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Want to achieve lasting productivity? You might believe it’s impossible to achieve more over time and create productivity momentum.
Believe it or not, you can accomplish more each and every day. What’s more, you can do this without burning yourself out.
If you overwork, you will exhaust yourself physically and mentally, and it will take a while for you to get going again.
Whatever momentum you had built up would be halted and more work would pile up that you would be unable to deal with.
Not a situation you want to be in.
Fortunately, there are simple ways you can get more done. What is more, you can build up productivity momentum that will last for a substantial period. By making a few simple changes to your daily routine, you could make an enormous difference to your life and unlock the secret of long-term productivity.
Later we will explain why having an accountability partner is key to lasting productivity. First, though, we’ll discuss how altering your environment can help set you up to be more productive.
Let’s find out more.
Simple Ways to Improve Lasting Productivity
Here are a few of the best ways you can set yourself up for lasting productivity.
Adjust your environment
Once you’ve exhausted your store of self-discipline there is little more you can accomplish on that day. Self-discipline is like a muscle — the more you use it, the more time you need to recover before you can use it again. Thus, you will have less willpower for a time, and your powers of self-discipline will be weaker.
How can you make tasks a little easier so that you don’t need to exercise as much self-discipline? You can focus on your external environment.
Imagine you find you’re tired and lethargic on a day you hoped to be active. You resolve to jog more often during the week. The trouble is that you know you don’t have the motivation or willpower to do so. In the end, you don’t change anything.
Now imagine the same scenario, with one minor change. To make it more likely that you would go for a run in the morning, you took care to place your running shoes and other attire by the bed the night before.
When you wake, you know the first task of the day is to go for a run. By preparing your environment the night before, you have given yourself powerful cues to remind you of your promise to yourself and help you form a habit.
As we have seen in a previous post on how to form habits that stick, if you create a habit, you don’t need to exercise as much willpower to accomplish something as when you have to make a conscious choice to act. Forming habits is much easier if you alter your environment in ways that encourage you to develop a particular habit.
Set micro gaols
It’s good to have big, overarching goals to aim for. They help keep our hopes alive. However, it is no good only setting lofty goals. To give yourself a better chance of achieving what you want, you must also set smaller goals.
Why is it necessary to do this?
It is difficult to act on lofty goals. By setting tiny micro-goals you will have a way to take concrete action to move you further toward achieving your bigger goals. What, though, you may ask, makes a good, worthwhile goal?
If you want to set goals that are achievable, they must be:
- Actionable,
- Specific.
- Measurable.
Say you want to learn the guitar. Rather than say you want to practice the guitar often, quantify it. Promise yourself that you will practice 3 times a week. There is a way to make that goal still more actionable though. Pinpoint precisely when you mean to practice.
You might draw up a schedule for yourself.
I will practice the guitar for 2 hours in the evening on a Monday, Thursday, and Sunday for a period of two months. You may even say you will continue playing cycles during those sessions.
There you have a goal that meets all three of the stated criteria and is therefore achievable. You are clear about what you need to do to reach your goal.
To be productive over a substantial period, it is not enough to want to do something. You must create goals that allow you to do something about it.
Check out our post on micro-goals and anti-goals for more on goal setting.
Find an accountability partner
You need someone you can trust to help keep you on the straight and narrow. Your accountability partner can be anyone you choose, be it your friend, partner, sister, or work colleague.
You must agree to be honest with each other and decide on the consequences of your actions, or indeed, inaction.
If you say you will do something and then don’t, you must admit it and face the consequences. This is the fastest way we can kick the habit if we tend to resist action.
This system works because it stops us lying to ourselves. When there is the prospect of punishment before us and you have someone to give you a reality check, you are less likely to waste time and more likely to be productive.
Next, we’ll find out why you should work smarter, not harder.
Work smart, not hard
Sometimes in life, less is more. This advice should not be overlooked in the workplace whether you work from home or in an office. It is important not to neglect your health and well-being.
Here are our top tips for staying healthy:
- Rest when necessary.
- Hang out with friends.
- Enjoy a coffee from your local café every now and again.
Taking breaks is vital if you don’t wish to get ill. How often should you take a break though?
Bear in mind that we work best when we concentrate on one task for short periods of time, before taking a short 5-minute break. Use the Pomodoro method to break your day up into 25-minute work sprints with breaks in between. Make sure you take a longer break after every fourth Pomodoro cycle.
Remember, in the quest for lasting productivity, time spent relaxing is not time wasted.
What You Can Do to Get Started
You can’t expect yourself to change everything at once. To start off:
- Write down one of the keys to lasting productivity listed above.
- Note a single action you wish to take.
- Write down the one thing you wish to change.
Hey presto. You’ve taken your first step toward improving your lasting productivity.
Wrapping Up
Why not start formulating your own strategy for lasting productivity today?
Use the advice given above to create a way of life that transforms your productivity into something sustainable, actionable, and improvable.
Soon enough, you will have devised a fool-proof system that makes it tougher not to get stuff done.
Who knows? Your productivity might skyrocket.
Good luck in your quest to unlock lasting productivity.
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