Want to achieve your goals? Want to realize your wildest hopes and your dreams?
So, what are we hypothetical to do?
We say that we want something, but we find ourselves not ready to give up the routines and bad habits that have become so commonplace to us. What gives?
The answer partly lies in how badly we want something. Do we want our goals so badly that we’re willing to do no matter what it takes to get them? Or, do they really, deep down inside, not mean enough to us that we’re willing to give up all friends, socializing, and any other impression of normalcy.
The Path To Productivity
The greatest equalizer in life is time. We all have the same amount of time just 24 hours in a given day, 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds, to be more precise.
What we choose to do with that valuable amount of time dictates the quality of life that we lead. And while the road to productivity might be paved with dissatisfaction, it’s clearly the route to all accomplishment.
So, what does it take to be more productive?
Turn Into An Early Riser
We get more done in the early hours, period. While we might hate the nonstop sound of the alarm clock in the morning, its quiet, continuous-time you can influence to inch you closer to your goals.
If you want something bad enough, you’re willing to forgo just about anything to achieve it.
Exercise For 30 Minutes
All it takes is 30 minutes. You don’t need much more than that. In fact, you can even build-up to the 30 minutes by taking the momentum move toward your habits. Start small and build. Do 10 minutes per day for the first week, then increase by 10 minutes the second week, and another 10 minutes the third week.
Set Monthly & Weekly Goals
Want to be more productive? Well, first you need some long-term goals. Once you’ve set those long-term goals, you cant alter the goals, even if you fail over and over again; you have to change the plan.
Being more productive has to do with what you do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis towards those goals.
You can also call these milestones.
Create A Daily To-do List
While to-do lists shouldn’t utter your entire life, they do help you focus your efforts. It’s easy to get diverted in the day and lose sight of what needs to be done. I’m not talking about the million different chores or things that we need to do. I’m talking about the vital tasks that really matter.
Prioritize Your Time
To be more productive, you have to effectively manage your time. That much is pretty clear…
While prioritizing your time might sound like a scary task, it’s simple and clear-cut. As long as you get organized and create your daily to-do list, you can prioritize what needs to be done and remove some of the time-wasters.
Focus On The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20-rule, also known as the Pareto principle, is the argument that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. I wrote a post about the 80/20-rule that completes the importance of leveraging this powerful principle.
Whatever we do sales, marketing, product design, college exams 80% of the results that we achieve are based solely on 20% of the efforts. If you’re studying for an exam, 80% of your results are based on 20% of your time spent studying. In sales, 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers.
Eliminate Distractions
Distractions create an annoyance for us. They help to veer us off course, taking us on tangents and most undoubtedly don’t allow us to be more productive. They slow the process of goal accomplishment and they sap any ability for us to live our lives on our own accords rather than at the behest of someone else.
All of us could work to get rid of distractions in our lives. From the endless television shows to the senseless social media surfing, to the in-person socializing that seems to take up too much of our free time, and further, than that, we’re all responsible for distractions here and there.
But, if you want to be more productive and achieve your goals, you have to eliminate distractions from your life. You have to get rid of the not urgent and not important activities. This doesn’t mean that you cant have a life; it just means that you have to focus more of your time on getting ahead rather than just hanging out.
Some of these distractions are a product of our bad lifestyle while others are a product of bad lifestyles, but they’re all a source of conflict in that they help to move us further away from our goals rather than earlier to them.
