Seven habits of highly productive people
Do you look around at other people and wonder how they seem to get so much done in the same 24 hours as you?
Maybe you start each day with a plan for how you want it to go but more often than not you only get through a fraction of what you intended.
Worse still, do you spend so much time on low-value tasks each day that you never feel like you are actually making real progress? You’re really just procrastinating and spinning your wheels, avoiding the work you know you really should be doing.
Being productive isn’t about creating a longer to-do list and then ticking off as many tasks as possible each day.
Real productivity is about being ruthless about the right tasks you should be working on and then setting up systems that will help you complete those tasks so that you end each day with quality, high-value work having been completed.
This is exactly what highly productive people do.
You look at them and think they are completing huge volumes of work but what they are really doing is completing a manageable amount of quality work that is leading them to make big strides in their life and business.
Here are seven of the habits that they use to do that…
1: They don’t rely on their memory
Highly productive people get things out of their head and into a notebook or a notes app.
They keep their head clear and decluttered so they can focus on important tasks without worrying they are forgetting something.
Here are some tips for how to do that:
If you’re at your desk put ideas into a notes app or other quick capture system as soon as they come into your head. I personally use a combination of the Notes app on my iPhone along with Notion to do this.
If you’re not near your desk another system could be to email yourself anything you need or want to remember. You can then file this away in different places when you’re next processing your emails. A great app that automates this process is 'Braintoss'.
Also cut down on the number of decisions you need to make each day - for example, I eat the same lunch every day, I wear the same sorts of clothes each day, I have the same exercise times each week. This all saves me time having to think about how and when things happen and leave room in my brain for more important decision making.
2: They outsource low value tasks
Highly productive people value their time and outsource low value and time-consuming work that they don’t specifically need to be involved in.
What can you afford to outsource to free up some time?
These don’t have to only be things in your business. Saving time on household tasks is still time being saved and sometimes these things are easier to outsource quickly than tasks within your business.
Examples might be
cleaning
meal preparation (e.g. by services like Marley Spoon)
ironing
garden or pool maintenance
grocery shopping
pet walking
house maintenance tasks
When you can afford it a Virtual Assistant is also a great asset to both your time and your business.
If you’re not sure what tasks you might give a VA think about the tasks you don’t enjoy doing but that take up a lot of your time. Those are the tasks to outsource first. Examples might include:
invoicing or chasing unpaid invoices
bookkeeping or accounting
reviewing and sorting your email inbox and responding to inquiries you get regularly with standardised templates you have created
helping with social media management and scheduling
making appointments
detailed design work (e.g. SketchUp drawings, CAD drawings)
administrative tasks
reception tasks
research (e.g. for blog articles or other content pieces you might want to create)
client onboarding
Facebook group moderation (e.g. admitting new members, reviewing comments and posts)
Outsource as many things you can afford - and especially the tasks that you don't enjoy or that drain your energy.
Here’s a post I wrote about how to get started with outsourcing (+ my FREE checklist) >>>
3: They start their day with the highest value task
Highly productive people don’t start their day by checking email or social media. They know that this is how you end up down a rabbit hole of fulfilling the needs of other people who are in your inboxes.
Instead, they set time aside first thing in the morning to work on their highest value task for the day. This is when people are most alert with the highest concentration and focusing on the most important or challenging task first in the day means that no matter what happens in the rest of the day something important has been achieved.
The way I manage this is by having a working sprint session set as the first task I do in the morning.
This is a block of time of normally around 60-90 mins where I set myself one task to complete (the hardest task for the day), set a timer (using an analogue timer, not my iPhone), put my phone on silent and flip it over and then work on that tasks for the set period. I find that giving myself a specific time deadline helps me work hard on the task as I know that this is the only time I have allocated to get the task done in the day.
Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” and you would be surprised at how giving yourself a time deadline to complete something normally results in you completing that task.
I don’t even open social media or my email before having completed this working sprint session. As part of my morning routine I will make sure I review the things I need to get done that day and I will order them according to the value they have.
The hardest, most important thing is always done first (even if I don’t really feel like it!)
Emails, admin and social media messages come later in my day as these tasks don’t require as much brain power or concentration and are better completed when I am tired. This is during my Daily Non-Negotiables period for the day.
Don’t waste the most productive hours of your day on other people’s priorities. Look after your own priorities first and start with your most important task.
4: They create forced deadlines for high value tasks
Highly productive people are self-motivated and self-driven and they often work to deadlines they set for themselves.
If you're someone who is prone to procrastination then start to think about how you can create forced deadlines around tasks and activities that are going to move things forward.
One way I got over my own procrastination was to pre-sell my first ever SketchUp course. I had created part of the course but not finished it and so to give myself the kick up the bum that I needed I put up a sales page and started taking orders for the course.
There's nothing quite like paying customers to get you to finish something off!
So where can you apply a similar idea to the tasks you want to get done but you are putting off?
What deadline can you create to help motivate yourself and gamify getting an important project completed?
Once you’ve set the deadline think about the steps that are involved in reaching that deadline and put all the dates and milestones in your calendar - see below for more on this.
5: They don’t multi-task
Highly productive people focus on one task at a time and don’t move on to another task until that one is completed - even if the task is difficult or boring.
Here are some ideas:
Time block your calendar - allocate certain days of the week to certain types of work (e.g. Monday = Client Work, Tuesday = Meetings, Wednesday = marketing etc.). This avoids excessive task switching and allows you to get in flow with similar types of tasks each day.
Work in sprints - there are lots of names for this e.g. ‘The Pomodoro Technique’ but the idea is you block a specific time in your diary to work on a specific task. You turn on a timer (ideally not on your phone!) and you then work uninterrupted on that task for the time you have set yourself. If you know you only have that amount of time to complete the task you will be surprised at how much you can achieve. At the end of the session reward yourself with a break so you have something to look forward to.
Turn off notifications on all your devices - go in to your phone and computer settings and turn off all email, social media and other notifications. This has been one of the biggest productivity improvements I’ve made in the last few years and I am no longer being bombarded with other people’s priorities throughout the day and can stay focused on the task at hand.
Have set times of day for processing your email and social media - I call this my ‘non-negotiables’ period and it’s about an hour or so where I work through a checklist of items that must get done each day. I have gone a step further to have a set of bookmarks on my computer that automatically open all the apps I need to complete this set of non-negotiable tasks. Once I’ve completed the list and checked it off I close down all the website tabs again and get back to my other, more productive work. Here’s my current list of non-negotiable tasks.
6: They break large projects in to manageable tasks
Highly productive people don’t get overwhelmed by large projects and sit spinning their wheels in procrastination.
Instead, they break large projects down into smaller parts with goals and deadlines attached to those smaller steps.
They know that the best way to complete a project is to get in momentum and keep taking action towards the larger goal.
Here’s how to do this:
spend some time brainstorming all the steps involved in completing the task or project - a good tip is to use a kanban board feature (like you can get in Notion) or even some post it notes.
Write each step of the process down on a new post-it note or on a card on your kanban board.
Rearrange all the steps until you have a sensible order of completion
Estimate how long each of the steps will take - add a note to the card or post it note - e.g. 1/2 day, 1 day, 1 hour
Set a deadline for the overall project
Work backwards with the steps you’ve outlined for the project and plot these steps on your calendar, giving each step an allocated time for completion and a due date. I use Notion in the timeline view to allocate the tasks of projects - this shows my project in a Gantt chart style calendar, which I find a helpful visual representation (see image below for an example of this).
Get started on the first step of the project on the day/time you’ve allocated yourself and follow through on that task until completion.
Once you’ve done that task move to the next one.
A large project now simply becomes a series of actionable steps. You no longer sit in overwhelm about how large the project is. You get in momentum by taking small, daily actions
Here’s an example of how a Gantt chart calendar looks for one of my own projects. This project is to remake my Intermediate SketchUp Course and update all the videos and content.
If I just put a task on my to-do list saying “remake my intermediate course” this would seem overwhelming and difficult. So instead you’ll see that I’ve broken the project up into achievable tasks to complete over a set period. So each day when I sit down I know that on that day my task is to do X step of the project and nothing else. Once that step is completed I can tick it off the list and move on, knowing that by doing that I am on track to reach my project deadline.
7: They plan their week in advance
Highly productive people don’t start planning their week on Monday morning.
They spend time over the weekend, many of them on a Sunday afternoon, thinking about what they have in the coming week and make a plan for how they will get everything they want done.
I personally do this in my weekly ‘Sunday Planning Session’, which is 10-20 mins I spend on a Sunday just going through a list of things to reset my week and get myself organised.
Here’s what I do in this session:
REVIEW: review my goals and vision board to remind myself of what the ‘big picture of what I’m trying to achieve
CLEAR: clear my physical and digital spaces and reset for the week.
PLAN: plan for my week ahead
Overall highly productive people take action. They don’t sit around planning or overthinking things. Instead, they make a plan of attack and then get started on the first step, then the next step and so on.
The only way to make real progress is to always be in a state of momentum.
Taking action above all else is how you will become a more productive person.
Thanks for reading and catch you in my next post!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
Courses and Templates for Designers and Architects
DO YOU WANT TO….
Improve your professionalism?
Find more clients?
Bring in more revenue?
Create better systems and processes?
Then check out my business courses and templates for designers and architects.
These courses and templates leave you with work done - not just a long list of things you need to do next. We have a really strong focus on taking action and getting things created that improve your business.
