Four Productivity Tips You Can Use Immediately

When you combine planning and discipline, things get done. If you are looking for ways to streamline your schedule and accomplish more this week, follow along as we review clever productivity tips from four experts. These achievers know how to make the most of 1440 minutes in each of their days.

Look forward

Recognized author Laura Vanderkam shares, “Plan your weeks before you are in them. Friday afternoons are a great time for this. Make a 3-category priority list: career, relationships, self. Making a 3-category list reminds you that there should be something in all three categories! It can be short, 2-3 things in each, but listing these priorities, and plotting them into the next 168 hours, greatly increases the chances they get done.”

Today show and CNN tech contributor Carley Knobloch enjoys writing with pen and paper. However, she has an innovative solution on how you can move handwriting into the digital age. “Evernote’s brilliant app organizes your notes and makes them searchable, even when they’re handwritten. Its collaboration with Moleskine is perfect: pick your journal, enjoy jotting, then use Evernote to upload your work. The app is optimized to take pictures of Moleskine pages, and the notebook comes with three months of Evernote Premium, which means you’ll be able to upload more doodles and brainstorms per month and even access them; offline.”

Helping hand

In his book Platform: Get Noticed In A Noisy World, Michael Hyatt reminds us, “If you’re like the average business person, your workload is overwhelming you. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, but you keep losing time to email, billing, scheduling, transcription, and more administrative details than you can manage. You’re drowning. Hiring a virtual assistant may be just the solution you have been waiting for.” Inside of his book Platform and one of his eBooks, Michael Hyatt explains how a virtual assistant enables him to come up for air and offload the work he doesn’t enjoy, so he can focus on what he does best.

Timeless insight

Suppose you are focused on moving ahead in your career. In that case, Gary Keller’s remarkable book The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results is an excellent guide that will save you time. Inside, Keller shares tips and thought-provoking questions such as “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today to complete my current project ahead of schedule…? “What’s the ONE Thing I can do this month to produce better work…?; and for moving to the next level: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do before my next review to get the raise I want…?” A book recommended for everyone ready to see how the ONE Thing can streamline their move forward.

Next step

Do you have a favorite tip that saves you time during the week? If so, please take a moment to share your thoughts with our audience by adding a comment below.

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Author Spotlight
Kelly Isley is a writer, author of four books and active American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) member.  She is also a global strategist, engineer, pilot, photographer and lover of ice cream. Learn more about Kelly here and connect with her on twitter.