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You’ve been staring at the same document for hours now and you can’t seem to get anything done. The cursor is blinking, but the words just won’t come. You’ve been trying to focus, but your mind keeps wandering off to that new project you’re starting next week, or that looming deadline at the end of the month.
Sound familiar?
We all know what it’s like to have our productivity derailed by distractions, and by so many different things. But did you ever wonder what’s the *one* thing that’s killing your productivity more than anything else?
It might surprise you to know that it’s not email, social media, or even meetings (though those can certainly be productivity killers). It’s not even your work environment or the tools you’re using.
The number one productivity killer in your business is… brace for it… YOU.
Yes, that’s right. You are the number one productivity killer in your business.
But the good news is this: YOU can also be the number one productivity booster in your business.
How?
I’m glad you asked because, in today’s post, I’m going to share with you five productivity hacks to help you get yourself out of your own way and get more done in less time.
Ready? Read the full transcript below to learn more.
Video Transcription:
Today, I wanna talk about the number one productivity killer in your business. And if you have done just a little bit of self-exploration and looking at your business, you know that you are the number one killer of productivity in your business. Now, this would be quite the quick video and probably just short and doesn’t help you at all.
So how about we actually look at my five hacks on how you can stop being your own productivity killer in your business? I know, I know, I know. I had some fun with that. I just wanted to play around a little bit, but no more too much having fun if you are already working on your business. You know we are the reason for not being productive.
So today, I wanna really dive into my five hacks that help me be more productive, be more efficient in my business and just be better. So let’s dive in.
productivity hack#1: Values Elicitation
Number one. You might not have thought about that yet. Values elicitation, what that means. Values Elicitation is a practice that I learned in NLP that allows me to elicit values.
And I’m not talking about your business value of this is our mission, and this is how we wanna serve our clients. No. The values I’m talking about happening in your unconscious mind. They are not decided. For example, if I look over there, I have my values right over there and they can be listed in different areas of your life, personal life, business, partnership, relationships, all the things. When they’re being elicit, things can come up like safety, security, money, pride, things like that. And after I elicit my client’s values, we now can easily make a decision of does this align with my values? Is this what I want from my business?
And suddenly, this whole shiny object syndrome that makes us busy, but not productive, out the door. Bye-bye. You easily can just be like, oh, there is my values for my business. Cool. Does it align? No. Bye. Not spending any time on that can be that easy.
productivity hack#2: Goals and Focus
Productivity hack number two, goals and focus. And this goes straight up in line with values elicitation.
Once we elicited the values, we align our goals and focus with that. Meaning, what do I want to accomplish in the next quarter in the next six months? In the next year? Does that align with my values? No. That goal goes out the door because it’s just feeding you wanting to be busy, which then also allows us to focus and clean up that ever growing to do list where you know, that task that always falls to the bottom and falls to the bottom.
Take it off the to-do list because it doesn’t align with your values or the goals. Guess how productive you suddenly gonna be, because it’s not like you haven’t taken care of that task. Why is that task still on your list? That voice suddenly is gone because you were able to make an educated decision of, I don’t need to do that.
It doesn’t align with my values. It doesn’t align with my goals. It doesn’t do anything for my business. Bye task, and it just falls off the to-do list.
productivity hack#3: Energy and Time Audit
To really be more productive, now, in my tip number three, energy and time audit. You might have heard about that and I talked about energy audit before and energy management.
What I mean by auditing your time and energy is first of all, where’s your time going? We just talked about that never ending to do list. Where’s that time going? Are you actually being productive and efficient for your business or are you just procrastinating with stuff? So that’s where your time audit comes in.
Where are you spending your time? And where are you potentially wasting your time rather than being productive? Your energy audit is what tasks feed you energy, what drain you of energy, and what’s just kind of neutral. And for my females out there, girls, you also need to look at your energy throughout your cycle.
Because chances are, you’re gonna have a couple of days where your energy is just in general low, and then align your tasks that are focused. And the time you are spending with your energy. And now, suddenly, you are going to be way more productive.
productivity hack#4: Take care of your team first
Productivity hack number four, take care of your team first.
What do I mean by that is when we start to outsource tasks, when we start to work with the team, we are still in this habit of, I need to get my stuff done. I need to get my stuff done. Yeah. But you are not being your most productive self. If your team is waiting to get stuff from you because you are doing your stuff first, and then you end up doing it yourself because the team didn’t have the information they needed.
And you know, you see where this is going. I have made it a habit of giving my team what they need to get their stuff done first. First of all, it means that voice of your VA still needs the staff to finish their job is quiet and doesn’t sidetrack me. I don’t feel bad about being the bottleneck for my team, but it also means more is getting done in the business.
Because not just, I am more productive, my whole team is more productive.
productivity hack#5: Schedule breaks and time off
Productivity hack number five, and this is hitting home. Also with me really hard. Schedule breaks and time off. If you are like me, you are a passionate entrepreneur. You love what you do. You’re like, I don’t need any breaks. I am in the flow.
I am getting stuff done. I’m just eating at my desk. It’s gonna come back to haunt you. Get into the habit of scheduling lunch breaks. Take your lunch away from the computer. What is happening is you are ending up in this spiral of at some point, even hating your business to a certain level because you don’t get to enjoy the things your business allows you to do.
Not only that, your level of efficiency and productivity is going to tank. You need to recharge yourself. You need to step away from everything for that creativity to set in again. To broaden your view, to get new ideas and believe me, when you actually schedule a day off to be completely away from your business, to not open up the laptop, to not check emails, just go to the beach or just crash on the couch and binge watch Netflix for a whole day.
You will be coming back refreshed the next day, excited to get back to work and for us non-recovering workaholics, schedule time to waste is not a waste of time. You need to schedule time for you to just waste it and not feel bad about it. Putting it into your schedule to say, I am wasting time this day.
Meaning, I am literally just doing what I feel like doing. If this is crashing on the couch, if this is going to the beach, if this is taking myself to the movies, it doesn’t matter. Your time is not wasted if you, first of all, schedule it and spend it with yourself. You are not your business, even though you are your business. You need to take care of yourself, too.
Just because you don’t spend your time in your business, doesn’t mean you wasted your time. Recharge your batteries, cancel out your scheduler for that lunch break and take that lunch break. It will help you go over that energy, low lunch thingy and start fresh right after. And now that you are ready to hack your productivity and stop being the bottleneck in your business, I got another video for you that feeds right into this with my how I start my day in ClickUp. There is a specific process and workflow behind it that really allows you to nicely ease into your day. Make sure you don’t miss anything. And don’t have this voice talking to you again. You missed something. You forgot something.
And if you haven’t done so yet, go hit that subscribe button. I would love to see you in the next video.
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