When you set goals, you force yourself to put all your energy into the things that you want to accomplish. These are things that you wouldn’t normally be able to accomplish. This will help you automatically increase productivity. This is one of the many reasons it is essential that you are crystal clear on exactly what you want to achieve. Check out this post for five powerful tips on goal setting.

Your work environment is what sets the stage for your workflow, and ultimately your productivity. If you are self-employed, this means finding a place that allows you to focus without distractions. If you are employed, this involves modifying your desk to make it conducive to increase productivity.

Since there are only 24 hours in a day, it is vital that you put your most important tasks first. If you want to increase productivity and reach your goals, then you must work on the critical tasks first. This means you learn to say no and deprioritize anything that doesn’t get you closer to your goals.

The first thing that you need to do is notice that you are procrastinating and acknowledge it. It is essential that you do this without judging yourself and without getting overly stressed that you don’t have enough time. The next time you notice you’re procrastinating, just say to yourself “procrastinating,” or “moving on.” This allows you to acknowledge your procrastination so you can move on.

The 80/20 rule refers to the idea where 80 percent of your productivity is brought about by 20 percent of your efforts. This means that the remaining 20 percent of the production can only be achieved with 80 percent effort. So, you have to learn to let go of the little details that no one but you notices…The main point is to concentrate your time and energy on producing the 80 percent of everything you do.

When you’re procrastinating, you might use different ways to fill our time or find excuses to not work on the less desirable parts of your goal. To increase productivity, you’ll need to identify what these are for you. Digital distractions are extremely powerful procrastination temptations that we need to try to resist consciously. How often do you get stuck in the social media rabbit hole? Have you downloaded TikTok? To figure out where your time goes, start by writing down exactly where your time goes. From there you can start recognizing your behavior to break your pattern.

Throughout your day, you will most definitely receive a stream of new tasks along with random and miscellaneous tasks. Rather than immediately giving them attention add them to a separate list, like a second notepad, so you can focus on your daily goals. At the end of the day, review the list and allocate accordingly to your schedule so you can clear the list out.

Most procrastinators fare very familiar in the art of fooling themselves when it comes to the passing of time. You might often get to the end of the day and not understand where the day went, you felt busy though nothing important got done…If this is something that happens to you, then you need to shift your relationship with time. You’ll need to become aware of how long each task takes you, rather than making a guess.

When you become aware of what motivates you, you can better connect with that feeling/activity/whatever it is and dramatically increase productivity. Find out what inspires you and determine how you can incorporate these triggers into your daily life to help you reinforce your motivation.

Often, as a procrastinator, you may tend to estimate how long a task will take without factoring in any time for your procrastination. This causes you to take much longer than expected to finish a task. If you know that you tend to procrastinate, factor this into your schedule, so you’re not always falling behind. Another option to try is the Pomodoro Technique, this uses a timer and small increments of time blocks with more breaks throughout your day.

How often do you find that the only time you manage to get around to focusing properly on your tasks is when you have a looming deadline? If you want to improve your focus and increase your productivity in all areas of your life, you might want to start giving yourself more deadlines. The best way to do this is to get in the habit of promising to deliver certain things by a specific time/date. The laundry must be done every week by Sunday or all dishes must be in their place dirty or clean by 7 pm every night.

When you need to increase productivity, YOU are your own worst enemy. According to this post by Brigid Schulte and a study by the University of California Irvine, office workers are interrupted or switch tasks on average of three minutes and five seconds before they become distracted. And it can take 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to where you left off. Costing you up to 6 hours of production a day. Get to know the patterns and plan accordingly for these distractions.

More than half of your distractions are external distractions that come in the form of email, people, phone calls, and chatter from other offices. If you want to stop these external distractions before they start you need to give out the right signals. If you utilize instant messenger, set yourself too busy and wear headphones, even if you aren’t listening to music. Providing subtle queues may seem passive-aggressive, but they will also save you from annoying distractions.

At times, technology may seem like the enemy, though used properly, technology can be your anti-distraction buddy. Start by turning off your email alerts, create an auto-response to text messages, and set your phone to go to voicemail. Block out chunks of time on your calendar as “BUSY,” you will know it as no distraction me time! Unless you are dealing with life and death situations, your family and/or coworkers will be able to manage without you for a few hours.

If you are already overloaded with work and you feel like you never get anything accomplished, then you need to learn to say no to new requests and projects. You can nicely let people know that you would love to help, but your plate is currently full. Do not overload yourself, this does more harm than good in the long run.