If you’re feeling a little bit worn down by your daily routine, you’re not alone. Technology and other trends have made it easier for work and other responsibilities to intrude into time that once was solely our own. While you’ll never entirely be free of e-mails from the office, texts from your child’s school, and other modern annoyances, mind mapping tools and other techniques can help you better organize your time and carve out a brief respite for yourself.
Follow these tips to disrupt your daily routine and stay in the productive lane!
Disrupt your daily routine to reach your productivity peak
Start waking up around the same time every day – This way you will obtain total control of your personal and professional hours in a given day. Plus, your body will be ready for all the disrupting routine activities you plan to take on during the day.
Clean your office working space – Having a neat and organized space at home and at work will help you avoid wasting time looking for missing items. Having to tear through your home or office to find keys, papers, or other gear is very frustrating. A clean, organized workspace will lead to a more harmonious life. Plus, it will give you a chance to work distraction free, or save time spent looking for stuff around your desk..
Make tech your friend – Modern technology has made it easy for your work to follow you home, and for decisions and actions that once awaited your leisure to now demand your immediate attention. Tech can help you grab a little time back, too. Use mind mapping software to plan out your day and other activities. Cut down on time spent on bills by using autopay options. Use other software to automate as many routine activities as possible.
Or, if you want to take it one step further you can get a personal planner and start including business or personal activities you plan to take on.
Embrace failure – many people are too afraid of failure, they end up doing the same thing over and over again which is a true killer to productivity. In fact, many startup companies actually embrace the “make more mistakes” culture, allowing employees to learn by doing. Remember “Not making a mistake is a mistake”. If everything you do is perfected it means you have given up on growth and you are staying at the same level.
Take care of your health – Regular exercise and physical activity will boost your energy and ensure you stay in good health. If you don’t feel like you have enough time to get everything done now, consider how stressed you’d feel if you had to handle your daily duties and manage a health condition. By getting healthy now, you can ensure that you continue to operate at your peak, making routine activities much easier. Healthy people are happy people. Happy people are open to life changing activities which improve their life for the better!
Seek out the unknown – our brains are wired to gravitate toward what is known. This actually ends up ruling our lives, as the activities we perform daily become so integrated in our lives that we actually do them without even thinking about it. Nearly half of the daily activities we perform happen in the same time and place. This is the trap you should be trying to avoid.
Get a fresh start – If half of your working day has passed and you still haven’t made any progress it is time to abandon that particular task. Start working on something new; recurring daily activities which do not require too much mental capacity are a great way to stay busy while eliminating task by task.
Skip a Meal – this may seem like a really bad advice, but many surveys show we actually eat more than we’d need while at work. This way you’ll work on your weight while saving time to work on the task which is causing you so many headaches.
Leave the office for a while – Unless you work in Alaska, 8 out of 12 months you will be able to step out and get some vitamin D, or at least some fresh air. Take a short walk around the block and regain some energy for when you get back. Mental blockages are commonly fought by experiencing new.
Take a different route to work – Even going to work can work against you. Driving in the same bus line, seeing the same people at the same place is the butcher of creativity and the imprisoner of your routine.
Perform a random act of kindness – Help a colleague you don’t know personally, smile at people in the hallway, or simply do something kind for your special loved one. How long has it been since you wrote someone a real letter? Random acts of kindness are a great routine disruptor.
Read more – Bring a book with you on the way to work. Read a book before going to sleep instead of watching sitcoms. Reading is very helpful towards thinking out of the box and can immediately transport you in a different world; providing different views and inspiring you to take different actions.
Get out of your routine – Do something—anything—to get out of your daily grind. Take a different route to work, find something new to do on the weekend, or have lunch with someone you don’t often see. By making changes to your routine, you’ll feel less boxed in and more in control of your life.
Eliminate the time wasters – Frequently review your daily activities and discover things that you find wasteful of your time. It could be the 20 minutes you spend on social media, or time spent in line at the bank. Once you’ve found the “time leeches,” work on ways to reduce or eliminate the time spent on these activities. For example, if you find that you spend a lot of time at the post office, consider buying a book of stamps to avoid having to travel there to mail packages.
Set meeting days and non-meeting days – Walking into many meetings a day can prove to be a real time waster and productivity killer. Most daily stand up meetings in many companies take place every day at the same time, which is great for keeping teams updated, but it may actually lead to loss of productivity before the meeting takes place.
Whether it’s scheduling time to work out, prioritizing your daily tasks, or making easy-to-remember lists, mind mapping software can help. With it, you can create visual representations of thoughts and ideas, and easily move and manipulate them as your thought process continues. This flexible, helpful method of organization makes brainstorming, prioritization, and organization much easier, and also helps users retain more information.
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