No one wants to procrastinate. No ane wants to experience stressed. No one wants to face distractions every day.

Yet we practise. Myself included.

Only what nigh the nearly successful people in the earth?

How do they stay sane? Surely, they must face distractions every mean solar day. What are the habits that go along them focused? That's the exact question nosotros set up out to find.

The Habits of Highly Productive People

Diving deep into the minds of highly-successful people, we wanted to find out:

  • How do they stay focused and overcome productivity killers?
  • How do they maximize the amount of energy they have throughout the day, without overly relying on caffeine?
  • How do they avert procrastinating difficult, mentally-challenging tasks?

After hours upon hours of enquiry, we uncovered 15 fascinating trends.

Addiction one: They take work breaks throughout the solar day.

Inquiry validates (hither and here) that brief breaks from a task dramatically improves ane'south focus and productivity. Why?

Well, our biological clock ticks in ii forms:

  • Circadian Rhythms
  • Ultradian Rhythms

Our Circadian Rhythms -- which run in 24-hr periods -- are our body's natural release of melatonin, dictating when nosotros're energized or exhausted. Here's what information technology looks like:

Our Ultradian Rhythms, which run in 90-infinitesimal periods, are the ebbs and flows of energy throughout the day.

For instance, we can exist "in the zone" for ninety minutes, but after that, we'll feel a petty tired and need to re-accuse. That'southward our torso'due south natural Ultradian Rhythms kicking in, which wait similar this:

focusatwill2_copy_plain.png

Highly-productive people empathize that managing their free energy is as important equally managing their time.

And the "Pomodoro Technique" is an efficient way to get-go putting this into practice ...

Action Pace: Endeavor the Pomodoro Technique

To sustain energy throughout the mean solar day, attempt The Pomodoro Technique. Piece of work in 25-infinitesimal intervals, and so take a v-minute break. Information technology looks like this:

pomodoroclock_1_copy.png

For more than information, read the pace-by-footstep process for how to go started.

Addiction 2: They work backwards from the future.

Steve Jobs in one case said:

If today was the last day of my life, would I desire to practise what I'm most to do today?

Steve Jobs

If also many days passed past with the answer being "no," he'd arrange his lifestyle until he striking a consistent yes (which eventually created a company worth $702 billion). This forced Steve to define long-term goals and stay motivated.

Highly-productive people think about the end of their lives. They define how they want to be remembered. What legacy they desire to leave. Or what people will say about them at their funerals.

And then they work backwards to achieve those goals.

This touches on the psychological theories and models of motivation. If we're driven by a purpose, nosotros're more likely to work extra difficult. As award-winning writer, Simon Sinek, says:

People don't purchase what you practice; they buy why you do it.

Simon Sinek

Thus, it all starts with defining our purpose. What is yours?

Action Pace: Define Your Personal Mission Statement

Writing a personal mission argument requires introspection. Asking yourself:

  • What am I really passionate nearly? (Lifehack alarm: To find what you're passionate about, ask yourself, "If all jobs paid the aforementioned, what would I practise for work?")
  • What can I practise better than most people, or comes easier for me than others?
  • What practice I desire people to say about me at my funeral?

For inspiration, read the personal mission statements of five famous CEOs.

Habit 3: They create to-practise listing sub-deadlines the nighttime before.

For example, let's say the most of import task is getting a 10-slide presentation deck finalized. A highly-productive person would create sub-deadlines for that task the dark before, which looks like this:

  • 9:00 - ten:00 am: Outline the presentation
  • ten:00 - 11:30 am: Write copy for the presentation
  • 11:30 - 12:30 pm: Create all images for the presentation
  • 12:thirty pm: Luncheon w/ Rose

Creating sub-deadlines forces the person to abide by Parkinson's Constabulary. This essentially means if something is due at the last infinitesimal, it only takes a minute to do.

Activity Footstep: Write Your To-Do Listing At Night

Plan your unabridged day the night before.

Footstep 1: Ascertain your about of import task.

Step 2: Suspension that into smaller sub-tasks.

Footstep 3: Create deadlines for each smaller sub-job.

This forces you to abide by tighter deadlines and be realistic well-nigh what you tin achieve.

Habit iv: They leverage tools to prevent internal distractions.

Sure, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to plan our days, merely distractions happen. And they come in two forms:

  1. Distractions from ourselves
  2. Distractions from other people

Oftentimes the biggest distractions come from within. Nosotros think of something, then Google information technology. Nosotros check Facebook, Twitter, or some other website. Or we offset flipping through other addicting smartphone apps.

All four of these tips will drastically reduce distractions. Only what near distractions from others?

Action Stride: Save Yourself From Distracting Yourself

Stop internal distractions past post-obit these steps:

Footstep 1: Download StayFocusd to stop procrastinating on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Pace ii: Coffin distracting apps on the last page of your phone

Step 3: Shut off your Wi-Fi to remove whatever potential "Black Hole Browsing"

Habit five: They keep a split up to-practise list for daily distractions.

How practise highly-productive people stay focused in the midst of emails, phone calls, conversation letters, text messages, and request from others?

They keep a separate to-practice listing for daily distractions.

For case, if a coworker asks them to review their sales presentation slides, they'd answer with something similar:

Re: Tin can you look at this?

Hey (name),

No problem, happy to help.

I'm on a tight deadline right now, so would it be possible if I got back to you later today?

send-now-sidekick-hubspot-content

Nine out of ten times the responses volition be, "Sure, no trouble!"

Then this request is logged on a separate to-practise list, which is completed later on the day's near important task:

Dwight Eisenhower has a beautiful quote on this:

What's important is not always urgent. And what'south urgent is not always important.

Highly-productive people don't let daily distractions pull them from their long-term goals.

A helpful tool for defining these distractions is the Eisenhower Matrix, which helps clarify of import versus urgent tasks. Here are a few examples:

To define your Eisenhower Matrix, beginning by deciding what tasks are important to you? Which are not? What are frequent distractions? Write them down:

  1. The tasks that have the greatest touch on my career are ______________.
  2. The tasks I do often, only I don't really benefit long-term career growth are _________.
  3. My well-nigh common day-to-day distractions are _____________.

Then figure out how y'all can outsource or delegate the tasks that have the least affect.

Habit six: They utilise electronic mail tools / systems to optimize their inbox.

E-mail sucks.

It tin feel like the Greek story of Sisyphus. Despite how adamant we are to get to inbox zilch, there'due south always something new coming in. It can feel similar we're pushing a boulder up a hill:

Project management software tin integrate with electronic mail software such as Outlook and Gmail and help centralize your communication and workflows to create a unified workspace. Integrated e-mail communication tin can make siloed e-mail threads visible to anyone you work with, cutting down unnecessary fourth dimension spent syncing with your team.

Electronic mail batching, the systematic approach of checking email in certain blocks throughout the solar day, helps keep email nether control. Simply if it'due south Really crazy, and you're receiving hundreds of emails per day.

SaneBox is used by highly-successful people in a diverseness of industries, such as Hiten Shah (CEO of KissMetrics), Tony Robins (media personality), and Amy Hubbard (casting managing director of The Hobbit).

HubSpot Sales is some other email productivity tool. Information technology shows when someone opens an important email, allows scheduling of emails for afterward, and viewing contact profiles within an inbox.

Unroll.me is another fantastic tool. Information technology lets you lot unsubscribe to multiple email lists at in one case:

CleanEmail is some other neat email unsubscribe tool. Aside from getting rid of newsletters and promotional messages you no longer need, CleanEmail organizes all emails into easy-to-review bundles such as Finance emails, Travel emails, Emails from "dead ends", etc. Moreover, its automation features let you to apply whatsoever action to new incoming emails without whatsoever transmission work.

Finally, learning email shortcuts can save up to 60 hours per year. There are e-mail shortcuts for Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.

Action Step: Download Email Productivity Tools

Try electronic mail productivity tools such equally:

SaneBox for filtering out unimportant emails.

Sidekick for seeing when someone opens an email (plus email scheduling and contact profiles).

Unroll.me for mass-unsubscribing from newsletters.

These are the "big 3" electronic mail productivity tools that an inbox much easier to manage.

Habit seven: They build do and healthy eating into their daily routines to increase mental energy.

Brian Balfour, a successful entrepreneur and investor, views his brain equally a musculus:

"Think of your brain as a muscle. Just like your arms or legs, your brain needs fuel to practice piece of work, do to become stronger, and rest to recover. Overall physical fitness is the foundation to mental energy. If you are eating terribly, overweight, and generally not fit, how do you expect your encephalon to be fit? Regarding our diet, there are certain foods that are good for you fuels, and certain foods that will make you feel cloudy and lethargic."

Research proves exercise makes our brain alert, circumspect, and able to focus amend. Information technology'southward fuel for our brains, just like what we consume. For example, compare these ii lunches:

Swallow the BBQ pulled pork and you're in a postal service-luncheon food coma. Consume the salad and you're loading your body with rich nutrients, providing more energy than before.

Unhealthy lunches (ex. BBQ sandwich and french fries) spike our blood sugar, which triggers an insulin spike, which triggers that groggy feeling.

And every bit nosotros all know, it'due south incommunicable to focus through a food coma.

Activeness Step: Create Salubrious "Tiny Habits"

Stanford behavioral psychologist, Dr. BJ Fogg, encourages people to try "Tiny Habits." These are small, like shooting fish in a barrel-to-exercise actions which trigger long-term beliefs change.

To exercise more: Starting time by running for just ii minutes a day. As you're more than comfortable, run for 3 minutes. Then iv minutes. Increasing in tiny intervals until you've built running as a habit.

To swallow healthier: Eat salad just on Wednesday for lunch. Eat unhealthy any other 24-hour interval. The next week, eat salad for Wed and Friday. The calendar week afterwards that, eat salad for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Only keep increasing in tiny intervals until it'southward adjusted into your daily routine.

Habit 8: They optimize their computer skills for speed.

Highly-productive people are lightning-fast on their computers. Here are a few ways they do it:

  1. They increase the speed of the mouse. We use our mouse every day, and then why not make navigating our computers even faster?
  2. They learn keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts for Google Chrome, Evernote, e-mail, Google Docs, Mac navigation, Windows navigation … the list goes on and on. They're a huge time saver.
  3. Using tools to find apps speedily. A favorite of entrepreneur Noah Kagan is a free tool called Alfred (for Mac). Information technology helps quickly observe programs nosotros need to open.
  4. Increasing our type speed. Typing faster ways getting work done faster. If you're slower than fourscore WPM (free typing test here), the average for calculator-related workers, focus on increasing your speed.
  5. Use dual monitors. This setup tin heave your productivity past up to l%. No more switching between tasks and documents.

These are just a few simple means to increase the speed of your day-to-day life on a computer.

Addiction 9: They view failure as learning opportunities.

According to PhD psychologist, Carol Dweck, we have ii possible mindsets:

  1. Fixed mindset
  2. Growth mindset

A fixed mindset assumes that our skills, qualities, and graphic symbol are given.

It's what causes people to say, "Oh, I'm but not a people person." Or, "I've never been a skillful test taker." They take defeat, viewing their skills and abilities equally some sort of unchangeable, predetermined skill-ready granted to them. They seek approval from others and view failure as failure.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, believes all skills and qualities may be learned.

If you lot suck at writing, you can larn to become a better author. If you are terrible at sales, y'all tin acquire to be better. They thrive on challenges and view failure as a learning opportunity.

Here's a beautiful illustration from Nigel Holmes on the differences between a stock-still and growth mindset:

Accept a few moments to think about people in your life with these two mindsets. Who gives up easily, admitting defeat? Who is always striving to acquire something new?

Just most importantly, which one are yous?

Activity Pace: Self-Reflection Fourth dimension

Ask yourself if you've ever said the following:

"I could never thrive in sales. I'm just not a people person."

"I'll never exist good at public speaking. I just become nervous, outset sweating, and feel uncomfortable."

"I've e'er been a terrible writer. I've just accepted the fact I'll always be bad."

If and so, you may take a fixed mindset. Remind yourself that anything is learnable. Whatever skills, despite how much you may suck correct at present, are possible to acquire.

For more on adapting your mindset, check out Carol Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success.

Habit ten: They outsource mindless tasks.

Insanely-productive people focus only on things they specialize in ... and then outsource the residual.

Need to exercise anything of the post-obit?

  • Mindlessly input data into a spreadsheet. Become a virtual assistant for $five-$x/hr from UpWork or FancyHands to assistance you.
  • Exercise your laundry, clean your bedroom, and scrub the bathroom floor. Use a service such every bit Handy to outsource your housework.
  • Choice up groceries from the store. Use Instacart to get groceries delivered to your door.

Highly productive people don't remember, "But this is so expensive! I'd rather save money and do it myself."

Rather, they consider their salary on a per-hour basis. For instance, if someone makes $twoscore/hr and they needed to complete half-dozen hours worth of chores, they could:

  • Practice it themselves for $240 ($forty/60 minutes ten 6 hours).
  • Pay someone else for $90. ($fifteen/hour x 6 hours).

Outsourcing those chores now opens upwardly six hours to brand $40/hr by working, instead of cleaning.

In that menstruum, the person can earn $240. Decrease the $90 from outsourcing information technology and this person saved $150 instead of doing the task herself.

Considering tasks on a per-60 minutes basis doesn't simply save time … it saves money.

Action Step: Place Tasks To Outsource

Follow this three-step process:

Pace 1: Place what tasks you detest doing, but are easy to do. Spreadsheet data entry? Laundry? Picking upwardly groceries?

Step ii: Find websites to outsource your work to them. Use UpWork or FancyHands for virtual assistants. Handy for chores effectually the house. Instacart for grocery commitment. Fiverr for speciality projects for $5. Or endeavor 99Designs for design projects. If at that place's something detail y'all'd like to outsource, not mentioned here, comment below and I'll help identify a solution.

Pace iii: Giving instructions takes time in itself. Use email templates to outsource your work to save up to 520 hours per yr.

Habit 11: They meditate.

Some of the most respected people in the world practice arbitration. This listing includes:

  • Marker Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and politician
  • Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and writer
  • Martin Scorsese, film director
  • Ray Dalio, hedge-fund manager

Using fMRI scans, scientists can visualize the difference in our brains before and after meditation. Without getting too technical, meditation lets our brains slow downwardly and stop processing information so quickly:

It calms our frontal lobe (or prefrontal cortex), which is where logic and creativity come from. This gives us better focus, less feet, more creativity, more compassion, better retention, and less stress.

The advantages of meditation are endless, which is why so many successful people swear by it.

Action Step: Download "Headspace"

Headspace is an iPhone and Android app that guides y'all through the basics of meditation, in 10 minutes per 24-hour interval.

I've tried plenty of other applications and methods, but I've found nada meliorate than Headspace to learn the basics and get started. All in but 10 minutes per mean solar day. Plus, it's free.

Habit 12: They say no (nicely).

We're psychologically hardwired to help people. There's even a role in our brains, chosen the Correct Supramarginal Gyrus, that triggers empathetic responses:

Thus, saying "no" is surprisingly hard.

Nosotros need a "to-don't" list of things that won't add to our careers. To make information technology easier to say no, endeavour "no templates." They were adult past Silicon Valley venture capitalist and angel investor, Mark Suster, which look like this:

Re: 15 minutes of your time?

Hello (name),

Thank you for writing to me – it's nice to hear from you (or run into you) via e-mail.

Fortunately [my company] has started to take off in ways that I couldn't accept imagined just a short fourth dimension agone. Unfortunately that means I don't take every bit much time as I used to have to take meetings with people.

I promise y'all'll understand. I'm now under a lot of pressure from my lath to deliver against some pretty ambitious goals. I practice endeavour to get to tech social events from time-to-time and so I hope we can catch upwardly there.

Hope you understand.

- Mark

send-now-sidekick-hubspot-content

We want to aid. Just to be productive, nosotros have to learn when to say no and focus on our original goals.

This is particularly of import when it comes to meetings. According to Atlassian, the boilerplate person spends 31 hours per calendar month in meetings only considers just 50% of that time productive. Just because yous're invited to a meeting doesn't mean you're obligated to nourish -- ask for the agenda, consider the value you'll both provide and gain, and brand the call.

Activeness Step: Save "No Templates" Every bit a Canned Response

Follow these steps:

Step i: Ready Google Canned Responses in Gmail or download TextExpander for Microsoft.

Step 2: Create a "no template," modeling your response off Mark Susters.

Step three: Send the response when necessary.

Habit 13: They count their blessings and exercise gratitude.

The terminal habit of highly productive people is beingness grateful for what they have. Gratitude is proven to increase productivity by these prestigious universities:

  • Yale studies say a gratitude journal will result in higher alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, and free energy.
  • Harvard studies indicate gratitude improves wellness and strengthens relationships.
  • UC-Berkeley research indicates a gratitude periodical improves sleep and decreases illness.
  • Columbia University research says gratitude improves the immune system, while reducing feet and/or low.

Inquiry proves gratitude increases happiness; and happiness increases productivity. Thus, gratitude improves productivity:

causal_chain_minus_growth_copy.png

Being grateful for what we have is one of the fastest style to not only increase productivity, just overall quality of life.

Habit 14: They avoid decision fatigue.

From Zuckerberg to Jobs, leaders avert decision fatigue by removing trivial choices, like wearing the aforementioned hoodie or black turtleneck every twenty-four hour period. Steve Jobs often ate one type of food for weeks -- once eating then many carrots his skin turned orange.

President Obama was known for "Conclusion Memos" in which three checkboxes were fastened at the lesser of documents needing his attention. He would check "Agree," "Disagree," or "Allow's Discuss" to let his staff know how to continue.

Habit 15: They love productivity hacks.

Have a new way to shave .v seconds off a job? Insanely-productive people want to know your hole-and-corner. Here are a few productivity hacks yous can attempt out in your workflow:

      • Make your tiffin in batches at the outset of the calendar week
      • Cake time on your calendar before others do
      • Don't use the ane-hour default on your calendar
      • Take a 30-minute nap and boost performance 34%
      • Turn off telephone notifications
      • Heed to ambient sounds instead of pop music
      • Sit by a window
      • Set up the thermostat for 70-77 degrees
      • Work in varied environments like coffee shops and parks
      • Mute your Gmail with Inbox Pause
      • Black out groundwork browser tabs/notifications
      • Effort a dictation app
      • Sort tasks by "Must, Should, Want" every twenty-four hours
      • If it takes less than two minutes, do it now
      • Work on a big task for just 5 minutes

They might seem like small gains seperately, simply if you add together a few of these to your workflow each calendar week, you lot might be surprised at the effect they have on your speed and efficiency.

Originally published December 6, 2017 9:20:00 PM, updated June 15 2021