12 Ways to Effectiveness

Written by Leigh Martinuzzi – Originally Published 11.11.2014

How many times have you got to the end of the day and while lying in bed before you nod off you wonder, “shit, what did I really achieve today?”

Is it a common occurrence? What about the successful, do you think they have days like these? We all do, don’t we?

In this article, I am going to share my tips for becoming more productive in everyday life. I am no guru, however, I believe one of my greatest strengths is my intense level of organisation and productivity and therefore I wish to share.

1. Create solid habits and routines.

I am not the most spontaneous person but am very disciplined in my daily actions and routines. In fact, I am so much so that when I break them I notice the effects this has on what I can achieve in a day.

Some of my friends are the total opposite. They live their lives as it comes, doing as they wish in each moment. They lack too little structure for my liking. And to be honest, sometimes I am a little envious of this trait. I’d love to be more able to wake up and do something absolutely unexpected. Such behaviour is rare in my life.

Like most things in life, we need balance, however, I’d argue that highly effective people benefit by having a disciplined structure and strict daily routines and rituals.

For 90% of my day, you could pretty much predict where I will be, what I will be doing and what time of the day it will be. From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed my days run almost on autopilot. A copy of the previous one with exception to the changing environment and challenges I face.

Working in time blocks is a good system to run by. I block out my day so that I know exactly what I should be doing and for that period of time I know what to focus my energy on. For example, from 5 am to 5:45 am I know exercise is my mission. From 5:45 to 6:00 am I meditate. From 6 am to 7 am I write. From 8:30 am to 10:30 am I make calls. While this has changed since writing this article I will assume you get the idea. Furthermore, hit your number one priority first up each day.

By sticking to this routine I find myself getting more things completed and my efficiency increase.

2. Wake up earlier.

Starting the day off earlier is a sure way of becoming more productive in life. I am not suggesting that you get less sleep or that everyone needs to wake up at 4 am. I do suggest however that if you just try for a couple of weeks getting up half an hour earlier or an hour earlier. You will notice a considerable impact you what you can achieve.

There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly you gain a little extra time each day to focus on important tasks. This might mean you are more sleepy towards the end of the day and need to pop off to bed earlier however this may be a good thing because you will find yourself wasting least time on mindless activities like watching T.V.

Secondly, it helps you prepare for the day ahead and you also won’t feel rushed. I still do occasionally sleep in and suddenly I find myself rushing to catch up. When this happens I cut corners, I skip certain tasks, and suddenly what I would have liked to achieve doesn’t happen.

Give it a crack and if you are like me and need your beauty sleep, try going to bed slightly earlier. It creates greater discipline and you become more focused on what you want to achieve versus filling the gaps with random trivial rubbish. How you start the day is how you finish the day.

3. Cut out unnecessary decisions.

Every day we are faced with choices and options that require us to make a decision. Set on autopilot, many of these decisions are things we do without thought. For example, brushing your teeth, shaving and showering.

We also consciously and unconsciously spend certain amounts of our day making decisions on minor or trivial matters. This is an unnecessary drain of our attention that could be better spent on more important decisions.

What I suggest is that you go an entire day focused and aware about all the decisions you make on a daily basis. Write them down if you must. Then, at the end of the day, review them and see which you may be able to streamline or eliminate to help save wasted time and energy.

Things might include, what to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. What time you need to leave for work. What clothes to wear? The decisions may seem minute in the grand scale of things but each decision we have to make sucks our energy and can add up to a large amount of time at the end of each day.

I have the same breakfast and lunch every day and I wear the same clothes. It may appear boring or bland but it works toward my overall effectiveness. Without cluttering my focus and attention on the unimportant I can move forward with real goals and decisions.

Time chunking and routines also help with this because you don’t have to decide on what to do next – its planned and in your calendar.

4. Live your life in themes.

First of all, you should read Tony Robbins ‘Awaken the Giant Within’, if you haven’t already. It’s a masterpiece and it will teach you how to align yourself and become congruent in living for what you desire in life. After which you can go out and create daily themes to live by. Thank you James Altucher for teaching this practice.

Living by themes means to do each day activities aligned with what matters most to you. If you love health, or if you love writing, or perhaps you really want to sing, these are the daily things you should aim to satisfy.

Every day you should then aim to consciously do activities within each of these categories. For health, I do some form of exercise and avoid eating rubbish foods. For creativity, I write or record a podcast. For growth, I read or listen to a good podcast or audiobook. These become non-negotiables.

The list of themes doesn’t need to overwhelming. Keep it short, keep it simple. Too much complexity can lead to failure or disappointment. Themes look at the bigger picture stuff that can be attended to by any relates task or activity. When living by your themes you will feel a greater level of satisfaction and accomplishment.

5. Eliminate all the unnecessary stuff in your life.

I have Tim Ferris to thank for this tip. The master of elimination. This man knows how to become more effective and his ideas on elimination have enhanced my efficiency dramatically.

To eliminate the unnecessary we first need to reassess our daily practices, tasks, to-do-lists and anything else that clutters our schedules and even thoughts. Every now and then it’s good to be in the habit of reducing the physical and mental garbage in our lives.

Our possessions consume us. Have a look at your desk and notice the mess. I can assure you the clearer your desk the more organised you will be. Organised people tend to be more focused and more able to complete tasks at hand. If you have a shit load of paperwork and other junk on your desk you will be overwhelmed by distractions and less efficient.

Does anyone truly work well in mess? If it’s not purposeful to the task at hand or your future goals, scrap it.

Secondly, we need to eliminate tasks. Tasks that really don’t help us achieve our goals or don’t allow us to live towards our themes. You can either eliminate them altogether or you can outsource them. Both methods are good. Let’s face it there are some tasks that you just need to do and others that are a waste of time.

Working in blocks of time assist us in removing the unnecessary. Your tasks should also be prioritised so that the most unimportant, if not done, will not impact the quality of your day. And if you find the same tasks being left to last without any great impact on your life, it’s a sign is a wasted pursuit. Scrap it!

You can also choose to eliminate negative people in your life. Surround yourself with the positive people and those who are on the same path you wish to travel. This doesn’t mean you need to discard your friends instead, you may just wish to source new groups of people. If your friends are truly infectious to your dreams and desires in life you will naturally find yourself moving on anyway.

We are the sum of the people we associate with and those that are not supportive or conducive to our goals may be just sucking up much of our time, energy and attention.

6. Sort out the technology in your life.

Technology has been designed to improve our efficiency yet often it seems to hinder our efficiency. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Set times that you will use all technology and don’t let useless tech encroach the task at hand. Choose when you check emails and answer calls. Don’t think for a minute you need to stop everything when a call or email comes in. Generally speaking, there is nothing so urgent that cannot wait a couple of hours. Unless of course, your wife going into labour. To assist with this turn off all notifications and put the phone on silent when attending to important tasks. That includes turning off the vibration function. There are certain apps and programs to help minimise distractions on your computer also.

Most calls and emails are requests for you to do something for someone else. It’s good to be nice but not at the cost of your overall effectiveness. Selfish? Whatever. This is your life. Select when you’ll attend to your needs and the needs of others.

The same goes for social media. I may have its place but checking in every half hour or more will eat into your day. Tech is not going anywhere nor are the like notifications on your Facebook feed so you can tend to them later or not at all.

You will also increase your productivity by switching the television off. I use to turn on the TV all the time, even if I wasn’t actually watching it. Such a wasteful act. Distracting. Negative. There are better things to fill our ears and eyes with. Allow a little time daily or weekly to watch your favourite show or movie but limit it.

Tech will do what it takes to get our attention. Buzz, illuminate, beep, shake, soon we will be plugged in 24/7. It’s best to switch it all off and use technology to your advantage. Only as it is purposeful to your pursuits.

7. Plan the day and only use to-do-lists as necessary.

I am in two minds when it comes to writing lists but I feel the benefits of a list still supersede the cons. When you rely on a list to get things done it becomes a go-to guide and can take away the automation and routine. If we are reliant on lists when we are without things may slip.

If you live your days by themes, as suggested above, a to-do-list should never be the deal breaker as it relates to your total output. Themes align with our values whereas lists are more useful as reminders. I suggest using lists sparingly.

Writing things down certainly help retention whether that is a goal, a task, a thought, an idea, or even a shopping list. They become useful in moments when you are focused on others tasks allowing us to write it down, remove it from sight and thought, and continue with the task at hand.

It is good to train your memory by not using a list but it is also good to free up space for more important matters by outsourcing the unimportant to a list.

8. Start the day off by attending to the important tasks first.

In the book, Eat that Frog by Brian Tracey, he suggests we tackle the most pressing, uncomfortable and important tasks first. Sometimes these are the tasks that we tend to procrastinate over more, that we may not enjoy as much, could be more time-consuming, and may require more energy, focus and attention. These are exactly the tasks we should start with each day.

This method works. Don’t wait until 6pm to do your exercise, do it first thing in the morning. By waiting until the afternoon, not knowing what else may arise throughout the day that drains your energy and willpower, you end up depleted. You give yourself an out and skip the exercise.

In living by themes do what is most important to you first. If it is writing then write. If you need to make sales calls, then make sales calls. If it means managing people then manage people. Paperwork, admin, and tick the box tasks that don’t require a high level of attention and energy can wait until last.

When you get the difficult and most challenging tasks done first you will find yourself on a high. You will feel more accomplished earlier on in the day and this will motivate you to plough through the less important tasks. Everything else becomes easier.

9. Outsource more.

It is really amazing what you can outsource these days and how easy it is. Many of us are most likely already outsourcing many things without realising it. House cleaning, ironing, getting your car washed while shopping, have your tax done. This is outsourcing – to have other experts complete things on your behalf in order to free up your time.

The goal is to free up your time. Don’t clutter your time with tasks that either could be easily and affordably done by someone else or that someone else could do a better job. The more I outsource the more important tasks or pleasure activities I can fit into my day.

Write a list of all the things you do daily and weekly and assess which of these could perhaps be done by someone else. Come up with some creative ways in which you may be able to outsource them and then start outsourcing. Start with tasks that will give you the biggest return on your time. Those that chew up most of your time but can be handled by someone else.

10. Don’t wait, just act – 3,2,1, GO!

The killer of productivity is procrastination. We often wait too long before starting. We dream of being perfect before we start. Nothing is ever perfect and perfection, if possible, will only come after we begin. We wait for a perfect moment, now is that moment.

The idea of setting New Year resolutions is good and not so good. It’s good because having a set date is good for mental preparation and usually you feel more accountable as you let others know of your intentions or go on the journey with someone else but any date is good for this. We don’t have to wait for that one day of the year to make a change or pursue our dreams and desires.

11. Get your energy right.

With the right health and fitness your energy to do things increases dramatically. I have tried and tested this and proven it to myself again and again. Yet, by no means am I perfect.

We can become so accustomed to our routines and ways in life that it feels like this is the best energy we can have. We have been conditioned in every possible way.

Sometimes we look at the lives of others and they seem to get so much done. “How do they do it,” we ask ourselves. It’s easy to tell ourselves that they are just blessed with good genes but the reality is that they are healthy both physically and mentally.

The keys to good health as far as I can tell is a good diet, plenty of exercise and movement, mental awareness and mind training, good growth ability and sleep.

12. Learn, study and continue self-improvement.

This is one of my themes – growth. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday not to anyone else. Try aim to be 1% better each day in any aspect of your life. Over a year that’s a 3800% improvement. Science proves that progress is integral to one’s overall well-being and longevity.

There are books to read, podcasts to listen to, seminars to attend. You can enrol in a new course and learn something you’ve always wanted to. You could simply try being kinder. Improvement comes in many shapes and sizes. You are the best person to know what and where you wish to make greater progress in life.

There you have it, 12 tips of becoming a more productive you and getting more out of your life every day. Stop telling yourself there are not enough hours in the day. There is more than enough.

Leave your thoughts, comments and questions below. Reach out directly by email of social media. Peace, Passion & Purpose. 

Further Reading and Resources 

TED Talks: Ideas worth spreading

Psychology Today: Psychology Today is devoted exclusively to everybody’s favourite subject – Ourselves

Life Hack: Tips for Life

Elite Daily: The Voice of Generation Y

Four Hour Work Week: How to escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich.

The Minimalists: How to pursue a minimalist lifestyle and be happier.

Mind Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Using Your Brain

Rich Roll: Plantpowered Wellness Advocate

The Art of Charm: Build confidence, feel comfortable and networking differently.

American Psychological Association: The largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United State

The Art of Manliness: Encouraging men to be better husbands, fathers, brothers, citizens.

Tiny Buddha: Simple wisdom for complex lives.

Brain Pickings: An inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more.

Mind Body Green: Lifestyle media brand dedicated to inspiring you to live your best life.

Zen Habits: Find simplicity and mindfulness in life.

Creative NonFiction: “true stories well told.” 

Addicted 2 Success: Motivation & Inspiration Website full of quotes and inspiring articles for entrepreneurs.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree: science-based answers and expert insight on how to be awesome at life.

The Positivity Blog: Practical articles on happiness, self-esteem, productivity and social skills.