Having trouble hitting deadlines and staying focused? Well, have no fear! This article will introduce four productivity hacks that almost anyone can implement immediately and see fast results. 1. Time is so valuable : Track it for every task you do When you are working on a big project, spending too much time on certain tasks is a classical trap many of us are falling for. Sometimes, it's because we lose ourselves in the tasks, losing sight of our priorities at the same time. Tracking your time regularly will enable you to know how much time is required to accomplish your regular tasks and an overall project. You'll end up being way more precise with your deadlines and be able to do more tasks in less time than ever before. When you have a lot of projects to work on, limiting the time will force you to focus and find a solution quicker than you thought was possible. I can't count how many times those two things regularly happen to me. I have never regretted tracking my time, and it is usually when I don't (because I simply forgot) that I regret it. 2. Give each task the right priority and respect it Limiting the time you spend is great but if you don't follow the priority of the necessary tasks involved in your project, you'll have a hard time finishing them. 3. In deadlines we trust Deadlines give you the responsibility for the time you spend. When you need to do a task, instead of attacking head-on, you should always try to break it down to smaller tasks and for 3 reasons: a. Big Tasks enable you to see the big picture but prevent you from predicting the overall time you will need for a project. b. Small tasks are easier to do and enable us to get a dopamine shot with a feeling of accomplishment that we always need when it gets harder. c. You can easily verify and track the evolution of your project's timeline 4. Automate tasks as much as you can You simply can't remember everything, that's why you have to create protocols that will allow you to dedicate all your mental energy to accomplishing the tasks. The tool that changed my life is called Monday , it's a Work OS, and there are many of them on the market. A Work OS allows you to organize your project with tasks and sub-tasks, but also to track the time you and your teammates spend on them. Finally, it will allow you to create a great organization, and put in motion processes with automation that will save you a lot of precious time. For example, we created different templates for each step involved in the completion of a project, in our case creating a website and planning the marketing campaigns. When creating a website there are different aspects: The concept, the idea, the goal The concretization with the design creation The integration from the design to a fully working website Ordering and integrating the text Setting up everything else we need The final check Each step was thought of as a different step of a factory production line. At our agency, we use a lot of automation for each step, to make the most of our time. For example, when the concept is done, the designer receives automatically the relevant tasks for him in order to continue to work on the project. When the design is finalized, the developer gets all the relevant tasks assigned to him, and the texts are ordered, etcetera. The ability to chat on every task with all our team members is amazing and allows us to centralize everything (we don’t miss emails at all). We also use intensively the reminder and alerts according to the deadlines to keep our project on track. For example, when I’m sending emails and I need to track the answers, I create a task for each email sent and set up an automation to remind me to contact that person again 7 days after. I’ll get a reminder for every task with a sent status. Finally, we are always improving our templates and automation in order to improve our efficiency, and in the end, we are always happy to put our time to better use.
