Planning For Tomorrow After Work Today, Creates Momentum
One of the best ways to increase your productivity is to have a plan of action.
If you know what you’ll be working on tomorrow and you prepare in advance, you’ll develop the mindset of productivity to get it done. It also keeps you from thinking about work during your “off” time.
At the end of your work day set aside a few minutes when you’re done with work to make sure these things are in order. When you get up the next day, ready to work, you’ll already be ahead by having this lined out.
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1. Put away and tidy all of your work materials. Get what you need out for tomorrow so that you are ready for the next day. Get it organized so you can concentrate on work as soon as you get in.
2. Look over the next days task list so you have an idea of what’s ahead. Adjust it if necessary. If you plan your week ahead of time there should be no question as to what you need to tomorrow. However, if you like doing things on a day to day basis, this is a good time to plan tomorrow’s work.
3. Review the work you did today. This is where a running “I did this” list comes in handy. If you’ve written down everything you accomplished throughout the day, you can go over this list and find out how well your day went. It’s likely you forget a lot of the small things you did during the day. If they are written down, you’ll remember them.
4. Celebrate your success. If you finished your task list and had a productive day, then give yourself a pat on the back or a special treat.
Even small milestones deserve to be treated as something special. If you start doing this you’ll want more of it. Just give yourself something special each day that you finish your tasks. It needs to be something small, but meaningful.
If you’re working on a big project you’ll want to give yourself a bigger treat when it’s complete, but don’t forget to reward the small steps either.
5. Perform daily or weekly maintenance on your computer.
Set aside time for this every day or every week. Do not do this during productive time. These things can generally be done while you are on social networks or while you’re reading a book.
If you need to organize files you’ll want less distractions, but running virus programs or disk defragmenting can be done while you read or straighten up your office for the next day.
6. Plan tomorrow if you haven’t already done so.
This goes along with #2 listed above. It’s best to have a weekly plan broken down into daily tasks, but if that’s too strict for you, then plan each day at the end of your work day.
7. Unwind. The work day is done, leave it at the office, even if it’s your home office. Enjoy some you time or time with family. Only work after work hours if it is absolutely necessary.
8. Do a final check of email, social sites, paypal or any other business transactions. This is also a good time to check your website stats and things of that nature.
I recommend you do this weekly and not daily, but it will give you a good idea if you need to focus more time on traffic and such.
Practice these tips and you will exponentially become more productive during your days. And, you will reach your goals that much faster.