The holidays are coming, and it’s not always the best time to feel productive. Not too many people will be working during this time, but that’s the perfect opportunity for you to work as hard as you can, for as long as possible. Many people take the holiday seasons as an off-time, but fail to realize the amount of downtime that they’re tossing away. We can dedicate this left-over time to our passions and pursuits to take control of our lives better.
Here are some great steps to making sure that you are 10 times as productive this year –
#1 Book your calendar
Ideally, you should be so busy that you don’t remember what day it is, and constantly book your schedule in advance. This even includes parties, weddings and family-time. So what you’re doing is maximizing the fun and hard work in your life, and letting go of the ‘lag time’. December has more days in the month than others and everyone is actively buying gifts for each other last minute. Make sure you organize your calendar in advance and pick up everything you need early. Meetings, goals, calls, pitches, work, etc. should seem effortless as you go from one project to another and fill up your entire schedule with work-related activities. The moment you find yourself tired or needing some distraction, you should refocus on work with a smile on your face as you deliver on time and create strong value for others.
#2 Micro-focus
Although this is only a once a day activity, you need to calculate how long it takes you to produce a certain component of your work. You should then divide your time into minutes and analyze how many quotas you can fill in a minute. E.g. if you are a coder, then how many lines of codes can you write in a minute. Next, you need to set a speeded-up timer for yourself and track your minutes every 15 mins or so. Once you start doing this every day, you’ll realize that you didn’t need to delete the distracting apps from your phone, but focus on the minutes as they were passing by. You’ll notice that you’re more in the present and you’re working twice as hard as you would have normally assumed to. Checking in on yourself every 15 mins or so assures that you are on track and ready to accomplish the day, this holiday season!
#3 Enjoy the little things
Far too often we work without a smile on our face and we don’t celebrate the small victories in life. We need to enjoy the little things in life and really focus hard on what makes us special. If we continue burning ourselves out with a hard-work, large-work mentality, then we would never be happy with our results. We’d always want more and not be satisfied with what we have. This feeling of humility is what drives us ahead.
According to research by Bradley P. Owens and colleagues at the University of Washington, the conclusion was overwhelming in their research paper ‘Expressed Humility in Organizations: Implications for Performance, Teams, and Leadership’. Leaders who are humble tend to outperform those who aren’t. Leaders who are on-track to increasing productivity but also enjoy their lives, tend to have higher productivity in general.
Upgrade
On a slightly more practical note, upgrading your life can have tremendous implications on your productivity levels. This doesn’t mean that we end up burning cash until we feel happy. It means that we find technology and life upgrades that make us more productive as people. You can upgrade to a great phone and laptop that has value for money, and channel all your resources through that platform to become more productive. Upgrading doesn’t stop just there. You can upgrade your health with better exercise and meditation. You can upgrade your family’s lives by talking to them for hours on end. In the short term, the more impact you can make in others’ lives, the more they’ll be there for you when you’re feeling low. This holiday season, consider upgrading your tech and someone’s life through charity and create a long-lasting impact for the world.
