My main tip when it comes to productivity is to identify when YOU work best! 💥
Before you start setting up your day a particular way, spend a couple of weeks actively thinking about this as you go about your day/week. Note when you’ve smashed out a productive block of time, and the times you find yourself reaching for your phone for a mindless scroll or working on too many things and not being able to focus and complete any one task.
For me, I balance my productive times with when I can work around family and life. So it's a combination of when I CAN work, and when I actually work BEST.
A Bit About What My Day Looks Like
I’m up at 5am (or 5:30am if I need a sleep in) every weekday. By 5:45am at the latest, I’m at my desk to get some work done before kiddo wakes up. It takes me about 15 minutes to wake up properly and get focused. And if I get 2 hours work done before kiddo wakes up, that’s my most productive time. As my most productive time, this is when I do the tasks that are new to me and take more concentration, or have lots of steps to be done in one go.
On daycare days after drop off, those first 2 hours are my next productive time. This is when I work through my list in order of priority, working on those “big” jobs or urgent things first, before just working through the rest of the list.
Afternoons on daycare days are for the small bits and pieces, socials scheduling, document creation, email management, whatever is left on the list, etc.
On non-daycare days, I only have limited time to work. I’m still up at usual time, but then with kiddo for the day, and I'm working hard on being present with her on my days with her, and not getting caught up on my phone. I then get some time when she sleeps, working through my list like I would after drop off on daycare days, focusing on the things that have a deadline.
In the evenings, I suffer from FOMO with kiddo and daddy playing without me (as well as get regular interruptions and visits to the office anyway), so I focus on urgent things that must be done that day as quickly as possible.
On weekends, I’m focusing on any remaining non-urgent client work that I didn’t get to, to keep it moving along, and focusing on setting up my plan for the week, writing and scheduling socials content, invoicing, etc.
It's taken me a long time to learn this about myself, when I am most productive, and the times I am likely going to be distracted, or those times where I'm at least not going to be as productive and work as efficiently.
When is your most productive time of the day?
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