How do YOU maximize your productivity?

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bobomonkey

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I try to be as productive as I can, but many times i find myself with too many goal lists and mentally bogged down with projects I should be working on while I'm working on another one.

The only system I've come up with is writing a master goal list that I update once in awhile and then make smaller weekly goal lists and a daily list as well.

Has anyone out there found a good system for getting things done? Something that gives you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment by the end of the day would be nice.

:bigear:
 


Sure, I may have a few suggestions as this is something I've really struggled with in the past, and have managed to get sorted for the most part. I'd say 4 days out of 5 I'm really pleased with what I've accomplished.

A few questions first:

How many hours a week are you working at the moment?
What does your typical day look like (mine is a mix of Internet marketing, working on my other business, and meeting people / talking to them on the phone)?
How far off in the future are your goals on your master goal list? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, or a mix?

Why isn't your master goal / weekly / daily list working for you at the moment?

AS
 
I spend most of my time on forums, blogs and generally wasting my life away... mind you, mostly that's done whilst on my 9-5 day job where I make 'some monies' telling people how to make the 'big monies', whilst making the company I work for 'big monies' whilst when I try to make the 'big monies' for myself I seem to just 'waste monies'. Go figure.

But from a more serious point of view, I spend a lot of time on the train commuting to work, an hour and a half each way, so I tend to work on any of my personal projects on the laptop whilst commuting. As there's no internet access on the train I spend time working on article writing and development etc. It's probably the most productive part of my day.

I reckon the main reason I don't make any real money online is because I can't focus on one thing at a time, and I've normally got 100 ideas and try to do them all at once. From a day job thing I give clients great ideas (that I could do myself) but they have the focus and dedication to put the ideas into practice and that's where I FAIL!!!
 
"Getting things done" - that book has worked wonders for me.
Read it and APPLY!

::emp::
 
Just plain old "advice":

Create top level goals.
Assign priorities to each goal.
Create steps for reaching those goals.
Estimate time needed for each small step.
Start doing them, every day - a single task at a time.
Review once in a week to make sure the daily tasks stretch you just enough (this will make sure your productivity is high).
Review once in a month or so to make sure the goals are realistic.
Review 2-3 times a year to make sure the priorities have not changed.
 
Spend some time thinking about your purpose. For me, that always gets me motivated long-term - and when I am motivated I am productive.

For me, it has always been as simple as not wanting to be a simpleton like so many people around us. Waking up to work, come home, watch some TV or socialize, go to bed, repeat. I'd sooner commit suicide than fall into such a pointless existence. This is what gets me going on building my business.
 
The fastest way to get shit done is to create a montage. Haven't you seen all those 80's movies where they get in shape or put up a successful business in a matter of minutes? It's all done with a montage.
 
Awesome advice here.... one thing I've noticed is I often find I can be more productive if I get out of the home office and go to a coffee shop. Not as many distractions, I guess... and caffeine helps!
 
emp said:
"Getting things done" - that book has worked wonders for me.
Read it and APPLY!

::emp::
Click to expand...

I bought that book and that dude is pretty hardcore about his goals. I like his system of writing everything down to get rid of the "loops" or whatever they were called out of your head and onto paper
 
bobomonkey said:
ZenHabits.com - of course.... a parked page. The real site is here I presume:

Zen Habits | Simple Productivity
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry about that.

You can get some of the gtd seminars on bittorent. I would listen to a couple of them. 4hour work week is a good book to have Great insights on what can and cant be outsourced.

Theres another book Simpleology by Mark Joyner. I recommend giving it a read.

All in all, these systems are about doing. They're great for inspiration, just don't get bogged down in reading a ton of things and never implementing them.
 
BeerHat said:
The fastest way to get shit done is to create a montage. Haven't you seen all those 80's movies where they get in shape or put up a successful business in a matter of minutes? It's all done with a montage.
Click to expand...

Just have to find the time to make the montage.
 
BeerHat said:
The fastest way to get shit done is to create a montage. Haven't you seen all those 80's movies where they get in shape or put up a successful business in a matter of minutes? It's all done with a montage.
Click to expand...

I thought that exact same thing. Everything was so easy in the 80's. The trick is to just compress months and years into less than a minute. How hard could it be?
 
-as for motivational part, helps to keep your goals in front of you all the time, literally. Make a picture of your goals (nice car, big house, vacation or whatever) and put it up on your desktop or on the wall in front of you

-organizing time:
i really liked Bryan Tracy's "21 Ways to Double Your Productivity " and "7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. You can find audio books online, so you can listen to them while working

for the practical part:
-one single thing that increased my productivity the most, was getting another monitor. (will get 3rd one soon)
-also on the wall in front of me, put up papers with bits of code i reuse, be it php, javascript, or css,google and yahoo seach commands and so on (so i dont have to constantly look it up)

-as they said, dont start playing any game if you cant afford to get addicted to it
-dont talk to friends over msn while working
 
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