5 Steps to productivity + Some apps to help you be more productive

What is productivity?

               Productivity isn't about getting many things done in a very short amount of time, it's more about doing the right, important and most paying tasks in the best possible way that will not take any unnecessary time and will result in real effective results.
               In this post we're gonna know these ways that will lead us to be productive and effective as we can.

Productivity tips:

1. Setting your mind and your surroundings.  

               It's experimentally proven that a cluttered environment equals a cluttered mind, I personally experienced this and I can prove it is a truth. When the mind is cluttered it becomes like there is a thing holding us from doing stuffs and being productive.
               Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and walk around your office or wherever you work and put everything back in its specific place.  Organize your desk and if the time is enough give your drawers a go too or you can keep this to another time where you give organizing and cleaning more time, and also yeah, you need this real deep organizing and cleaning once in a while, so schedule it.                                   
         Even after cleaning and organizing your environment, your mind may need further clearing although that environment setting had done a lot. You can clear your mind by doing a brain dump, which is basically writing down everything you think you want to do or a project you need to start or date with someone you need to meet or whatever you think you need to remember, this is really going to give you a feeling of relief afterward . You can go through this brain dump list and categorize all the items and filter them through to schedule and plan them, but even if you only did the brain dump without furthering in the process you will gain that mind clarity. You can also do a stream of consciousness journaling type which is basically jotting down whatever comes to your mind.  I wrote about it in my first blog post when I wrote about life changing habits, you can find it here                                                                

 |  related Life changing habits that have changed my life

2. knowing what you want to do.          

                                                             
               It's important to know what you want and need to do, there are many ways to track your tasks, you can write a to-do list in a piece of paper or by using a planner or journal.Or you can schedule a precise plan of your day or week or month or whatever, including a description of what you need to accomplish and the time you need to accomplish it by. Also you can block the hours of your day in a physical or digital calendar, so that you know these hours are dedicated to a certain task, and if the calendar is a digital one you can add a reminder that will remind you with your tasks when the specified time for them come.
               The tasks, projects and everything you want to accomplish may be bigger than what your plate can hold (your 24 hours of the day or your life spam in general), so you need to filter them and know exactly what is really worthy of your time and effort. Everything if you look at it individually may seem worthy of pursuing, but let's be real and face the fact that you can't do all of them, so rather than wondering why you still mediocre and why you're feeling as you're doing nothing meaningful, prioritize your tasks and give your time and effort for what matters only,  because at the end you're only one normal person who hasn't has copies or extraordinary power. Be courageous to say NO to all those brightly tempting things in life in order to really be effective and productive and see the results that you're craving in life.
               Make sure you break your tasks down into actionable tasks (baby steps) so that you will be more willing to start and finish them.

3. Taking actions.

                           

               It's known for sure nothing will happen without actions and let's us face the truth that all the planning and all the mind and environment settings will not really equals actions or force us to take them unconsciously, even thought they're gonna help a lot. So just do whatever you need to do, don't give your mind the time to rethink what you decided to do, your mind will come up with all the excuses in the world to convince you and force you to stay in the comfort zone where you're now, this is not because your mind is your foe and it's trying to keep you stuck, no, your mind is trying to protect you from any possible thing that may hurt you by keeping you in your safe place. You maybe questioning how those daily and normal tasks may hurt you, but believe me your brain will give you excuses like if you didn't do the work in the perfect way you're imagining, you will feel so low, so just screw it and keeping watching the film you're watching now, it's safer. It may not be as exaggerated as I described it right now for some tasks but you will still get the signs to not take actions if you give your mind the time to think. Use the 5 seconds rule which is invited by Mel Robbins where you count from 5 to 1 and then start doing whatever you decided to do before counting. You can also tell yourself that you're gonna do this task only for 5 minutes, usually you will continue working after those 5 minutes, because it's almost always you only need to start and every thing after will start to flow then.    

4. Fuel yourself.

               After all the doing and productivity you've been into, you of course need to fuel yourself to keep the good work going and to keep yourself well. There are different types of fueling yourself, the first one obviously is feeding yourself and drinking decent amount of liquid, you can't keep performing in an effective way with a hungry and thirsty body, which will so obviously decrease your productivity and make you unproductive. Secondly you fuel yourself by making sure you're well rested and you got a decent amount of sleep. Thirdly by entertaining yourself and practicing your hobbies, so that you'll refresh and fuel you mental and spiritual sides and return with high level of energy to your work and that's what is going to make you really productive and reflect the real meaning of productivity as we mentioned at the beginning of this post.       
               You need to work in intervals and not in big chunk, this will make you more productive(and yeah it's also proven experimentally), You may want to use those fueling tips as a breaker between your tasks or you can do something else such as walking for example. But make sure you don't take a lot of time as a break as that may turn into procrastination and you'll end up distracted from your main tasks.                                               

5. Switch routines and change a little bit in your habits.

               After a good time of using the same good techniques and routines of getting things done and being productive you'll start to feel as you're not so motivated and as they're starting to be less effective, but this is not the case, it's just that you need a change as you get so used to what you were using, this is why I told you about different ways you can use(which there are more of course), and this why there are those many ways and methods in the first hand.                                                                                                                                                                               

Apps that will help you to boost your productivity:

         
               There are a lot of apps out there that are gonna help you to be more productive, I will mention a few of them here:

• Google keep.               

                                                                                                          This is a to-do listing app where you can categorize your to-dos and tick them as you finish them. And you can also add notes. 

 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.keep                           

• Forest.                                                                                                                      

                    It's an app that plants different types of trees if you committed to work for a certain amount of time and if you stop the app by switching to another app your tree will die. The beautiful thing about this app is that after a certain number of trees been planted in the app a real tree will be planted in the real life.                                                                                                                

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cc.forestapp

• Pomodoro Technique.

                       Pomodoro technique is worldly known as that you spend 25 minutes working and then you take 5 minutes as a break or spend 50 minutes working and 10 minutes as a break and after 3 or so sessions you get a bigger break.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superelement.pomodoro




                   I hope those tips will help you to be more productive and effective in your life. Until we'll meet again in another post stay productive.