7 Steps to have a productive day

The other day it was a pretty good day. I slept in late, I had breakfast while doing laundry (hello, multitasking!), played an online game for a little bit, cleaned the whole house, organized the bedroom and the closet, and cooked chicken wings for dinner and cheesecake for tomorrow (that’s still in the making while I’m writing this).

I hadn’t cleaned my house in a *pretty embarrassing* long time. Who has time for that? Definitely not me.

At the end of the day I sat down (finally) and I thought that it had been a good day. Even if I’m harsh on myself a lot of times, I have to admit that I did accomplish part of what I needed to do. Sure, my to-do list is a few miles long and doesn’t seem to get shorter, but I needed to get organized and do some housekeeping. Tomorrow will be another day, probably full of blog stuff and other different things.

I am definitely not the most productive person in the room (well… I’m alone right now LOL), but I know that if I want/need to have a productive day I have to organize myself and follow the steps that I’m going to show you below. Tomorrow I have a few important things that I want to get done, so I will have to focus and be on my best behavior haha.

 

1. Write down what you want to accomplish and the amount of time that you think it will take you. Be realistic about the time, or your plan for the day will be destined to fail. If taking care of your email takes you 30 minutes but you had scheduled 15 minutes, you will most likely end up feeling pressured and maybe overwhelmed because you don’t have time.
2. From that list, make a schedule for the day. Schedule the most important/urgent tasks first so you actually get them done. You can spread them throughout the day if you want. The important thing is that you will actually do them.
3. Do not multitask. By scheduling the tasks you will create slots of time when you are just going to be thinking about that task that you’re doing, because you know you will take care of the others later on. I like multitasking, but I’ll admit that many times is the greatest way to waste time. You think you’re doing a lot of things in half the time when they are actually taking 3 times more.
4. Do.It. No excuses. Follow the schedule without getting distracted by social media, the phone, the internet, the TV, your friends… The secret to get things done is to be on them and not letting anyone/anything distract you from your goal. If you need to, put the phone on silence/plane mode and use some apps for the laptop (they restrict the access to social media and other websites).
5. Set a timer so you don’t overpass the scheduled time. If you gave yourself 1h to research on a subject, stick to that hour. We all know that we could spend hours and hours doing research, but if you’re on a tight timeline you have to make yourself stop.
6. Schedule some breaks too. Your brain also needs to rest for a little bit every once in a while. You will be more productive too if you allow some time off, even if it’s 10 minutes here and there.
7. Celebrate your success! Don’t forget to add your accomplishments to your success jar (if you have one) at the end of the day.

Do you follow any plans to be productive? Do you schedule your day or you prefer to go with the flow?