Productivity Secrets for Entrepreneurs - Doing Less, Achieving More!

Running a business is no small feat. While being your own boss has its perks, it comes with a boatload of responsibility. As an entrepreneur, you’re not solely responsible for your own work, but also for that of others. For entrepreneurs, no two days are exactly the same but each day presents its own challenges and tasks. Days packed with phone calls, conferences, emails, planning, maintaining, and creating can get pretty overwhelming at times. Even the best of the best can feel the heat of this demanding lifestyle. If you’re looking to manage your time effectively and work efficiently, here are some productivity secrets for entrepreneurs. Follow these to do less and achieve more!

1. Outsource nonessential tasks

One of the key skills that an entrepreneur needs to master is delegating work. No matter how intelligent and hard-working you may be, you’re only one person. You can’t do everything on your own, which is why you need to work smart, not hard. How do you do this? Simple, delegate tasks that you don’t have to complete. This includes menial tasks that can clutter your schedule and overwhelm you despite not being too demanding on their own. By outsourcing these tasks to others, you can manage your time better and make daily operations way more efficient.

2. Master the Pomodoro Technique

This is a straightforward technique that can boost your productive output in ways you couldn’t imagine. The Pomodoro Technique helps your brain concentrate for short intervals of time as you tend to a task, and can even improve attention span in the long run. On days that you have a ton of work and multiple projects to tend to, break your tasks down to timed intervals. Choose a task to start with, set your timer for 25 minutes, and work on that singular task without taking any breaks. Once your timer goes off, take a break of about 5 minutes and do whatever you want. After 5 minutes, get back to work for another 25 minutes. Working in this cyclical manner keeps your brain focused by simplifying the work, as well as boosts your productive output by avoiding burnout.

3. Plan for the week, not for each day

You must have heard a colleague or friend tell you about how they plan their day’s tasks the night before. We would like to caution you against this. After a long day of work, your brain is not in shape to make decisions, especially those as important as a whole day’s worth of work. This is why instead of exercising your brain power every night to plan out the next day, plan your entire week on the weekends, preferably in the morning. Planning is a critical step in achievement, so don’t skip out on it. Just make sure you are doing it the right way, at the right time.

4. Understand Parkinson’s Law
5. Northcote Parkinson wrote about how work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Meaning, if you give yourself an entire week to complete a task that requires two hours for its completion, the task will increase in complexity over the span of the week, making it harder and harder for you to complete it. In fact, the whole week may just role by without the task nearing completion. To make use of this adage, here’s what you do:

•        Divide your work into components tasks.
•        Pick a task to start with.
•        Figure out the amount of time needed to complete that task.
•        Assign half that amount to yourself to complete that task.

This way, you’ll be forced to work smarter, not harder. Your productivity will see significant improvement and you will get stuff done.

5. Instead of time management, try energy management

Time management is a crucial skill to master, however, energy management may be an even more important skill to learn. Our bodies have their own clock, something called the ‘circadian rhythm’. Most of us try to fight the circadian rhythm by working late hours into the night, and always end up losing. The key is to work with the circadian rhythm, not against it. Hours earlier in the day, when your energy levels are up, are most conducive to productivity. So, it only makes sense to do the big stuff, the important work earlier in the day. As the hours roll by, we get lethargic and lose focus. It becomes progressively hard to get work done. So, manage your work according to your energy levels.

6. Give your body what it needs

Your body is responsible for so much, and yet its needs are overlooked on a regular basis. Nourishing your body with a nutritious diet can boost productive output unlike anything else. Moreover, getting the right amount of sleep – especially REM sleep – can boost memory consolidation, improve learning, and enhance focus. With the right diet and sufficient sleep, you can further ramp up productivity by taking brain-boosting nootropic supplements.