Today I spoke live in my Facebook business page continuing the theme of ‘managing your focus, not your time’ and spoke about productivity and planning.
I’m generally a pretty organised person. I like order, I am pretty tidy, I like a plan and a bit of routine. You could argue, these are some of the attributes required to be productive.
However, I’ve already mentioned that I am very easily distracted. I am very much an ideas person, I’m the go to person if you have a problem that needs help solving – however this means that shiny new things excite me and take me away from that ‘thing’ that I should be working on.
I’m also sometimes thrown off balance in regards implementation. If I’m suffering from overwhelm, I can just stop in my tracks and zero activity tends to take place, or it could be limiting self talk making me doubt myself. This then feeds my fear mindset, then in pops procrastination. All of which make me avoid completing the task I should be doing and distraction is fed. Boom. My productivity goes out of the window.
Rather than let this hold me back – I’ve used many different tools and techniques over the years to assist me and those I work with. Many I’ve not continued, some I have. I shared some of my tips and tools today on my Facebook live.
I’ve included below some of the tools I shared.
Productivity planner – I’ve been using this for over 12 months now. It’s supplied by a company called Intelligent Change.
This planner gives great tips at the start and then encourages you to think of your week ahead and plan out what your 5 most important tasks are, your secondary tasks and then your additional tasks. You then are given pages to break down your weekly tasks from this list into 5 separate days. Each day, you write out which is your most important task of the day, your 2 x secondary tasks and then 2 x additional tasks. At the end of each week you have a notes page and a reflection page to help you get super smart with your planning and execution.
It is small enough to pop into your bag and it has really helped me stay on track with what is most important in my week or day.
Intelligent change also have a five minute journal which focuses you into the right mindset at the start and end of the day. Starting your day with gratitude really does lift the mood and set you up for a better start. Equally doing the same before you go to bed is invaluable too. This tool really helps you record this and is gorgeous looking too.
I personally use both of these and highly recommend. If you want to check them out or place an order, here is a quick link for you. https://www.intelligentchange.com/?rfsn=208613.dcd58e
If you prefer to plan your tasks online and not on paper – there is an app I used for a while called THINGS. It is showing in the apple App Store as things 3, priced at £9.99. This is a great tool if you want to move away from paper. It allows you to list out what you need to do and allocate to specific days. You can plan well in advance too which I found super helpful. It carries over tasks that you have not ticked off, so you can ensure you prioritise those most important.
Two other apps mentioned to me recently which are collaboration tools for project managing are Trello and Asana. I’ve not researched them myself as yet but I’m hearing wonderful things about them from fellow business owners. If you work with a team, or outsource any of your work, this could be a great option.
If you want to hear what else I chatted about, pop on over to my Facebook live. Here I talk about some of the strategies that have helped me with my productivity. There will be more content shared as the week progresses, all aimed at getting focus levels laser sharp and productivity higher.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=502524780098075&id=278338392516716
Let’s go be better.❤
