20 tips to be Productive

Do you run a business from home? Do you want to be productive?

Your business growing and you now spend a lot of time at home but you need more focus to keep on track with building it. To get in the right mindset to be productive when working from home, there are 20 handy tips here to help you to stay on track:

1. Wake-up earlier - Getting up a decent time in the morning can give you the energy to dive into working and feel more motivated. 2. Turn off the TV - Having a tv on can be a huge distraction and reduce your productivity. 3. Double-check your work - It's so important to check your spelling and punctuation, so that you don’t spend the time going back and correcting your mistakes. Try using www.grammarly.com as a useful tool to help you make mistake free work. 4. Make use of waiting time - You will be surprised but when you have appointments or waiting times for things that time all add up e.g when you’re at the doctors could you be catching up with emails while waiting. Make use of your time. 5. Having a list - Having a to do list gives you a clearer focus of what you need to do and stops you feeling too overwhelmed. Evernote is a great tool that you can use online or add to your phone or computer. Its useful in that you can create lists, tasks and separate note sections to keep you organised. 6. Be decisive - It sounds silly to some people but if you get indecisive about something you can find that your wasting time and energy deciding. So instead, just do it and if it doesn't work then you know and you can move on. 7. Take regular breaks - It’s a good way to recharge your battery and lets you clear your head so you can get focussed again.

8. Run all errands all together - Getting all your errands done in one go is a great way to cut down time on going back and forth. 9. Work for 4 hours a day - Did you know most people are actually only productive for 4 hours a day and makes you more effective in completing your accomplishments.

10. Plan uninterrupted days - Block out time so that you don't get distracted by your phone or other distractions you have going on. 11. Don’t write overly long emails - When it comes to emails they can be very time consuming so try and limit yourself to 5 sentences if you can so you can save a little time.

12. Turn off all notifications - Those sounds or vibrations from email and other social media channels notifications can be distracting. Turn them off until you have the time to look at them. 13. Keep your workspace organised - Your workplace should be comfortable, free of distractions, and suited to you. So use trays, folders or anything that you like to keep you on track of things. 14. Password manager - It is so much easier to remember all those passwords and saves time and effort in recalling all of them later on. If you have a Google account you can link it to chrome so when you naturally set things up it can save all your passwords in one place. Otherwise this article goes through a choice of 7 password managers and what they can do for you > Read the full article here 15. Plan for interruptions - Make sure that there is some flexibility in your schedule for those extra tasks or errands that you have to do last minute. 16. Use an online calendar - A calendar tool is a great way to keep on top of meetings, daily tasks and to meet deadlines. There are apps out there for your phone and computer such as Google calendar , or an online app like monday.com. If you do find you can't use either of these try a quick search on google for task management tools. 17. Manageable tasks - If you have a big project it can seem like a lot to do, but by breaking it down into smaller and more manageable chunks . 18. Set deadlines - Making sure of all the deadlines you need to meet will keep you focused throughout the day, try adding them to an online calendar or paper planner, which ever way you work best. 19. Expanding your knowledge - You may find you have been doing a task and find it could take longer to do than you expect all the time. A good idea is to look at useful short courses or reading useful articles that can help you find new ways to complete tasks so you can do them faster. 20. Lastly when you’ve reached a goal the best way to keep motivated is through giving yourself a reward. Each time you reach the end of a big project give yourself maybe an hour off to relax or get a cup of coffee somewhere. Overall lose the distractions as much as possible, set up your workspace to help you to be as productive as possible and find ways to make your tasks easier to do through automation or by using useful tools.

Before you know it you will be ticking off tasks off that very long list and your business will boom.