8 Habits of Exceptionally Productive People

There are habits of exceptionally productive people that make them accomplish a lot, every day. Maybe you had one of those days, where you finished everything on your to-do list? Imagine having those days every day. This is what the days for exceptionally productive people look like and here are some of their habits.

Productive People Are Just Like Us

Productive people are not robots. They are like you and me, with the difference that they know where and how to spend their time to get things done. By practicing their habits we can all become more productive. It won't happen overnight but every little step counts!

Habits of Exceptionally Productive People

1. Don’t Multi-Task

This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but it's a scientific fact that doing two things at the same time reduces your productivity.

Doing more than one task at a time, especially more than one complex task, takes a toll on productivity.

American Psychological Associtaion

Our brains are bad at handling context switching which is exactly what happens when you multi-task. Just like with computers, context switching (for threads) is expensive. So if you're doing something else while reading this article -- one thing at a time, please!

2. Take More Breaks

If you spend more time working, you'd expect more results, right? Unfortunately, that's not how our brains work. We get distracted and lose focus after working for a longer period of time. Research shows that breaks, even short ones, such as 3 minutes long improve your productivity. And if you add some stretching exercises with your breaks you'll be even more productive.

These results provide evidence that frequent short breaks from continuous computer-mediated work can benefit worker productivity and well-being [...]

HENNING et al., 2001

3. Focus on the Most Important Tasks First

Start your day by taking a few minutes to make a to-do list with all the tasks you want to finish. Then rank them, and start working on the most important one. By doing this, you reduce the risk of procrastination -- because it's easy to spend the day doing the easy tasks that are less important. Instead, you should spend your time on the most impactful tasks you have.

4. Apply the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle), says that only 20% of what you do each day produces 80% of your results. With this in mind, exceptionally productive people identify the 20% of their work that will have the biggest impact. The 80% that's left they try to cut from their schedules to find more tasks that will have more impact. And this is what you should do too. Perhaps something to try for your next project?

5. Do The Challenging Tasks Before Lunch

We all know the feeling of coming back from lunch and sitting down, trying to get back into the zone. It's hard because our bodies are spending energy ingesting and processing the food we just consumed. This is why you should do your most challenging tasks before lunch. Repetitive tasks or meetings you can save for after lunch. By maintaining a schedule like this you'll definitely be more productive.

6. Automate The Repetitive Work

Doing the same things over and over again not only kills your motivation but also hinders your productivity. If you find yourself in this position try to think of ways of automating this task. This can be simple things such as:

• Learn keyboard shortcuts
• Compose a list of steps for common tasks (what is also known as an algorithm)
• If you have programming knowledge, write a programming script for a common task

7. Get a Good Day's Start

Studies have shown that morning is the best time of day for creative thinking. To give yourself the best prerequisite for creative thinking in the morning you need a good morning ritual. A healthy breakfast, meditation, reading, and exercise are all activities that will make your brain feel sharp in the morning.

Especially in these times of remote work (see here to read about 4 Lessons Learned Working Remotely for +2 Years), it's easy to neglect the importance of a good morning ritual. To be exceptionally productive you need to get a good day's start.

8. Identify and Reduce Distractions

If you're like me, you're constantly getting distracted during the day by push notifications, e-mails, and Slack notifications. If you want to be productive you need to identify and reduce these types of distractions. This you can do from your phone or application settings. Ask yourself, do you really need a sound notification when you receive an e-mail? Getting into the productivity zone takes time but you can easily get brought back out of it by a single sound notification. Value your productivity higher!

Conclusion

To summarise:

1. Don't Multi-Task
2. Take More Breaks
3. Focus on the Most Important Tasks First
4. Apply the 80/20 Rules
5. Do The Challenging Tasks Before Lunch
6. Automate The Repetitive Work
7. Get a Good Day's Start
8. Identify and Reduce Distractions

You too can become an exceptionally productive person! It's not magic or unhealthy, it's a mindset and requires dedication. Personally, I'm not an exceptionally productive person but I'm working on it every day, and while it's hard sometimes I remind myself it's for the best.

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Originally published at prplcode.dev