Top 16 Tips to Quickly Boost Your Productivity in 2021

These easy-to-follow tips will improve your output dramatically.

1. Remove Notifications 🔔

• Check your phone after a couple of hours.
• Keep an eye on the app with the most notifications.
• Block them.
• Don't fear FOMO.
• Choose your shots.
• You are going to lose some content around.
• Deal with it.
• Watch The Social Dilemma.

2. Slice your time 🍕

• Use blocks of time without interruptions (timeboxing).
• My favorite is Pomodoro Technique.
• If you come across new tasks write them down.
• Don't multitask.
• You cannot switch until time is up.
• 20 minutes it's a good slice.

3. Inbox = 0 📥

• Keep your inbox ALWAYS empty.
• Unsubscribe to all irrelevant mails (most of the time is a just-one-click).
• Create filtering rules - out of the inbox.
• If you need to action on mails: (keep the list out, create a special folder).
• Inbox is not a To-do list.

4. Find your Flow 🕯️

• Creative work happens on flow state.
• Takes some time to enter flow (about 15 mins).
• Takes one second to leave it and go to the queue again.
• Remove all external flow interruptions, notifications, noise.
• Control all internal stimulus.

5. Use Zenware 💭

• Use simple software.
• Minimalistic tasks editors like writemonkey and simple managing software like Trello.
• Don't procrastinate gold plating your articles.

6. Close Your Browser Tabs 🔓

• Manage to-do lists and items.
• Do not open multiple tabs.
• No operating system or web browser handles them very well. Neither you.
• Don't multitask.If something takes less than two minutes do it.
• Else add it to To-Do list.
• Web tabs are not to-do lists.

7. Find Homes for everything 🏠

• Every object (real or virtual) should have a home.
• We can keep inboxes (or incoming places) for things a couple of days.
• We need brief processes to empty those inboxes.
• When emptying those inboxes we should define new 'homes' if necessary.

8. Keep a Daily Agenda 📅

• Start each day with a short daily agenda.
• You can mix personal and work items or keep them in two separate lists.
• Plan for unplanned work.
• Revisit hourly to keep up.
• And close it at night.
• Never reuse it for the next day.
• Start from scratch.

9. Automate Repetitive Tasks 🤖

• Find repeatable shortcuts.
• Automate repetitive tasks.
• It is a two sharp blade. Never automate when DOING a task.
• Automating is more enjoyable than doing (Procrastination).
• Automate only tasks made on daily basis.
• Don't automate infrequent things.

10. Avoid Unproductive Meetings 🤝

• Schedule meetings for 25 or 50 minutes.
• So you can have time to switch.
• Meetings without agenda are useless.
• Avoid meetings with more than three people.
• The outcome of the meeting should be action items.

Commitments must include:

who / what / when

11. Avoid Multitasking 👨‍💼

• Don’t multitask.
• Work on one task at a time.
• Multitasking is a myth, and trying to do it only splits your focus.
• Human Brain is monotask.
• Context Switching for neurons is too expensive, so you are thrashing most of the time.

Focus -> Flow.

12. Avoid Voice Calls 📞

• Voice Calls are interruptions.
• Interruptions are our worst enemy.
• Avoid unscheduled voice calls.
• If it is not urgent you can talk via messaging in an asynchronous way.
• If it is urgent, double check it is urgent.
• If you wanna talk, schedule!

13. Eat the Frog Early in the Morning 🌤️

• Do the annoying tasks early in the morning.
• Plan for the day.
• Review everything accomplished the day before.

14. Don't reuse Daily to-do Lists ✔️

• Start each day with a different one.
• With this method there's no carry over.
• Daily check yesterday's unfinished goals and evaluate if they deserve being on the new list.

15. Measure Objectives 📈

• Set long term, middle term and short term goals.
• They should not be fuzzy.
• Set a realistic and measurable metric.
• If it is not measurable with exit condition it is not a goal.
• Keep track on them on a weekly basis.
• Change it if need it.

16. Don't Save for Later 🍓

• Save for later is a myth.
• There are excellent apps like Pocket, Inoreader, Evernote, etc.
• But unless you consume the list often this will grow forever.
• Don't save content, consume it.
• Don't Hoard.

I'm sure there are plenty of productivity tips I haven't mentioned here. Which ones work best for you?

Update

Article was a huge success!

See part II

Simple Tips to Boost Your Productivity in 2021 (Part 2)

Also published on: https://medium.com/dev-genius/16-simple-tips-to-boost-your-productivity-x10-5977e2a00697