Even if you personally don't lock in to the hustle culture and #grindset mentality, there’s still a long list of stuff that needs to get done on any given day. Holding down a job comes with a never-ending to do list. Then, there’s the other tasks life throws your way—mowing the yard, grocery shopping, mailing a birthday card to your mom. (You remembered to do that last one, right?)
So, how the hell does it all get done? Maybe you have no idea what to prioritize, or you run out of the mental capacity to keep trudging through your to-do list every day around 3 p.m. Maybe you could get everything done if it wasn’t for constant Slack notifications.
Whatever your roadblock is, there’s a way to overcome it: We spoke with productivity coaches share their six best tips, the things that other people pay them good money to learn.
1. Prioritize what needs to be done
Productivity coach Juli Shulem says that there’s one word she repeatedly hears from all her clients: overwhelmed. When it comes to being more productive, she says that the biggest roadblock is that most people have no idea where to start. So instead of doing anything, they’re paralyzed and do nothing. Can you relate?
Shulem says the first step to being productive is getting on paper everything you need to do. This includes both tasks that are immediate and need to be done that day as well as what eventually needs to be done. For big “to-dos” that are farther out, Shulem recommends breaking it down into smaller micro tasks. For example, if you have a big work presentation in three weeks, the micro-tasks could be research, building your deck, and doing a run-through of exactly what you’re going to say.
Got everything down on paper that you need to do, microtasks included? Now it’s time to figure out what to prioritize—in other words, figuring out what to start with. Scott Shapiro, MD, a psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD and a productivity coach, recommends starting with something easy. “Give yourself a quick win; something that is only going to take 15 or 30 minutes to do,” he says. This, he says, gives a sense of accomplishment which serves as the momentum to keep going and to tackle something that requires more time and attention.
Feeling accomplished? Now it’s time to do that thing you don’t want to do, which Shulem says is the task that inevitably never gets done each day because it’s not fun. “It’s that phone call you don’t want to make or writing that report you have to complete. But once you do it, your whole day feels better,” she says.
As for everything else that needs to get done, Shulem says it can be helpful to think about what the negative ramification is for not getting each task done. This could be a financial ramification (like getting a late fee if you don’t pay a bill on time), a health ramification (such as not getting a refill on your prescription if you don’t schedule a doctor’s appointment), or a missed opportunity (like not getting a client’s business because you haven’t called them back). —Emily Laurence
Read on for five more ways to get shit done.
