3 Ways to Stay Productive When Working For Yourself

This is a collaborated post.

When it comes to working, you want to make sure that you have the best attitude possible – especially if you own your own business. You need to make sure that you are (among other things) resourceful, resilient, and well organized enough to make sure that your productivity levels are through the roof.

Well, that’s the idea, anyway.

In reality, though, productivity ebbs and flows. You will find that some days are naturally harder than others, even if you get everything in your routine right. Some days, you will feel like you are constantly wading through your own mess. Other days, you’ll be multitasking like you have four arms. Either way, your natural productivity will only increase when your body is feeling it, and if it’s not feeling it, then it just won’t happen.

For that reason, here are some things that you can do to help yourself, which, in turn, will also help your levels of productivity.

Ways to Stay Productive

1. Make Sure You Feel Ready

Making sure that you feel ready to work is great for your productivity. Naturally, you might feel a little overwhelmed if you are feeling dirty, your clothes aren’t comfortable, and the temperature of the room isn’t right. If you feel like any of these aren’t to your liking, sort them out before you start work. It will help you concentrate and move forward with work a little easier, which can be a blessing when you already wish it was Friday.

You might feel that you want to get your work over and done with before you look after yourself; so that you can ‘restart’ the day when you don’t particularly feel like working as an act of motivation, but it can be really depressing if you still don’t get it done and you are working until eight o’clock in the evening because you were procrastinating the whole day.

2. Be Aware of Your Physical Health

Being aware of your physical health can be a great way to help your productivity so that you can set the correct routine for the day. If you pull a muscle in your back when you wake up in the morning, you are going to be able to know exactly what you can and cannot do. If you have an ongoing health condition such as cataracts, you can slow down your workday to compensate until you feel the benefits of cataract surgery are worth the procedure – there will be little doubt that your productivity will increase after such a positive step. In short, being aware of your physical health will help you keep to your targets for the day and reduce your levels of frustration.

3. Plan Effectively and Set Goals 

Planning effectively and setting goals can be a great way to help you attempt to stay on track. If you struggle with keeping to a plan and work more spontaneously, it might be a good idea just to be aware of your limits, as mentioned above, and take every day as it comes. No one knows how the day will end when you wake up in the morning, so the best plan might be just to go at your own pace. With that in mind, here are some top tips on how you can be better at setting yourself some goals:

• Start by identifying a long-term goal

This doesn’t have to be anything too far away in the future, but it does need to be a goal that you want to achieve overall. For example, you want to learn a dance, your overall goal is to learn the waltz to a particular piece of music. You want to work with this so you can perform it as your first dance at your wedding with your spouse. You have identified this as your long-term goal.

• Identify a way to break it up into smaller steps

Identifying your goal means that you should now be able to break it down into smaller goals that you can set for weekly targets, or maybe a little longer if the time allows. Continuing with the dancing analogy, you want to be able to learn a small part each week and get it pretty much spot on, so you don’t have to worry about messing up. You can do this by taking your time and keeping your eye on the bigger goal and not having to worry so much about learning it all in one big lump.

• Think about what rewards you want to have

Having a reward structure is one of the best ways that you can make sure that you feel motivated. Yes, the real motivation will be completing your long-term goal, but you need a little incentive to help you along the way to help you feel less demoralized about the situation. Especially if you are stuck in a rut, such as you can’t seem to get a certain step right. Rewarding yourself with cake or an hour on your favorite game might be a good way to help your mind get into action.

• Stay focused

It is always good to have a goal to reach, but staying focused on it is the tricky part. You need to dedicate your time to it and try to hit a daily target. If your target is a time-based goal, you are going to need to stick to it strictly, but if it is a personal goal that you want to achieve at some point, you might feel a little more relaxed towards it.

Wrapping Things Neatly Up

When it comes to staying productive, you need to make sure that you have the best idea possible of what is going on within your body and also what is going on externally. You need to know the limits of your body and what you have planned. Having a routine, so to speak, is something that you should try to execute, one that is flexible enough to work around you – but static enough so that you get done everything you need to.