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Are you tired of staring at an unfinished list of to-dos at the end of the day?<\/p>\nAre you tired of staring at an unfinished list of to-dos at the end of the day?<\/p>\n
Do you want to cut through the clutter<\/a> when it comes to your ability to get things done?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking to give your productivity a boost, it\u2019s a smart idea to avoid those actions that will slow down your progress.<\/p>\n In this post, I offer five actions to avoid if you want to be more productive at work<\/a> and at home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Imagine for a moment if you said \u201cyes\u201d to every single invitation or request you received during the day.<\/p>\n Chances are, there probably wouldn\u2019t be enough hours in the day to attend every meeting or complete every task.<\/p>\n This is exactly why you must protect your time<\/a> and be choosy about which invitations you\u2019ll accept.<\/p>\n Get in the habit of evaluating every single invitation you receive, be it an optional work meeting or a last-minute coffee break invitation from your best friend.<\/p>\n Do you have enough time in your schedule for this invitation? Do you have any urgent or immediate tasks that need your attention?<\/p>\n Remember, an invitation is an invitation; you do have a right to decline the invitation.<\/p>\n \n Do you want to give yourself an edge when it comes to using email efficiently and productively? The single most important thing you can do for yourself is to remember that email is a tool. While we use email to help us do our work, email shouldn\u2019t be the focus of our work<\/a>.<\/p>\n Look at it this way: imagine what it would be like to get up from your desk and check your postal mailbox every five minutes. That seems a bit excessive, doesn\u2019t it? That\u2019s pretty much the same thing that happens when we check our email inbox every five minutes.<\/p>\n So, how can you use email the right way? Check your inbox at a few designated times during the day and be sure to completely log out of your account when finished<\/a>. You can then focus on making progress on what\u2019s important.<\/p>\n \n You\u2019ve probably got a handful monthly recurring tasks at home and work, such as paying bills, doing housework, running reports, or compiling data. Wouldn\u2019t it be great if you could get through these tasks quickly and easily, every single month? A practical way to tackle these recurring projects is to create a simple checklist or template.<\/a><\/p>\n Instead of spending time each month figuring out what needs to be done, you can just glance at your list, and get to work. How about creating an office supply checklist<\/a> so you can take inventory of your office\u2019s supply cabinet? What about writing down the exact steps, keystrokes, or mouse clicks you need to perform in order to run a report at work? How about <\/span>creating a template for a recurring work email or written project?<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve set up your checklists<\/a> and templates<\/a>, you\u2019ll wonder how you ever did without them.<\/p>\n \n Every type of project can benefit from having a deadline, whether it\u2019s planning a birthday party<\/a> for your best friend, or setting the launch date for a marketing campaign. Deadlines give structure and meaning to a project.<\/p>\n When you set a deadline, you know exactly how much time you have to <\/span>perform a certain set of tasks. Now, setting a deadline means you have to commit to your work<\/a>, but sometimes that commitment is what will drive us to get what needs to be done, done.<\/p>\n To set a deadline for a project<\/a>, choose a date in the near future (sometime over the next few weeks or months, for example), and then work backwards to plan out each of the steps your project. If you feel your deadline is too tight,<\/a> you can always readjust the time frame you give yourself. The most important thing, however, is to set the deadline in the first place.<\/p>\n \n While learning new productivity methods and techniques is useful, there does come a time when the pursuit of knowledge can get in the way of good ol\u2019 fashioned hard work. Unfortunately, that stack of papers won\u2019t file itself<\/a>, nor will those theme ideas for a birthday party brainstorm themselves.<\/a><\/p>\n More often than not, the best and most efficient way to get work done is to simply roll up your sleeves <\/span>and do the work. While you\u2019re busy at work, you can these sessions as a testing ground for your most recently learned productivity tips. You may even find it helpful to keep a log or a journal of your productivity progress<\/a> so you can look back and see exactly what you accomplished. Which tips helped you get more work done for a particular task\u2026and which didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n At the very least, you\u2019ll have taken action and will have completed an item or two on your to-do list. <\/span><\/p>\n \n How about you? What other actions can you think of that may block a person\u2019s productivity levels? Join the conversation and leave a comment below<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you tired of staring at an unfinished list of to-dos at the end of the day? Do you want to cut through the clutter when it comes to your ability to get things done? If you\u2019re looking to give your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[142,184,62,741,130],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23558,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11841\/revisions\/23558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theorderexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You say \u201cyes\u201d to every single invitation you receive.<\/h2>\n
You use email the wrong way.<\/h2>\n
You reinvent the wheel for recurring projects.<\/h2>\n
You don\u2019t set deadlines for projects.<\/h2>\n
You spend too much time reading productivity hacks.<\/h2>\n