PRODUCTIVITY

Staying productive throughout the day or throughout our course of work can be difficult. We are often distracted by other things that seem (or even most likely are) interesting than work itself and so we tend to procrastinate a lot or manage our time poorly. For this week’s checkin, I wanted to share some tips I use to combat procrastination and get work done as much as I can. I’m not perfect at this myself yet but I’m working on it and I hope it helps you. I came across the Pomodoro Technique developed by Francesco Cirillo, which helps us manage our time with work.

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is pretty simple, you set a focus time of 25mins for work (or study, whichever stuff you need to focus on), then you take 5mins break afterwards and after 4 rounds, you take a longer break of 25mins. To practice this, I advise that you make use of a timer. You can follow these rules to practice it:

Set 25mins timer: Make sure you don’t do anything else asides from work within this period of time. Once the timer is started, you have to complete it.

Take a 5mins break: After the 25mins elapses, you have to take a 5mins break. You can take a walk around your office or room, reply to friends or mails or checkout Instagram but this time is meant to relax your brain and mind for the next round.

Repeat: After the break is over, you have to start another round and keep the intervals going.

Take a 25mins break: After 4 rounds, you have to take a much longer break of 25mins and this time you could go play some PlayStation, read some article or whatsoever but again remember that this is time to relax your brain so do not do some other form of work that requires more brainwork.

Break Down Tasks Into Chunks

Sometimes, the tasks for the day gets so overwhelming that we do little to nothing for the day. A good way is to break down tasks into little chunks. For this, I make use of a hard copy of sticky notes. First, I break down my tasks for the day into several chunks and then I take a look at them to decide which major 3 of them I’d like to complete for the day. I pen this into the sticky note and place it in front of my desk where I can look at it most of the time. Some tasks take a long time or need more resources, so it's ok to jump onto another task and keep going.

Have a daily routine

Having a daily routine isn’t easy and requires discipline but if you have a pretty good idea of how your day should go (even though it doesn’t always go that way) then you are more likely to achieve some of your set goals for the day than going through your day without a routine.

There you go guys, these are my tips for staying productive but please remember to have fun and take breaks rather than work all through to avoid burnouts. If you’d like to share more tips on how we can stay productive, I’d be more than happy to hear your tips. Thank you for reading!