Being Productive, It's Hard!

in #life7 years ago

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We have a list of things we have to do every day. Every week. Every year. It's so overwhelming we often know don't know what to do with our time and we don't know how to use of the wisest.

We slack off, and we watch TV, we play on our phones. And nothing gets done. I have been trying so many new things to boost my productivity. And I finally figured out how to max out my time.

We all get 24 hours in a day, yet most of us don't use it in the best way possible. What once it's gone we never get it back. That time can add up fast we don't realize it. Sure enough, it's a couple of years later. And sometimes we realize that we haven't accomplished any of our long-term goals.
This is why it's essential to be productive now.

We all know that productivity can help us accomplish our goals, but how do we become more productive?

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Doing Things Once A Month

This is my new strategy, what if I could do everything that I want to do. Also, have free time for myself? What if I could run my two businesses, have a blog, work a job and somehow have free time for myself?

This is something that seems impossible, everyone around me said it wouldn't be possible. But I realize that's not true. Often we think we have to do the same things every day, but what we don't recognize many of those things can be done once a month instead. Sure you're going to have to do a lot more.

– You often can't go to your job once a month. This is something that has to be done every day or when your boss tells you to.

– For the 4000 tier in Merch by Amazon, I have to upload 80 to 200 designs per day. Seven days a week so why not upload all of them in a month? Have them ready to go so that I can submit them. This will probably take a few days of nonstop uploading, but it will save lots of time!

– I want to start using my Instagram more.
They say that you'll be more successful if you post twice a day. So instead of posting twice a day, why not make 60 listings in one day? There are services that will automatically publish my photos. So it mostly hands free. Of course, I have to do more "content creation" activities. Which I'll spend the rest of the month doing. Most of my content creation activities are my hobbies and things I really enjoy doing, Such as drawing, Hiking, Etc.

** I use Tailwind
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  • I want to use my Pinterest more. They say on average you should post 30 times a day or pin 30 times a day. This sounds like a lot, but you are often pinning other people's content as well as your own. Instead of doing 30 every day, why not do 901 in two days?

** I use Tailwind

– If you want to post on Steemit two times a day, why not write 14 posts. In a couple of days, or write 60 posts. Instead of writing two each day? That would give you time to comment and curate more content.
This can be tricky if posts take you a lot of time to write. That's the case with me, But I found that dictating my posts, Then saving the "rough draft" Later going back and fixing my mistakes. Is quite fast.

– Instead of sitting down and doing one drawing or one video, why not figure out how many want to do in one month. When you ask yourself how much you want to be done in a month, it makes you realize that your goals may be too large. They may need to scale back. It gives you an accurate view of how much you need to get done. Then try doing it within a couple of days and batching it. Batching it will allow you to it done faster. All of your video equipment is already out and ready to go, all your supplies are out as well your sketchbook is ready. And you might have more ideas in the moment.

Making idealists

I'm always telling you should make lists. This is where batching comes in, sometimes when you're batching you run out of ideas or your nice creative. This can be difficult. But when you have idea lists, you have had everything ready to go. Throughout the month I keep ideas on what I want to write about as far as posts.

When I'm ready to write them, I grab my notebook. And start using the ideas to make posts. This is how I always have ideas on what to write about. Sometimes when there's a subject I want to talk about, always write the post immediately. But doing it this way saves a lot of time. We often waste time trying to come up with ideas, but if we practice constantly writing down ideas, we never run out.
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Mixing it up

We often get bored of our routines. It sucks when we have to do them, we often go through the motions. But doing things once a month. Allows us to mix things up, while we're doing the same thing we've always done. We haven't done it a while so feels newer and fresher.

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Conclusion

Doing things once a month will massively increase your productivity. Batching things that you do often save you time, figuring out what your goals are per month. Will allow you to get it all done in a month. Instead of figuring out where the time when and why you got so busy. So next time you need to do something that you do almost every day, try to sit down for a few hours and do all of it for a month. It may take you a few days of work to do this. But it will save you so much time throughout the month.

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Depends on your schedule really. i you can fit a months work into a couple of days that is great. We all know that preparation makes everything easier. Look at any meal plan and its all about prepping large batches together to make the week easier.
I think that the plan is great if you can make it work for you.

Exactly! Food is a difficult one too. Unless you want to eat frozen all month. Which doesn't sound as appetizing. Also some things take up too much time to fit into one month. So sometimes the weekly thing works well.

Nobody wants to eat frozen every day. Prepping for the week helps though. Get yourself sorted early and handy week after that.

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Some people actually work better in big spurts like that, so in that case approaching things as you have described is more productive for them overall. I think I'm one of those people, I go on "work benders" and then have way to much lazy TV time in between LOL ;-)

Right? Hhehe I fall into lazy time too. Big Spurts seem to help me a lot. It's so easy to watch something here and there, Between tasks. So if I stay on one task all day it really helps.

I generally have the free time right now. But if I were to get busy, it would be a smart idea to knock off say content for Steemit posts in one day and have at least a few posts worth ready. Mixing it up is what I like to do, the variety keeps it interesting and less bored haha.

I need to work on content for my new Skyrim character series, get enough to at least have the next post ready to go. :)

Hope you are doing well love <3

Right? I Hate it when you get bored of what you are doing, But you still have so much to do overall. It gets really overwhelming fast.
Aww you do hehe :) Making game series will really help bring more people to Steemit.

Yeah I had that during my course, the second year got quite overwhelming at times.
Hehe I have three parts up now, will be working on the next part within the next day probably. :)
I added some mods to make the game look even better and it's so beautiful.

Yay! I'll need to check them out once I get a chance hehe :) I've been wanting to post some monster hunter stuff too hehe.

Omg yes! I have seen people play it and it looks so good! Hehe

That is a really good call. It is kind of how I am wired too as if you can get me off my ass, I am going to do a good job so I only have to do it once. So doing it ALL at once would just buy more time for the fun stuff.....and life.

With the daily stuff I have to do, mixed with the weekly stuff I have to schedule for the family and myself, it is a strange concept to be able to even pick things that have to be done monthly. Invoicing? Tax/finance stuff? Visit out of town family?

Writing is DEFINITELY a great habit to get into to help you with other routines and habits for sure.

So good to hear the perspective of another busy and constantly improving entrepreneur!

Heheh It is!
I love that you said it motivates you do things "once". I'm finding this to be the case with me too. It really helps.
I'm glad you schedule for your family and yourself. This is something I've neglected to do. But have been starting to do hehe.

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I struggle daily with trying to be productive, and I feel like I never get done what I wanted to. Recently I've been trying to do better!
For the past month, I have been doing my entire week of Holi-Art posts in 1.5 days, and that has left room for family and my woodworking business!

Wow I love that you are getting better at that. And it takes 1.5 days? I'm still trying to figure out how long it takes me to get mine done hehe.

Well, not straight through. Haha I can get 7 drawings done in about 8 hours total, but I'm usually doing other things during that time, so it's usually a day and a half before I'm done.
I'll usually start on them Sunday and have them done on Monday. :)

I have actually been following part of your advice recently so this post really hit home for me. I have been carrying a notebook around with me and writing down ideas for posts that I want to curate soon. I have a few posts written already so that I am not running around crazy trying to get a post finished when I have tons of other things going on. I am not sure if I can get a month's worth of posts done in a few days but I like the idea. Thanks for sharing!
Ivy

Great advice! I mostly post pictures on Steemit, usually entering photo contests which, for the most part, have routine themes. When I get a chance, I'll prepare several images and save them on my desktop until the correct day to post. Then, using templates that I copy and paste, I post them to Steemit. Every now and then I make a mistake and have the wrong info in the post, like the other day I entered a smartphone photo contest and wrote that I used a Canon camera to take the picture :-)

@kaylinart thank you now I have to get somethings done tonight like my listings on eBay. I have been putting it off so much lately..............

Do it! Right? I used to put that off too. Sometimes listing on Ebay gets tedious.

Yes sometimes it is Tedious but since I have been listing for someone else's store and neglecting my own Account it is Time for me to get back on Track. So many dollars that need to be Free'd UP to use to purchase more Silver and Crypto's.................

I kind of stopped using instagram even though I had 2000+ fans in favor of FB with 16000+ fans. I may have to look at instagram again though since I still produce the content. Thanks for all the tips, anything that you can automate or do once a month would be a giant time saver.

You should!
I use tailwind to automate it. Theres a link in the post. It's kind of hard to know what social media works best with your specific content.