These five stops you from being productive

Author - Dushyant TyagiDushyant Tyagi
Jul 1, 2017
These five stops you from being productive

My friend used to listen rock music while coding and he couldn’t code a single line if there is no music. I always wondered how could someone concentrate in such a high volume music. I myself get disturbed even by the engine sound of a passing car on the street. So my most productive time is 11pm to 5 am while his most productive time was anytime when he had high quality sound system nearby.

Point is we all have our different sets of rules for being productive. As far as we are utilizing our productive time effectively and delivering what we are suppose to, there is nothing to worry about.


But have you ever experienced being ‘un productive’ or ‘less productive’ in your ‘most productive’ hours? If yes, these might be the reasons killing your productivity:




Work Routine



Call me old school but if you don’t have a proper work routine, you are more likely spending your time in ‘not so important’ tasks while missing out your ‘important’ ones.


Personally, I used to maintain my to-do list in my cell phone and laptop. But it never worked. Then old paper pen technique worked for me like a charm. While starting my day, I write down important tasks on the paper in decreasing priority, start from #1 and strike out each task when done.


Routine doesn’t mean you have to make a time table and follow it every day, it simply means organize your day when you start.




Don’t be a method actor



In other words, don’t be a perfectionist always. There are many tasks that need perfection but rest don’t. Perfection simply means putting extra efforts to improve the quality and it goes in a loop. Tasks that need perfection are good to show your perfectionist quality. But being a perfectionist in every tasks will eat your productivity and delay your timelines. Perfectionism in its extreme would never let you deliver even a small project. Its cool to be perfectionist when needed but not cool when not needed, you have to break the character sometimes.



Being too old school


You can simply automate many tasks. Doing everything manually is like riding horse on a highway. Thousands of tools are available to automate most of your daily routine tasks, use them. Doing everything manually will make your work monotonous and less interesting, that will eventually suck your energy. You will feel tired even before you begin your actual important tasks.


So, automate whatever you can. Go use the robots!!



Sharpen your weapons



This high paced technology based world will make you outdated even before you realize. You must have heard that to cut the tree in an hour you have to sharpen your axe half an hour. You skills are your weapons, keep sharpening them and keep learning new skills. Take some time everyday to learn something new. That will always keep you in the competition.




Learn saying NO



I personally faced this problem and I still do. When you socialize and people get to know what you do, you will start getting many ‘requests’ for small (unpaid) favors. It is not bad to help people, but when it starts impacting your work then it is bad. If you do them all you will easily end up spending a couple of days every week and it will delay your actual projects. So learn to say no whenever necessary.



Last Modified: Jul 1, 2017
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