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“If only I had more time…” How often do you say that to yourself? As a high achiever, you won’t be alone. With so much to do (and so much you want to do), you’ll often feel as though you’re up against it. The good news is life doesn’t have to be constant chaos fuelled by endless to-do lists and demands. If you sharpen your productivity skills, you can train yourself to get more done in less time. But don’t go looking for the silver bullet because there isn’t one. That’s because peak productivity is a combination of small practices that combine to skyrocket what you’re able to get done in a given amount of time. And with the 19 proven methods in this blog, you’ll have plenty to get your teeth into. 1. Work to goals Maximum productivity comes from working on the right things at the right time. It’s why goals are critical. They provide a constant compass, which ensures your time is ‘wasted wisely’. Without goals, you’ll be rudderless. This makes focus hard as you’ll be tempted by shiny object syndrome because there is no bigger picture to work towards. Create goals and you give every day more meaning and purpose. This helps unlock passion for what you do (because you know WHY you’re doing it). As a result, you’ll feel more inspired to get stuff done, efficiently. 2. Plan your week Instead of taking each day as it comes, maximize your time by getting your head around the week ahead before it even starts. Using a tool such as the Weekly Action Pad, you can create the big picture overview for the next seven days helping you structure your days for maximum output. Weekly planning gives you an edge. It ensures you’re not rushing at the last minute and it makes batching tasks possible (see no. 16). In addition, with your to-do list out of your head and onto paper, you’ll waste less bandwidth remembering freeing up more time to do the work. 3. Plan tomorrow, TODAY Do you hit the ground running or do you waste the first part of your day figuring out what you need to accomplish? You’ll free up more productive minutes if you plan tomorrow the night before. Not only can you crack straight on with what you need to do, but you’ll also give your subconscious brain time to mull over your upcoming tasks. Ever noticed how you go to bed with a problem or a project in mind and wake up with a head full of answers? It works! 4. Set targets Don’t underestimate the dopamine hit you get when you tick an item off as done. It’s strangely satisfying to be able to cross off a task and see the needle physically move. So leverage this by setting yourself daily targets. We recommend three. Pick the three tasks that if complete, will make the day a win for you - and then crack on and get them done. This simple practice gives your day focus and direction. And with the finish line clearly defined, you know exactly what you have to get done to cross it. 5. Listen to focus music Creating an environment that’s conducive to focused, deep work is a gamechanger. One tool to try is focus music - such as Brain FM. Brain FM is a tool that provides music for your brain. Designed to boost focus, relaxation and meditation, this tool can help you work smarter, sleep better, and even calm mental chatter. You’ll have experienced how music shifts your mood, but Brain FM takes this connection to a deeper level. Packed with music composed to maximize specific states, Brain FM stimulates your brain to deliver noticeable results in 15 minutes or less. 6. Prioritize A neverending to-do list gets super stressful. You stare at the list wondering how you’re going to get it all done. Pretty soon you’re overwhelmed (because it feels like an impossible task) and instead of churning through your tasks, you freeze. Here’s the thing… Not everything on your to-do list will be a top priority. There will be some tasks you can leave until later, others you can delegate or outsource, and others you may be able to scratch off completely. Always pull the biggest levers first. Remember the 80/20 rule where 20% of the work will deliver 80% of your results. Focus on those big impact tasks by drilling down and getting clear on what completed items will create the biggest win for you. Get those done first, that way - even if there are items left untouched -  you can end the day feeling accomplished and successful. 7. Use a timer It’s so easy to squander time when you’re not consciously aware it’s passing. A quick look at Facebook can easily turn into an hour of wasted minutes. It’s why we love hourglasses. As well as providing an opportunity to disconnect from digital, a timer allows you to physically see the passage of time. Set an intention for how long you want to work on a particular task and use a timer to keep track. It’s a practice that keeps you more focused and accountable therefore motivating you to work more efficiently. 8. Work in Pomodoros Your brain works best when you give it time to refresh and recharge. It’s one reason the Pomodoro technique works. Here’s how to do it: • Set a timer for 25-minutes• Tackle a task until the time runs out• Take a 5-minute break• Repeat Anyone can concentrate fully for 25 minutes knowing there’s a break at the other end. It’s far less daunting than forcing yourself to sit tight for hours on end. Better still, 25 minutes of concentrated work will deliver far more results than a morning of sloppy focus - you’ll see!   9. Beat Parkinson’s Law Ever noticed how a deadline forces you to up the ante and get a job done in a realistic amount of time? Without a set timeframe for a task, Parkinson’s Law will steal your day away. Parkinson’s Law states that work will expand to fill the time you give it (now it makes sense why that proposal took all morning rather than 30 minutes!) It’s how deadlines can drive efficiency. What’s more, if you get a job done quicker, there’s more time to crack on with others things clocking up an even bigger win for you. 10. Zero hours schedule Unallocated time is always at risk of getting squandered. So plan your day leaving zero white space. It’s not overwhelming like it sounds. That’s because as well as scheduling time for all your tasks, weave in time for the gym, for reading, for relaxing, cooking, chilling out with your loved ones and even doing nothing! Account for every minute of your day and you can have it all. 11. Cut distractions You’ll always be at your most efficient when you work on one thing at a time. Multitasking as a productivity hack is a myth. You don’t get more done. Instead, you water down your focus by forcing your brain to switch constantly from one task to another. So do whatever it is you need to do to concentrate on one thing. Log out of social media, switch off distractions, turn off your phone, and tell whoever’s around to leave you alone. It can take as much as 20 minutes to get back into your flow after you’ve been interrupted. Don’t waste time needlessly. Instead, protect your focus by removing the things that throw you off track. 12. Stop procrastinating You’ll always find a reason not to do the work now - especially when the task you’re tackling is hard, long, or boring. When you don’t feel like it or you’re in an energy slump, it’s extremely tempting to put it off for another time. But that’s dangerous. Not only do you squander time in the moment (that you’ll never get back), but you pile on more pressure for the next day. Procrastinate and you’ll either have to play catch up another time or settle for less because you’ve run out of time to do it all. Instead, build the discipline to get the work done when it needs to get done. Tackle the excuses that your brain tempts you with. Train yourself to sit tight and your productivity will soar. 13. Reflect Productivity is a skill and that means you can sharpen it with practice. So take the time to reflect on your methods and behaviors. Where are you slipping up? What are you doing well? Where are your opportunities to improve? Build this habit into your every day and you’ll unlock the insights you need to take your efficiency as far as it can go. 14. Be realistic When you have a pile of tasks to do it’s tempting to make a super long list - and believe it’s possible. But can you really crack through so much? The last thing you want to do is set yourself up for failure as that will only knock your confidence and drain your motivation. Instead, estimate the amount of time you think each task will take to complete. Next, tot up the total to get a better gauge as to whether you really can fit it all in. If you can, schedule using the zero hours principle (point 9). If you can’t, prioritize your workload to make the biggest dent possible. Then crack on. 15. Batch tasks You don’t have to take calls all throughout the day. You don’t have to answer emails as soon as they come in. You don’t have to prepare every meal on the day you’re going to eat it. You’ll make much better use of your time if you batch similar tasks together. For example, spend time on a Sunday evening preparing veg for the rest of the week rather than doing it every night. Schedule 30-minute slots at the beginning and end of each day to handle your emails. Book all your calls on one day instead of scattering them throughout. Plan all your content creation into a focused slot. Batch and you won’t waste energy and focus switching from one task to another. What’s more, because you’ve created focused time, you’ll get the work done quicker. It’s a smart way of working. 16. Systemize and automate What tasks do you do on a repeated basis? Which of these could be handled by an app or streamlined with a system? Reduce what you have to do on a daily basis and you’ll free up time and capacity to work on more of the higher leverage work. 17. Work to your energy levels Every day, you wake up with a finite amount of willpower and focus. You need to use this energy wisely if you want to maximize the work you’re able to get done. To help you do this, figure out what time of the day you’re at your peak - and then use that time wisely. One way to do this is to classify your tasks as draining, energizing, or neutral. You’re more likely to knock out a draining task when you’re high in energy - and an energizing task can help boost your motivation when you’re feeling low. Think strategically about what tasks you place when and it can make all the difference to your output.   18. Say NO Is your to-do list weighing you down because you’ve taken on more than you can handle? If so, it’s time to set up some boundaries and protect your time. This involves becoming aware of your limits and protecting them by saying NO. You don’t have to explain yourself. 19. Eat your frogs According to Brian Tracy (who wrote the book Eat That Frog), your frog is: “Your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it now. It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment.” (p. 2) You’ll create a big productivity breakthrough if you identify your frog each day - and tackle it first thing. Here’s why... Firstly, even when you’re not focused on that task directly, you’ll be thinking about it. Especially if it’s something you have to do. As a result, that frog steals your bandwidth and drains your energy (how do you feel when you’re dreading getting started on a task that feels big!) Secondly, get that task under your belt early, and you’ve already clocked up a big win for the day. You’ll get that boost of motivation because you finished, which will fuel you to go further than you would have done if you’d left it for later. Thirdly, your daily willpower is finite. Try and tackle a frog when your energy and enthusiasm are low and it will take you 10 x longer - guaranteed! So every day this week, schedule your day to get your frog out of the way first. It’s a habit that will help your productivity soar. Time is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who we are or where we live, we ALL get the same 24-hours a day. It’s what you do with that time, which counts. How you choose to invest your time will directly impact the quality of your life. So invest your minutes wisely. Commit to mastering productivity so you can get more done in less time. It’s a skill that will keep giving back in your career, your business, your relationships, and in yourself.
It’s the same at the start of every school year. You have good intentions, make big plans, and convince yourself that this is the year when it’s all going to happen.But somehow, it never works out that way! Life happens and before you know it, the overwhelm piles on, you worry about falling behind, and you start compromising to stay on top.It’s not fair! College shouldn’t be endless stress, constant all-nighters, and panic at the sheer volume of things to do! Instead, school should be about learning skills for the future, challenging yourself with work you enjoy, AND making the most of all the things only students get to do.The good news it’s all possible when you practice these SEVEN productivity tips.Learn to work smarter, not harder and you can get the grades and have a life! Here’s how.. 1. Get a planner Student life is full on (but you don’t need us to tell you that!) Dates, deadlines, socials, to-dos, errands, reminders - with a million and one things on your plate, it’s hard to know if you’re coming or going!It’s why your student planner is a lifesaver! Use your planner to figure out your life on paper, and you can juggle things around and see how it’s all going to fit. This student essential is a powerful way to build confidence, get peace of mind, and prove to yourself that you’ve got it all covered.Use your planner to plan it all. • Plan your day in 30-minute chunks - so you can minimize squandered time• Keep a log of your assignments - so you’re never caught out with a deadline• Factor in errands such as your laundry or shopping - so they get done too• Even plan your meals - so you don’t have to rely on takeouts or suffer from Freshman’s 15! Create a single reference point for everything to free up mental clutter, cut through overwhelm, and get a ton more done in a lot less time.The Self Scholar is no ordinary student planner.  Built around the planning and productivity tips baked into the Self Journal, the Scholar is everyday carry especially for students. Designed to make your life easier (even when it isn’t), it’s college sorted! 2. Stick to your deadlines You’ve got enough on your plate without having to deal with a forgotten deadline at the last minute. You can’t do your best work when you’re panicking and you’ll struggle to focus too. But that’s not all… try to squeeze in something you didn’t expect and it throws off the rest of your week too.It doesn’t end there. If you’re forced into an all-nighter, it’s going to take a while to catch up on lost sleep and get back into peak, productive state. So don’t let deadlines catch you out and steal your productivity. Instead, keep all your assignment due dates logged in your Assignment Log (there’s one included in your Self Scholar). With a complete list of all deadlines for every subject written down, you can plan ahead and tackle assignments in manageable chunks.Not only will your work be higher quality, but it will feel manageable too. Keep a clear head, and it’s so much easier to perform at your peak without having to lock yourself in the library. 3. Make big assignments easy - even when they aren’t There are some assignments that break even the most committed students!Sometimes it’s the topic. It’s so boring you fall asleep at the mere thought of your reading list. Other times it’s because the assignment is so hard, you’re not sure how you’ll crack it.You’ll find everything is doable when you chip away at a challenging assignment one step at a time. It’s why there are Project Planning Pages inside the Self Scholar. Instead of tackling scary projects as a whole, make a list of every task needed to finish the job.What reading must you work through? What research should you complete? What sections must you write? What conversations do you need to have?With your list finished, no longer are you faced with a daunting assignment; just a list of doable tasks that help build momentum as you work through them. Then all you need to do is plan a time to finish each one (you can use your planner for this). Start small, and you’ll make heavy work feel easy – even when it isn’t! 4. Keep a master to-do list Trying to juggle a to-do list in your head is a big productivity drain. Far better to empty your head and get all your commitments onto paper using a tool such as the Weekly Action Pad. This ramps up your productivity in a number of ways: If you’re not relying on your memory, you’ll free up valuable bandwidth to use elsewhere giving your productivity and performance a big boost You won’t waste energy worrying about what you’ve forgotten You won’t waste time turning up at the wrong place or working on the wrong project And with it all written down, you can put the jigsaw pieces together in your planner and figure out when you’ll get it all done Ensure your master to-do list extends beyond your studies. Write down your errands, reminders, socials, coffee dates, and laundry too.   Not only does this tactic boost productivity but it fuels motivation too. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your list shrink as you turn those to-dos into DONES! 5. Plan your week in advance One of the best things about being a student is the spontaneity. There are the late-night study seshes that turn into an impromptu dorm party or the random coffee dates with friends that last all night. Being free to see where life takes you can open a host of doors and clock up memories of student days that you’ll never forget.The trouble is you can’t live all your student days this way! Too much carefree living soon puts you behind in the study stakes! So give yourself a productivity boost by planning your week in advance.The truth is there IS enough time to do it all - if you manage your time carefully. Weekly plans help you do this. Instead of taking each day as it comes, plan a weekly overview: First up, figure out your three weekly milestones. These are your top priority tasks - the three things you MUST complete even if everything else gets messed up. Next, decide what day of the week you’ll tackle these tasks. Then start to backfill your time with everything else that’s on your plate. Take this approach and you’ll always get the most important things done. It’s the best way to feel your productive best - even if you have a stack of to-dos to work through.There’s another bonus. With your week carefully organized, Friday nights won’t be about cramming or playing catch-up. Instead, they can kick-start a killer weekend with friends. You need never suffer from a night of pure FOMO ever again! 6. Cut out the distractions One of the easiest ways to get more done in less time is to set yourself up for deep focus work.More often than not, we squander time needlessly because of phone calls, endless notifications, interruptions, and falling into the trap of ‘just checking social’.It takes your brain as long as 20 minutes to get back into a deep focus mode after an interruption. If you’re only working in spits and bursts, you’re going to take longer to tick through tasks AND you’ll only be working at the superficial level.Do yourself a favor and discipline yourself to focus on one thing (and one thing only). • Lock your door!• Tell your friends you’re unavailable• Work somewhere you aren’t tempted to slack off!• Wear noise-cancelling headphones• Block the sites that tempt you away• Turn off notifications and schedule time to check your emails once or twice a day Do whatever it takes to get into your deep work zone.You’ll get more done, quicker (and to a much higher standard).Then, when you’re done, you can party without the guilt and ensure you get to enjoy the best of both worlds. 7. Plan your day by the hour Ever noticed how a task will happily take up all the time you give it?It’s because of a phenomenon called Parkinson’s Law, which states that work will expand to fill the time available. Parkinson’s Law steals your time and drains your productivity by reducing the number of tasks you can get through in a particular amount of time.There’s a simple way to get around this… Give each task a strict start and end time.You have to be realistic with your time blocks. It’s no use compressing a task into too small a slot. All that does is pile on the pressure needlessly (which drains your productivity further). Instead, set achievable time targets that force you to focus, sit tight, and finish each task in a reasonable amount of time.Then watch your productivity soar!Student life is always going to be chaotic and full on. There’s no other option! With a million and one things to juggle, there will be times when you get a serious case of brain freeze and you don’t know how you’ll make it to the holidays in one piece!But you can set yourself up for success.You can make life easier for yourself - even when it isn’t! Invest in the tools that help you get organized and practice the disciplines to get more done in less time, and you can have the best of both worlds.Here’s to getting the grades and having a life.
Have you ever had those moments when you just feel mentally exhausted? It's a ‘flaw’ of being human. Our brains aren’t so great at storing information and it takes a LOT of bandwidth to hold and remember details.Ever noticed how genius ideas pop up at the most inappropriate times? You’re in the shower or out on a run when the perfect solution pops into your head. You try to hold onto the thought until you can write it down, but you get distracted or forget. It’s frustrating because you know that one idea can change your life. But it’s not your fault.That’s why you can’t rely on memory alone. You’ll get mentally exhausted if you do. Instead, you need tools that not only capture the sparks of genius when they show up, but create the environment that makes them appear more frequently.Something that’s not as easy as it sounds…When you’re hustling after goals, life gets busy. Ever noticed how preoccupied your mind is?A lot is happening under the surface. It’s easy to get stuck in thought loops that drain your bandwidth and capacity to think when you have things to remember, tasks to do, problems to solve, decisions to make and emotional clutter to process, If you’re plagued by mental blocks, you won’t perform at your best. And if information overload leads to mental exhaustion, you’ll struggle to get into your flow.As a result, you’ll lose the competitive edge that comes from creative problem solving, innovation, and imagination.That’s why top achievers prevent themselves from getting mentally exhausted with ‘external brains’. It’s a practice you can do too.So if you’re ready to stop feeling mentally exhausted, boost your productivity, and bring your A-game to every task, check out these top five external brains.Simple to use, they could help you kick mental exhaustion for good. 1. The Project Action Pad Every high achiever needs a way to manage the multiple projects they’re juggling at once. You need a way to keep the granular details organized so you have the mental clarity to focus on the big picture.The Project Action Pad helps you map out your project from beginning to end, track your progress, and ensure you’re hitting deadlines. But most importantly, this frees up headspace to think about your project strategically since you know the details are taken care of.Watch the video above to learn:- Why an external brain is critical to your success- How to use the Project Action Pad as an external brain- How to avoid overwhelm and decision fatigue- The 7 steps to turn your project into a plan 2. A master to-do list   While notebooks are great for braindumps, you need a to-do list to see everything that's on your plate. It’s why top performers create a master to-do list of EVERYTHING they need to get done including:- Work to-dos- Appointments and meetings- Reminders- Personal commitments- Errands- Key dates etc.When creating your master to-do list, your core objective is to write down every single thing you have to do - even the super small stuff such as buying groceries or filing your mail. Constantly keeping your to-do list in the back of your mind is how most people become mentally exhausted.When you have a comprehensive list (that you can add to), you don’t need to remember. It’s a habit that helps you feel in control of your life because your list ensures you don’t forget. There’s another benefit. With your list written down, can analyze it and scratch off or delegate the items you don’t need to do personally.Master to-do lists also lead to more work/life harmony - because you’re capturing tasks from all areas of your life. Master to-do lists boost your productivity too. Cluttered minds get mentally exhausted & that's when mental blocks happen. When there’s too much going on you can’t think straight or decide your next steps. With an external list, you can forget everything else and focus on the one thing you need to do now.And you can take this one step further with a Weekly Action Plan.Instead of juggling a master to-do list (which is probably so long it tires you out just looking at it!), your Weekly Action Plan helps you prioritize and identify only those tasks you’ll complete in the next seven days,Everything else stays parked on your master list where those tasks are out of sight and out of mind - until they become top priorities. It’s a simple practice, but with fewer tasks on your radar, the chances of feeling mentally exhausted falls significantly. 3. A planner With a to-do list of prioritized tasks, the next step is to plan when you’ll accomplish them - and that’s why you need a planner such as the Self Journal. It helps you design a day that’s aligned with your priorities and keeps the needle moving in the right direction.  You could rely on brain power, but you’ll almost certainly become mentally exhausted, squander time and undercut your performance.- Without planned deadlines, you'll take longer to do tasks- With no granular schedule, each time you finish a task you’ll have to decide what to do next- Without a strategic approach, you'll finish tasks at the wrong time- You’ll be tempted to focus on low-level tasksIn comparison, a planner lets you plan your day upfront - so you can reduce micro decisions that lead to feeling mentally exhausted and crack on with implementation.Robust planning makes you more tactical too. You can be strategic about where you place tasks and you can work in breaks and meal times. When you can focus all your energy on implementation and execution, your performance soars. 4. A journal When you’re hustling towards goals and trying to create a life you’re proud of, your internal dialogue will go into overdrive.Fears and anxieties will rise to the surface. You’ll have lessons and insights you’ll want to process. You’ll grow in confidence and self-belief and you’ll want to process that too.A journal works as an external brain to help you process all those conflicting thoughts - so you can get the recurring dialogues out of your head and onto paper. When you’re pushing your boundaries and stepping out of your comfort zone the doubts kick in and if you’re not careful, you’ll uncover an armful of reasons why you shouldn’t act.Journaling helps you work through the mental fog so you can get clear on your fears and concerns. This type of writing also helps you uncover thoughts that lurk under the radar. The more you write and clear out the clutter, the more profound the insights that bubble up become. This practice differs from the random idea dumps captured in your notebook. With your mind on paper, you can reflect on your thinking, challenge your beliefs, and get the mental clarity that helps you be your best.- Brainstorm ideas. You can’t action everything immediately, but the thought you had earlier could provide the breakthrough you need when problem-solving in the future- Capture your raw ideas and then pull the threads to see where they lead. A fleeting thought can quickly turn into a new project or innovative solution.- Capture to-dos and other important details - so you don’t waste bandwidth remembering- Jot down insights from conversations - so you can turn insights into tangible benefits in your life- Explore a decision you need to makeWrite about a challenging experience from your past- Journal about a situation that taught you a lesson   5. Your habits   Remember how draining it was when you first learned to drive a car? It was a new skill so you had to focus intently on every detail, and that was tiring. But as you got more skilled and confident, driving became second nature and now, you drive on autopilot and muscle memory.That’s what makes learned behaviors and habits such powerful ways to stop feeling mentally exhausted.Free up headspace to focus on the important things by using routines.It’s one of the reasons morning routines are so powerful. When you’re in your groove, you follow through a sequence of events without thinking about the order.What habits could you turn into external brains to help you become more creative and productive? Give yourself a competitive edge It’s a documented fact that human attention span is declining. We're constantly overwhelmed with so much information that we've gotten used to being mentally exhausted.High performers know they need to push back against this trend.They need to be proactive and consciously take steps to prevent becoming mentally exhausted so they can think innovatively and solve problems creatively - because these are the skills that will help you win in life.External brains are among the simplest, yet most powerful tools you can use to stop feeling mentally exhausted & gain mental clarity.It’s a simple decision that could empower you to uncover the ideas that will change your world.How could you use external brains to transform your life?    
We all have goals that we want to accomplish. Maybe it’s building a business, changing to a new career, or simply improving yourself. Whatever these goals are, we only have a limited amount of time to accomplish them. Each of us has the same 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week, 730 hours in a month, and 8,760 hours in a year.What sets the top performers apart from those who just maintain the status quo? It’s how you use your time.One of the most effective ways to use your time how you want is to create a time management chart. These charts provide a visual representation of your goals, helping you figure out how you should schedule time for your work activities, free time and all the other activities that make up your life. They’re among the most powerful time management tools out there: Use them regularly, and your time management skills will massively improve.However, creating a time management chart from scratch can be intimidating. What should you include in the chart? How many levels of time management do you need? Should the chart be physical or digital? To take the work out of this process, we’ve created the following five time management charts. You can use these planner templates to ensure that you’re practicing effective time management, all while freeing up more time to focus on your professional and personal goals. 1. Yearly Planning Chart When you’re figuring out how to use the time you have available, one of the best time management tips we can give is to begin with your long-term goals. When you start the planning process with your biggest goals in mind, you can create guiding principles and priorities to structure your time at a smaller level.With these larger goals in place, you’ll have a way to track the effectiveness of your quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily planning. Whenever you’re not sure what action to take, you can come back to the yearly goals and ask, “How does this action align with my long-term goals? Is it helping me get closer to reaching them?”It’s also important to remember that your yearly goals can change as the year progresses. We don’t want you to be so set on them that they prevent you from taking advantage of new opportunities that you discover as the year goes on, or from modifying them based on things you learn in the process of pursuing them.For example, you might begin the year with the goal of starting a consulting business, but realize in the process that selling an information product would be a better business model. That’s okay — in fact, it’s great! But you would never have discovered this new business insight if you hadn’t set the larger goal of creating a consulting business to begin with. This is why yearly planning still has value — it sets you on the path to discoveries.For the yearly planning chart, you have a couple different options. One is a standard calendar showing all 12 months at a glance. This can be a powerful tool for seeing just how much time you have to accomplish your goals, but it doesn’t give you a lot of guidance with actual planning.Therefore, we prefer to use a simple list of 3-5 goals for the year. If you like, you can use a different category for each goal. For instance, you might have one learning goal, one business goal, one personal finance goal, one relationship goal and one health and fitness goal.Download the yearly planning template to get started. To use the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy > OK. 2. Quarterly Planning Chart After you’ve planned your goals for the year, you need to start breaking them down into smaller, more manageable goals. The first layer of this is quarterly planning. With a quarterly plan, you break the year into four quarters and set goals for each. These goals will still be fairly broad, but they’ll be more specific than your yearly goals.For example, let’s say you set a yearly goal to gross $100k. The quarterly breakdown of this goal would be to gross $25k each quarter. In practice, the numbers might fluctuate between quarters (especially if you’re selling a product that’s subject to seasonal variation in demand). But still, this type of planning will help you take an intimidating financial goal and start turning it into something that feels more achievable.Just as with yearly planning, your quarterly plan should be open to change. Let’s say, for instance, that you planned to spend the first quarter of the year growing your email list. But in the process, you discover that paid ads would be a higher ROI activity for your business. If that happens, feel free to shift your plan. Just don’t do it on a whim — make sure you have solid reasons for doing so.For the quarterly time management chart, we’ve kept the same basic template as the yearly chart but broken it down a bit further. We’ve added some generic example yearly goals, but you should feel free to replace these with your own.Download the quarterly planning chart here. To use the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy > OK. 3. Monthly Planning Chart Breaking things down further, we move to monthly planning. A month is the perfect time frame to push yourself just a bit out of your comfort zone, hence the popularity of 30-day challenges. You can also easily visualize a month on a calendar, which makes it feel like a more tangible time frame than a year or a quarter.To make a monthly plan, you have a couple of options. One is to start with the goals you’ve set for that quarter and break each down into three smaller goals. This can work, but it’s not the approach we recommend. Unlike quarterly or yearly goals, too much can change within the course of a month for it to be worth planning the subsequent months beforehand.Instead, we prefer to set an overall monthly goal (that will help you work towards your quarterly goal) and then break that goal into four smaller weekly goals. You should feel free to adjust these weekly goals as you proceed, since things are bound to change.For the monthly planning chart, we’ve gone with four-week intervals. Some months will stretch into a fifth week, but that’s fine — there’s no need to stick to the strict calendar months. You set a goal for the month, and then break it down into subgoals for each week. These will help guide your weekly planning chart, which we’ll discuss in the next section.Download the monthly planning chart here. To use the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy > OK. 4. Weekly Planning Chart Of all the planning forms we’ve discussed so far, weekly planning might be the most familiar. Most of us start our Monday with a grand vision of what we’ll accomplish for the week, and we might even create a weekly schedule to help us accomplish it. But by the end of the week we often find that we haven’t even done a fraction of what we had hoped.The key to effective weekly planning is to be realistic. It’s better to underestimate how much you can do in a week and blow past that goal than to overestimate and end the week stressed and disappointed. This balance between short-term planning and long-term planning is key to reaching your goals.For instance, you might start the week off thinking that you can launch a new email marketing campaign. But a couple days in, you realize it’s going to take a lot more time than you’d imagined. At this point, instead of blindly forging ahead towards your goal (and setting yourself up for disappointment), you can adjust the goal to something more realistic. Maybe you can do all the research necessary for the campaign in the week, or write a few emails worth of copy. This way, you’re still working towards the goal, but you’re not biting off more than you can chew.Our favorite template for weekly planning is a good old-fashioned calendar. You can decide whether or not you want to plan the weekends; we’ve included them just in case. At the start of each week, come up with an overall goal (one that contributes to your goal for the month). Once you have this weekly goal, break it down into daily chunks. As with all planning, you’re just estimating at this point. If you find halfway through the week that the goal you set was too big or small, you can always adjust.Download the weekly planning chart here. To use the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy > OK. 5. Daily Planning Chart To finish this guide, we have the topic of making a daily schedule. We all do this type of planning to some degree, even if it’s just waking up with a couple ideas in our head of a couple daily tasks we want to accomplish, or a vague to-do list scribbled on a notepad. However, few of us plan our days in a methodical way, truly considering what we’ll do each hour of the day (and how that will contribute to or detract from our goals).To make a daily plan, it’s best to break your day down into 30-minute time intervals. These should last from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep. For each interval, you fill in what you’ll be doing. This may seem like an extreme method, one that leaves no room for spontaneity or relaxation. However, you should remember that this plan is just a guide — as the day goes on, you will likely have to adjust it as things come up and certain tasks take longer than you had planned.And with regards to relaxation and personal time, planning your day out this way is actually beneficial. Because when you plan what you’re doing each hour of the day, you can schedule time periods for leisure in advance. This will ensure that you actually do take time off from working, instead of giving into the temptation to work all hours of day.Finally, this method of daily planning has the advantage of forcing you to prioritize your most important tasks. When you block things out in 30-minute chunks, you see just how limited your time really is. This will help you devote as much time as you can to the most necessary tasks.To create the daily planning chart, we’ve started with waking up at 7 a.m. and go to bed by 11 p.m. (giving you a solid 8 hours of sleep each night). You can adjust the wake time and bedtime to fit your personal schedule. Just remember that sleep is crucial to high performance; regularly sacrificing sleep to get more work done causes the quality of your work to suffer.Download the daily planning chart here. To use the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy > OK.And if you’d prefer to use a physical daily planner, check out the Self Journal. Manage Your Time, Achieve Your Goals Accomplishing your goals requires planning, dedication and flexibility. With the time management charts in this article, you are now well-equipped to plan your life at all levels. Feel free to use all of these charts as a unified planning system, or cherry pick the ones that are most helpful to you. What matters is that the tools help you accomplish your goals and become your best possible self.
It’s easy to let your time slip by. You get by doing just the minimum you need to keep your job and maintain your lifestyle, but at the end of each year, you look back and realize you haven’t accomplished much more than maintaining the status quo.Even on a daily basis, you can have all sorts of grand plans about what you want to achieve and all the items you want to cross off your to-do list. But the end of the day comes, and you find that you’ve barely finished the first tasks on your list. The rest of your time was swallowed up by social media, email and aimless web surfing.The trick to overcoming these issues is learning to manage your time.Why is time management important? It might not seem worth the...time, but time management is an incredibly valuable skill to learn, for these six reasons. 1. Producing Quality Work Takes Time You can get a task done to the bare minimum, rushing to finish it at the last minute, but the product you end up with may not be the same quality as what you could have produced if you had given yourself adequate time to complete it.This is where time management can revolutionize your work output. When you estimate how long it will really take for you to complete a task and then build in a buffer of extra time for any unexpected delays, you’ll be able to take the time you need to do the best work, instead of scrambling to get something done because you’ve run out of time. 2. Time Management Helps Lower Stress Levels Sometimes, work is just stressful. Whether it’s a last minute revision request from a client, a coworker that’s difficult to get along with or technology not cooperating, you expect a certain amount of stress no matter what your job. But, often, we make work unnecessarily stressful through poor time management habits.Think about the last time you had to stay late at the office (maybe even all night) to finish a project that was due. How much of that stress came about just because you didn’t plan the project better (if at all), or just because you were procrastinating?When you manage your time effectively, you can dramatically lower your stress levels, approaching your work with composure as you finish at a reasonable time each day. You’ll feel better, and your health will improve as well. 3. Time Is a Limited Resource “Dream as if you will live forever; live as if you will die today.” — James DeanDay to day, it’s easy to feel that our time will go on forever. But each of us just has 24 hours each day — it’s the one thing that equalizes all people no matter how wealthy or successful. The key differentiator, then, is how you use the time you have. The practice of time management allows you to impose order on these 24 hours and maximize them as much as you can.In particular, the key to maximizing this limited resource is to determine the difference between high priority tasks and low priority ones and then act accordingly. Once you’ve identified the high priority tasks, the ones that will advance your career or business or life, you should focus on them at the exclusion of the low priority ones. At the very least, you should complete high priority tasks first, saving the low priority ones for when your energy levels are also lower. 4. Achieve Career Success Good time management skills are essential for career success. No matter what sort of career you want to have, managing your time effectively will allow you to achieve things that your peers never could. People who know how to manage their time consequently become better at goal setting, reaching goals that others could only dream of.Furthermore, whether you’re looking to climb the corporate ladder or start your own business, time management is an essential leadership skill. If you can’t manage your time, then there’s no way you’ll be able to manage a team, let alone an entire company. 5. Find Better Focus If you’re reading this site, you likely have lots of great ideas. But the struggle, as you know, is finding the focus to execute all of them. It’s all too easy to bounce from one idea to another, starting many projects but never finishing any.When you learn to manage your time, you can overcome this focus issue. Organizing your time forces you to focus, both on a daily level and from a broader picture. You can decide, for example, that now is not the right time to start a new business; it would be better to focus on growing your existing one. Without proper time management, you’ll never gain the focus necessary to have these insights. 6. Effective Time Management Builds Self-Discipline How many hours per day do you spend wasting time on social media or mindlessly checking your phone? Whatever the amount, you know that there’s a better use of your time than such unproductive, vaguely anxious activities, even if they’re part of your free time. But still, it can be hard to resist the pull of these quick dopamine hits of novelty and distraction. To resist, you need to change your habits and build self-discipline.Time management, it turns out, is an excellent exercise for building self-discipline. When you give your day a definite structure instead of just “planning to get everything done,” you’ll become more disciplined as you stick to the schedule. With time, this extra structure will translate into other areas of your life, building up the self-discipline to resist even the strongest distractions and make better decisions. Get Help Managing Time We hope this article has given you a better understanding of why time management is so important for success in your career and happiness in your life. Yet, this is just the beginning. If you want more time management tips, then check out our articles on how to work effectively and how to use a productivity planner. And for a powerful time management tool, have a look at the Self Journal.
Habits are our Achilles heel. No matter how hard we try and what external changes we make — houses, our sense of style, friendships and more — habits keep following us. It becomes especially difficult when we start allowing these habits to take over our lives. Learning how to break bad habits should be as easy as following a formula. It should be as easy as identifying what we want to stop doing and simply to stop doing it. But that's easier said than done, especially when life gets stressful. In stressful times, that bad habit can become our crutch — something that gives us relief and comfort. It’s okay to leave your dirty clothes all over the floor, but when you have bad habits that stop you from pursuing your goals and being genuinely happy, then it’s time for real change. There are many theories on breaking bad habits, but the following are the three most powerful and effective ways you can do so. Start Small and Replace Bad Habits with Good Ones Leo Babauta, the writer behind Zen Habits, has written extensively on how to go about making a change. Babauta has quit smoking, lost weight and gone from couch potato to exercise lover. He listed several strategies to successfully break bad habits and replace them with new ones. First, start off by identifying the triggers of your bad habits. Maybe you eat junk food whenever you have a big assignment thrown your way. Or you start biting your nails whenever something goes wrong in life. Each one of your bad habits has a trigger. Identify the trigger and you can break the habit. Next, find a healthier good habit to replace the bad habit. Instead of eating junk food to relieve the stress of a big assignment, go for a run. Instead of nail biting when things are going wrong, reach out to a close friend for support. Babauta encourages us to create reminders so we never forget our goals, and he stresses the importance of positivity when going through this process. Never underestimate the power of an encouraging sticky note on your snack drawer! There are two additional key points that stand out from Babauta’s guide: Start small – If it’s getting off the couch and working out you’re after, start with just one push-up. It sounds like nothing, but it also means you have no excuse for not doing your single push-up of the day. No matter how late or tired you are, one pushup is always doable. Have someone to hold you accountable – Accountability is there to help you keep going when things feel too hard. You only need one person who cares about your well-being to know about your new habit. Have them hold you accountable by pushing you and stopping you from indulging in your bad habit. Treat It Like a Business Plan A well thought out strategy is powerful for any business when you have goals you need to reach. Without a strategy, it will be much too easy to give up when things get difficult or when you don’t know how to proceed next. So if you’ve got a bad habit you’d like to break, make a strategic plan. To start, identify your triggers and list them out. Then, write down a simple way to replace the bad habit. For example, if you’re looking to lose weight, start by cooking a healthy dinner every night. If you’re unsatisfied with your current job and want a different one, email one person a day who may give you a better opportunity. If you want to quit smoking, find someone you can reach out to for support every time you feel a craving for a cigarette. From there, you need a way to track your progress. Use a calendar as a road map. Hang it in a room you go into every day and make an “X” on each day that you go without indulging in your bad habit. You can also carry a notebook with your goals highlighted so that you never forget them. These tools will help you stay focused. Drawing out your goal is even more powerful. Visualize the habit change you want to achieve by creating a vision board. Carry images in your diary, have a vision board in your office or create one online. You can use Pinterest or a specific vision board tool. Get to Know Your Bad Habit Often, our bad habits are a sign of something else. We see people struggling with weight loss because they use eating to cope with stress, anxiety or depression. Others never work towards their career goals because fear holds them back. And often, we don’t even realize that our bad habit is keeping us from realizing our full potential. During his TED Talk, psychiatrist Judson Brewer spoke about how we should look at our bad habits more closely to understand them. When do we most indulge in them? Do we fall into our habits when we are happy or only when we are frustrated or sad? Can we think of a time when we didn’t need this habit to keep going? Through these questions, we can identify the triggers of our habit. More than that, we can dig deeper to understand what’s causing us to use this habit as a crutch. How to Break Bad Habits for Good Failing to achieve your goals because of bad luck or a misguided decision is one thing, but failing to do so because of a bad habit is even more tragic. Bad habits are our guilty pleasures, ones that often cause a great deal of self-loathing. It can feel impossible to ditch our bad habits, but with the right strategies it is possible to kick those old habits and replace them with healthier behaviors.
We have a fear of being still. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that people believe being busy is “a sign of success and hard work.” This is why no driven person would ever dare say that they weren’t doing anything for the afternoon or that they were taking a day off from pursuing career goals. In our society, such actions would be perceived as laziness. This tendency, however, can be harmful for effective goal setting. If your goal is to work constantly in order to seem busy (even if you're not accomplishing any real work), then you risk burning yourself out and failing to accomplish your long-term goals. You need to shift the way you approach your work, focusing instead on the results you generate as opposed to the time you spend. Work Efficiently vs. Work Effectively   The faster you complete your work, the more efficient you are as an employee. Being efficient boosts our pride and looks good in the eyes of those who expect results from us. It isn’t always the best method for achieving our most important work, however. We should instead aim to work effectively, focusing on the level of quality we produce. Effectiveness should be the most important metric we have. We shouldn’t grind out 12 hour days just to ease our conscience; rather, we should strive to maximize our effort and quality, whether it takes an hour or a month to complete a goal. 4 Key Habits to Work More Effectively To improve the effectiveness of your work, you need to work smarter. The following four strategies have helped us shift from an efficiency to an effectiveness mindset in our approach to work. 1. Don't Multitask A study published by David Meyer from the University of Michigan showed that switching between tasks will increase the time it takes to finish the tasks by 25 percent. Neuroscience is clear on the multitasking debate — “we are wired to be mono-taskers.” In going against how you’re wired, you’re only making it harder for yourself to be more creative and better at solving a problem, and you’re taking more time to finish tasks. Rather than multitasking, pace yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. In pacing yourself, you’re less likely to make mistakes, and more likely to produce top-level work. Tip: Meditating every morning for as little as 10 minutes can boost your ability to focus for the rest of the day, helping you resist the temptation to multitask. 2. Prioritize Choosing to pace yourself and not multitask means your anxiety will be tested. To ease this, create the ultimate to-do list. Don’t simply write everything on one list and hope for the best. List your ultimate goals, then break them down into smaller tasks, and prioritize which ones to execute first. Leo Babauta, the man behind Zen Habits, believes in tackling our most important tasks, or MITs, first. Whatever is important to you should be crossed off this task list first, Babauta explains. In doing so, the rest of the day will feel easier to tackle. Here are some tasks you might include on your MIT list: • Writing 1000 words of your book• Creating the first draft of a client project• Making a phone call to a potential investor And here are some tasks that should never be on your MIT list: • Checking emails• Scrolling through social media• Mindless, repetitive busy work More than making the day easier, tackling MITs first helps you work effectively and accomplish your goals in less time. If what you are doing is bringing results, then you have succeeded in being effective. On the other hand, if what you’re doing is not cutting it, then you change your MITs. Tip: Use a journal to jot down your goals and break each one down into steps with deadlines to project a timespan for your goals. 3. Track Progress, Not Time It’s good to remember that no matter how passionate you are about your work, at the end of the day, nothing is as important as the time you spend with the people you love. How many hours you are working in a day is not important. There shouldn’t be pride in saying that you work 15-hour days without knowing when the sun rises and sets. To work effectively doesn’t mean to work long hours and appear busy, it means you see significant results. Effective work happens when your MITs help you produce high quality work. Of course, progress is subjective and it depends on what you’re working on. Whatever your definition of progress is, make sure to track it (and review it on a regular basis) so you’ll know if your work is effective. For example: • Are your social media numbers increasing each week?• Are brands contacting you for representation?• Is the word count of your book increasing each week? Tip: You need to track your progress for best results. Use a wall map and mark down your progress. This way, you'll know if you are moving forward or if your project is at a standstill. 4. Take More Breaks When writing about the importance of working smarter and not harder, Belle Beth Cooper, content crafter at Buffer and co-founder of Exist, mentions a story from one her favorite books: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. The story is about a woodcutter whose saw gets continually blunt with time as he continues to cut trees. Covey writes how the woodcutter would benefit more by taking a break from cutting the trees to sharpen his saw. This metaphor reminds us why breaks are crucial in producing effective work. Research tells us that we need to stop believing we are too busy to take breaks. Just like the woodcutter’s saw, our minds need time to sharpen again so our ideas don’t run dry and our work remains top level. Tip: Take the right breaks. Go somewhere in nature to get away from the rush of the city, push yourself physically so your mind can wander, and don’t hesitate to take a break from technology. Commit to Work Effectively There is no shame in working fewer hours in the day. Life is not a competition of who worked the hardest or the longest. These things are not important in the end. What is important is knowing that you’re achieving the results you were hoping for by ensuring you work effectively.
Do you ever wake up feeling overwhelmed by all the work you have to do? This feeling can be paralyzing and demotivating, causing you to spend an entire day floundering around instead of doing your best work. We recommend using a day planner to keep your to-do list from running rampant in your head. With one of these tools, you can map out your daily to-do list, weekly plans and larger goals with ease. However, the number of day planners on the market can be overwhelming. The 5 Best Day Planner Options To help you spend less time comparing planners and more time accomplishing your goals, here are the five best planners on the market. 1. LifePlanner If you're looking for a whimsical, spiral-bound planner, LifePlanner's collection could be the way to go. Each of their planners features striking decorative covers, monthly planner calendars and lined pages for making notes of important information such as email addresses or phone numbers. You'll also get a pouch to store other pieces of paper and coloring book pages for when you need a break. You can even order planners with custom covers that incorporate your photos. 2. Blue Sky Planner Although Blue Sky's lineup focuses primarily on academic planners for teachers and students, they could still be useful for entrepreneurs who want a basic, larger format weekly/monthly planner. These planners come with protective covers to prevent scratching, inspirational quotes, a storage pocket and a notepad to take separate notes. 3. Franklin Covey Planner The Franklin Covey planners all use a daily planning method inspired by the way Benjamin Franklin planned his days. Hyrum W. Smith first created this method in 1984, and today Franklin Covey uses it to create a variety of planners. They focus on loose-leaf monthly organizer pages that you can pair with their binders or other organizers of your choice. You have full control over the way your planner looks while still taking advantage of the company's special method, which consolidates tasks and appointments into one place while helping you achieve your goals. 4. Gallery Leather Planner Gallery Leather is a leather goods maker based in Bar Harbor, Maine. They offer soft cover leather bound weekly and monthly planners in assorted colors, with an emphasis on leaving enough blank space for you to fill in all of life's details and complexities. If you're looking for a sophisticated, elegant planner, you can't beat these. 5. Self Journal Finally, we have the Self Journal. This is a powerful yet simple day planner to help you structure your day, enjoy life and reach your goals quicker than you thought possible. It's the perfect size to throw in your bag and take wherever you get your best work done. And it uses a science-backed structure in which you set goals on a 13-week timeline, helping you bridge the gap between idea and implementation, building habits that last. Explore Strategic Day Planners and More For more planning and goal setting tools for entrepreneurs, be sure to check out our shop.
The number of productivity apps on the market is overwhelming, but the right tools are essential for doing your best work. To help you identify the ones that are most effective for your process, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 productivity tools that will actually help you get more done, without getting in your way. 10 Productivity Tools That Will Help You Do Your Best Work 1. Calendar As an entrepreneur, you have appointments to keep. Whether those are calls with clients, meetings with potential investors or a weekly team meeting, you need some way to keep track of all your time-bound events. A calendar is the clear tool for the job. But this isn’t 1995 — you now have digital calendars available that sync across your devices and can automatically create events based on emails or tasks in other apps. We aren’t recommending just one calendar app because the best one for you depends on the operating system and devices you use. Here are our top three picks: Google Calendar - If you use a lot of Google apps (especially Gmail), then Google Calendar is the best way to go, since it so easily syncs with all the other Google apps. This is also your best choice if you have an Android phone, as Google Calendar is Android’s default calendar anyway. Apple iCal - If you’re a Mac and/or iPhone user, then iCal may be the right choice. Especially if you have a variety of Apple devices, you’ll appreciate the ease with which iCal syncs across iPad, iPhone, Macbook and iMac. Microsoft Outlook Calendar - If you use other tools in the Microsoft Office suite, then Outlook Calendar can be a good option. It works well with the Outlook email client, in particular. Whatever calendar you choose, make sure to review it at least once a day and keep it up to date. The best calendar is ultimately the one you use. 2. Evernote For taking notes, saving content from the web, and even storing screenshots, Evernote is our top pick. The free version of the software comes with enough storage and functionality for most businesses, though premium versions are available if you require more storage, single logins for larger teams or use of Evernote across more than two devices. Evernote functions around the premise of “notes,” which you can think of like pages in a notebook. These notes then fit into “notebooks” that correspond to broader topics. One of the reasons we love Evernote is how flexible it is. You can use it to take notes and brainstorm projects, or to archive and organize large volumes of external information such as screenshots, web pages and physical documents. There’s also a free mobile app for easy capture of notes on the go (one of our favorite uses is to capture screenshots of notes we’ve made in books). 3. Todoist For time-bound events, your calendar is the ideal tool. But for all the tasks you have to complete that aren’t tied to specific times, you need a to-do list app. Our top recommendation is Todoist. It’s flexible and powerful without being overwhelming. The mobile and web apps function seamlessly, and the free version is enough to do all the task management most entrepreneurs will ever need. Todoist lets you sort your tasks into projects, create recurring tasks, categorize tasks by due date and even set tasks to be due at specific times (though we’d recommend you reserve your calendar for anything tied to a specific time). The app also incorporates gamification, giving you “karma” points for completing tasks. While this isn’t the main reason we’d recommend the app, it is a nice bonus that can be motivating and fun, especially when you’ve used the app for a bit. 4. Asana When it comes to project management, we have two recommendations. First, however, we should clarify why you’d need project management software to begin with. After all, isn’t it enough just to use Todoist and a calendar app? If you’re an absolute solopreneur, coordinating with no other team members, then it’s possible to get by without project management software. Once you begin growing a team or dealing with complex, multi-stage client projects, however, the need for project management software becomes evident, if for no other reason than to serve as an archive of the tasks you’ve done and those that remain. Our first recommendation is Asana. Asana is particularly useful if you're coordinating a large number of team members across a variety of projects. For example, if you’re running a content agency that has several freelance writers, a couple of editors, a promotions manager, a graphic designer, and a project manager holding it all together, Asana will be a lifesaver. You can easily assign tasks to individual team members, set due dates and control who can see which projects. Along the way, you can easily keep track of who has done what, who assigned it and when they completed it. This will save your sanity on a project of any scale. You can even invite clients to join the project so they can see progress in real time. Best of all, you can get most of this functionality for free, with teams of up to 15 people (more than enough for most online entrepreneurs). And there’s also a mobile app that allows you to manage your projects on the go. 5. Trello While Asana is an excellent project management app, Trello is also worth considering. Whereas Asana’s interface and functionality relies primarily on lists and tasks, Trello takes more of a visual approach, as you can see below. This layout is based on the concept of kanban, which roughly translates as “billboard” in Japanese. Originally developed to improve manufacturing processes at Toyota, kanban is now the basis for organizational and personal productivity systems, including Trello. Trello separates projects into “Boards,” which are further subdivided into “Lists.” Each list contains “Cards,” with each card representing a task. You move the cards from left to right based on their status. At its most basic, you separate cards into “To-Do,” “Doing” and “Done,” but Trello allows you to create as many statuses as you like. The potential uses of this system are nearly endless. The editorial calendar above is one possibility, but you can use Trello to manage any kind of project where you need to track the status of different tasks. Like Asana, you can add multiple people to the same board and assign cards to individual team members, even breaking cards down into sub-tasks if you want (in Trello these are called “Checklists”). As far as whether to use Trello or Asana, it’s up to you. One of the biggest weaknesses of Trello in our view is that you can’t easily create recurring workflows or templates. This makes onboarding new team members difficult. Furthermore, Asana has recently introduced their own kanban-style view for tasks, which weakens the case for Trello even further. That being said, we still think Trello is an excellent piece of productivity software and encourage you to try both it and Asana to decide which you prefer. 6. IFTTT As the very premise of this article shows, a modern business workflow depends on a variety of productivity tools. There’s no one tool that can do it all (and you should be skeptical of any that claims otherwise). When you’re using multiple tools, however, you’ll run into situations where you wish you could make two tools work together more seamlessly. For example, let’s take two of the apps we’ve already discussed: Evernote and Todoist. If you want to create an archive of all your completed Todoist tasks in Evernote (for use in a weekly review, perhaps), you’d have to manually copy the tasks from Todoist into Evernote. This would be so time-consuming that you’d never consider doing it. Cases such as this are where IFTTT comes in. IFTTT stands for “If This, Then That,” and it allows you to connect dozens of unrelated apps to each other. How does it do this? The exact technical details get quite complicated, but all you need to know is that you don’t need any technical knowledge to set it up — it’s all quite straightforward. Taking our example above, all you need to do is select the existing “Recipe” and give IFTTT permission to access the relevant apps (you’ll just need to sign in). It’s pretty magical, and, we won’t deny, can be a bit addictive. 7. Slack If you’re using email to communicate with your team, you should really consider Slack instead. It provides a messaging experience more akin to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or other instant messaging services, but in a centralized dashboard that allows you to communicate one-on-one with other team members or with specific segments of your team. Slack also includes features such as @mentions, easy inclusion of media, emojis, file sharing and integration with other apps. For most teams, the free version of Slack is sufficient, though if you want to have extensive archives of your conversations you can consider the paid version. 8. LastPass To use all the productivity tools in this article, you’ll need a username and password. Managing a variety of passwords is confusing and frustrating. You can simplify things through using the same password for everything, but that leaves you vulnerable to hacks if someone gets ahold of your password. This is where LastPass comes in. LastPass allows will remember each of your passwords for you, automatically filling in your login details for apps across the web. All you need to remember is one master password. LastPass can even generate long, complex passwords for you when you sign up for a new app. To top it off, it’s free. 9. Google Docs We couldn’t write a post on productivity apps without mentioning Google Docs. If you do any kind of document creation, Google Docs is the tool for the job. Its collaboration and sharing features make it easy to review and co-create content for your website, blog or internal SOPs. All of this comes with a clean, seamless writing experience that’s much less cluttered than other word processors. Google Docs also automatically saves your work, ensuring you won’t lose all your valuable content if your browser crashes or you lose your internet connection. As with all of Google’s apps, Google Docs is free. 10. Google Drive We’ll close our list of recommended productivity tools with one final Google app. Google Drive provides free file storage and sharing for anything that you need to backup to the cloud. If you use an Android phone, it’s where your pictures are stored (assuming you have backups enabled). It’s also where the content from other Google apps such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides gets saved. You can even use it to back up content from your website through the use of third-party add-ons. It’s not the only online file storage system out there, of course, but if you’re already using other Google services, it’s a logical choice, since anyone with a Google account has Google Drive by default. By default, you get 15 GB of storage, which is more than enough for most people’s needs. If you need further storage, however, Google also offers paid plans. Start Being More Productive Today We hope this round-up of our favorite productivity tools has helped cut through all the noise surrounding productivity (and its associated apps). Ultimately, what matters is that you do the best work you were meant to do. The tools are secondary to this goal — use the ones that help you, and discard all those that do not. So why are you still reading this article? Go do your most important work!