 minutes of break? You could actually be so serious as to invest in a kitchen timer for your office to make this happen. Work as hard as you can, but then allow your body and mind some time to breathe. Get up and walk around, have a glass of water, or even do some brief meditation before you get back to your desk.

Make an anxiety list. Instead of a to-do list, write down all the things that are causing you anxiety—the big projects looming over your head. Review the list and decide which item is upsetting you the most. Make that your big focus for the day. Tackle it head-on!

Don’t have any zero days. When you have a day where you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything, that really stalls your momentum. If you’re approaching the end of your work day and haven’t crossed anything off your to-do list, pick a small, quick project you can handle before calling it quits. The psychological benefits of this can be massive.

Schedule a block of uninterrupted work time. On your calendar, mark out a full two-hour window in the morning to turn off your email and your phone, close your office door, and just get stuff done. You can worry about meetings and returning emails afterward.

Make Little Changes

You don’t have to totally restructure your work days to be productive; little shifts in your perspective can go a long way. As a motivational business speaker, I’ve picked up a lot of great productivity tricks, and these are some of the best.

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