If you want to be productive and kick procrastination to the curb then in this blog post I will show you how to get things done. Getting things done isn’t easy, we struggle with it to a certain extent. There’s always something else that we need to do or a distraction that stops us from getting things done. Whatever the reason is it is hard to be productive these days. We all want to be productive and most of us struggle to actually do that.

It’s not particularly our fault, life is hectic. Time flies by far too quickly and often we’re a jumble of wires, trying to figure life out. There’s no time to do what we love and that is the problem. I have friends who have hectic schedules, they often find it hard to do anything when they have free time. Most of us don’t have the time or don’t know to use it wisely, I’m not an expert, but I was a major procrastinator.

I still struggle with it. I didn’t hit the lottery and all of sudden everything fell into place, some days are hard, others are easier. I just know how to work the system

and that is because of trial and error. I know what works and what doesn’t. All because I attempted to do the impossible, to seek something outside of myself. The great thing is if you want a checklist of all these steps, there’s a freebie down below.

 Schedule your day, the night before

Stop wasting time, an easy way to get things done is to schedule your day, the night before. This is by one of the easiest ways to become more productive and get things done. This way, you make progress because as soon as you wake up you can concentrate on the things that matter.

We waste more time thinking about what we have to do than we actually doing it. If you don’t want to do that, you need to write a short list of all the

activities you have to do. You can use different productivity tools for you do that from eating a frog to a simple to-do list. That is all it takes to get things done.

As complicated as it is, it really isn’t. All you have to do is dedicate at least ten minutes in the evening to write down what you need to do the next day. A quick suggestion is don’t try to add too many items to your to-do list. One of the worst things is to have a 25 item to-do list and barely make it half way down. There’s a difference between working hard and smart.

Focus on tasks that require immediate action and move from there. Keep it light, baby steps are far important than leaping over boulders. 

Wake up, at an godly hour

As hard as it may be, one of the best ways to get a lot of things done is to wake early, when you do that your mind will focus on the task at hand and it is easier to focus on what needs to be done.

Waking up early is one of the hardest things to do, but it’s a lot easier than we think it is. It all comes down to what time you go to bed. I go to bed really early so I can wake up at 4 am every day. Some days when I want to get more done, I actually wake up at 3 am. I have I cracked the code to wake up. You have to want it bad enough that you sacrifice sleep.

Even if you wake up, do a bit of work and go back to sleep for an hour before work or school. You have done far more work than people who wake up later than usual. Successful people wake up early and if you want to be happier, more energetic then you have to wake up early. As hard as it might be, you have to do it so you can move forward in life.

That is your first step. I recommend going to bed at 8 to 10 pm everyday. That way you get at least 6 – 7 hours of sleep. And that is all you really need. Waking up  early will help you to get things done, it will give you a edge over a lot of people. When I started waking up early, that helped me with procrastination and I started doing more and getting things done in time.

This is a productivity hack and if you are interested in knowing more productivity hacks to help you get things done, you can find the blog post I wrote about it here.

Block out the noise

To be in the zone, I use earphones or headphones. I tend to write more or concentrate for longer periods when I do that. There’s so much distraction out there that it is easier for you to lose your focus listening to someone talking on the phone or a dog barking.

There are studies that suggest, productivity actually increases when you’re listening to music using headphones. I definitely think you should try it out and see what happens.  

If you want to get things done, you need to block out the noise so that you can be more productive. There are many ways you can block the noise, you could listen to motivational clips or music. Blocking out the noise is one of the best ways to help you get things done. When you focus more on what you are doing rather than all the things you have to do this pushes you.

Eat the frog

Start with the hardest task first early on. I usually write when I wake up because it requires the most brain power. Sometimes I don’t write early in the morning and I realize it’s a lot harder for me to complete this task during the day. Eating the frog helps you focus on completing tasks that require more time or more brain power.

This is why it is important to wake up early. Our bodies are more energetic the less time we spend in bed. You should actually test it out and you’ll find out that you can complete hard tasks early in the morning without breaking a sweat. Not saying that it’s easy, but doing this early in the morning, does help you out in the end. What normally would have taken hours to complete or days because of procrastination you can do it in a few hours early in the morning.

In the first thing in the morning, start with your hardest task, whatever it might be and focus on finishing it. Brian Tracy wrote an interesting blog post about Eating the frog as a way to manage time, if you want to know more about it, you can read more about it here.

Take breaks

You have to take breaks, it’s human nature to do so. Perfection and productivity depend on taking breaks, the more breaks you take, the more you get done. The length of your breaks can be a few minutes or even one hour in between your work. 

You have to pace yourself and it’s alright to take breaks. Most of us believe that in order to be successful, it requires us to work like machines. But even laptops overheat and need to cool down. What more the human brain. You can’t concentrate if you don’t take time off. A lot of successful people take power naps and that helps them focus on the task at hand.

 Visualize what you want to achieve

If you want to make progress, one of the best ways to do that is to visualize what you want to achieve. Studies show that people who visualize practicing end up being more successful than those who don’t. Visualize everything you want to do during the day, you can start doing this early in the morning and think about it throughout your day. You’d be amazed at how much you’ll achieve if you do this. It will also help with procrastination and concentrating.

What is you main key takeaway from this blog? Comment below, would love to know what you think.

                                                                                                  Keep Pushing

                                                                                                      Vanessa