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These 10 simple shifts have really made a difference to my productivity - I hope you find them helpful too! FREE Productivity Challenge coming up!

video transcript:

10 Simple Productivity Tips

Welcome back to my channel. If you’re new here, hi, I’m Louise of Louisehenry.com. In today’s video - 10 Simple Productivity Tips - I’m going to be talking about one of my favorite subjects ever – which is productivity. I’m going to share with you 10 simple things that I’ve done that helped me be more productive. Hopefully you like a few of them. You can take them and use them any time you need to feel and be more productive.

Productivity Tips #1 – Clean Up Your Workspace

The very first thing is to clean up your workspace. Whenever my workspace is cluttered, then in turn, I just feel cluttered and that I can’t really focus. Taking the time - just the few minutes that it takes in order to clean my workspace - makes such a huge difference to my productivity.

The other thing I did was make my office as convenient as possible. All of the tools and equipment that I need to film my YouTube videos or be a guest on a podcast – it’s all right here, ready to go. Rather than having to set everything up, which takes time and can also discourage you from actually filming because you don’t want the hassle, it’s all right here. It’s really eliminated some of my excuses and allows me to just sit down, film, and create more content for you.

Productivity Tips #2 – Braindump Everything On Your Mind

The next thing is so helpful for when you’re not feeling productive and when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and that is to brain-dump everything that is on your mind first thing in the morning. This allows you to get it out of your mind, onto paper, and then actually go through and organize it.

Productivity Tips #3 – Decide The Order To Do Things

So often, I don’t take action simply because I’m overwhelmed and I don’t know even where I should start, so this has been a huge help. I’ll brain-dump everything that needs to get done, and then I’ll take the time and decide the order that I’m going to do things. So, before I even dive into work, it’s very clear what I need to do for that day and exactly which order I’m going to tackle them in.

Productivity Tips #4 – Tackle The Hardest Item First

When it comes to tackling your to-do’s, tackle the hardest thing first. This is going to make your day not only more productive, but more enjoyable as well. If you get that first thing done on your to-do list that is hard and that you’re procrastinating on, it’s going to make the rest of your day a lot more successful. For example, for me, filming YouTube videos is definitely one of the hardest things that I do. The rest of my work is just me on my laptop and I find it a lot easier, so this is the work that I choose to tackle first.

Productivity Tips #5 – Switch To An Online Project Management System

This next one probably had the biggest impact on my productivity overall and that is switching from a physical planner to an online project management system. The one I use is Asana. I love it. I’m obsessed, and you’ll find a few videos on it here on this channel. An online project management system is going to allow you to just take your organization and productivity to a whole other level. I seriously laugh when I look back to what I had, when I thought I was pretty organized and productive, to what I have now.

Basically, it is your to-do list, but it also allows you to do so much more. It allows you to set up projects. It allows you to breakdown all of your to-do’s, but also implement full systems, templates and workflows, right within this one system.

One of the biggest things this has helped me do is template every workflow that I have in my business. Rather than having to recreate the wheel every time that I need to do something in my business, I already have a step-by-step template of all of the steps of that process. For someone with a terrible memory, this is huge, but also ensures that the quality of work is significantly better and you’re never missing a step.

I could go on and on about the benefits of a project management system like this. As I said, my favorite, hands down, is Asana. I actually have a free roadmap for you that shows you how to get started with it, so if you want to grab that I’ll leave the link for you in the description below.

Productivity Tips #6 – Look For Opportunities To Systematize

The next one is an ongoing productivity shift that you can do, and that is always looking for opportunities to systematize. Literally, systematize everything that you possibly can. For example, with your groceries that you do each week. Are you always sitting down to do your groceries and writing that list from scratch? This is where a tool like Asana comes in, because I have a template for my grocery list that I can simply duplicate every time I need to go shopping. That’s just a simple example of something that is going to save you time and make you more productive.

I’m constantly looking for things that I can optimize and streamline, and that’s a lot of what I talk about on this channel. If you’re not yet subscribed, make sure to do so down below. Seriously, both of these things are going to help you be more productive and work less, so I highly recommend looking for opportunities and kind of auditing your life and everything that you do right now, and seeing where there are opportunities to improve.

This is really where my love of tech comes in – there have never been more tech tools available to us to help us streamline and automate, so always be looking for more options with your work and your personal life where you can streamline, automate, and optimize.

Productivity Tips #7 – Check In On Your Big Goals

The next one I find really helpful - and I think you will as well - is regularly checking in on my big goals. I actually have a board in Asana with all of my big goals written down, and I’m constantly going back into this board and reminding myself of the big goals and seeing how far I’ve made it to that goal and how much further I still have to go. This helps so much, particularly on those days when I’m feeling unmotivated and I just want to lie on the couch and watch Netflix. Write down all your goals, have them somewhere that is easily accessible. It is going to make a huge difference to your productivity.

Productivity Tips #8 - Listen to Motivating Podcasts

Number 8 is listening to motivating podcasts. Whenever I’m in a rut this is the perfect way to get back into a productive state. I’ll listen to one of someone crushing it in their life and instantly feel better and ready to dive back into work.

The last two are little tricks that I use when I’m really not getting anywhere, and I need some serious help in the productivity area.

Productivity Tips #9 – Give Myself Rewards

The first one is giving myself rewards. If I’m having a bad day and I’m really not getting any work done, I will decide that, if I complete a certain task, then I’m going to give myself a reward. Often this is ordering a nice latte or ordering some sushi – it’s all food and drink related - but you can come up with your own rewards. This is just something that I do when I have a hard project that I really don’t want to dive into, and it will often get me actually working on it.

Productivity Tips #10 – Set a Timer

Similar to this is my final tip, and that is to set a timer. If I just don’t want to sit down and do something, I decide I’m just going to spend 30 minutes on it and see how far I get. So, I will set the timer on my phone to 30 minutes, hit start and just go. The fact that you’re working up against a timer actually really helps, and it also feels less overwhelming because you’re going to see how much I get done in 30 minutes. Generally, I find when I do this, I get way more done in that 30-minute block than I thought I would and it works so well that I end up doing this again and again throughout the day.

Give those last two a try on your unmotivated days and let me know how it goes.

That’s it for my list – 10 simple things that you can do to help you be more productive. I hope that you found this helpful. Let me know in the comments what you do when you really need to get more productive - I would love to hear from you. If you liked this video, let me know by giving it a thumbs up. Don’t forget to hit Subscribe if you haven’t yet. I talk all about productivity, marketing and building an online business. I would love to have you. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you soon with another video.

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