7 Productivity Habits

To get better results in any area, you have to do things differently, start doing new things, or stop doing certain activities. Productivity can be a happy accident, but you can get better results when you purposely find and use tips that have been prove to get results.

Author James Clear has a quote, “Habits are not a finish line to be crossed, they’re a lifestyle to be lived.”

After awhile, your habits become ingrained in your everyday life. When you think about it, aren't there routines, or habits, that you do every day. For myself, I have a routine that I go through every morning when I get out of bed.

I go through the same steps as I get ready to shut everything down at night before I go to sleep. Routines and habits that become almost automatic. Life would be more difficult if we had to figure things out every day.

Sometimes it helps to evaluate habits to see if there may be a way to improve them, replace them, or add new ones. Sometimes a few simple changes can increase your productivity and your results without spending more time.

Below you’ll find 7 habits or routines that have been used by successful people. They may not work for you, or you may have to adjust them to suit your needs.

At first, any new habit is going to take time and effort to accomplish. It will be uncomfortable at first. Change can be hard, but if you take one or two at a time and try them out for a few days, you may find that they really do help.

1. A Regular Daily Routine

The idea here is to make every day routines follow a pattern. The biggest example is when you get up in the morning. It doesn't really matter what time that is. The idea is to get up at the same time every day.

What this does is make it easy on your body and you sleep. When you get up at the same time every morning, it follows that you will have a regular time when you lay down to sleep.

Same thing with your working hours and your family and recreation time. Work all the time you're at work, and then leave it and do the other things. You want to have a regular routine and a good balance of work and play.

You will be much more productive if you treat yourself well, and a routing can help you to do just that.

2. Do The Difficult Tasks First

I'm a big fan of Brian Tracy. He is an expert in personal development and sales. He says that the best thing you can do to increase your productivity is to do the difficult tasks first. 

Every day when you start your work day, you have a list of tasks that need to be done. If you don't have a list, you still know why you're there and what you need to do.

Your productivity will increase a lot when you get the hard stuff done first. You get the advantage of clearing it off your schedule, so you won't spend time dreading it and putting it off. And you get the satisfaction of getting meaningful work out of the way early in your work day, opening up time to do even more tasks.

3. Daily Exercise

Your health is essential to a successful and fulfilling life. It is so easy to put off exercise until later. Because later never comes, and as the weeks go by, you risk losing your ability to function at your highest level.

Regular exercise will give you more energy for the day. It may not seem like it if you haven't been exercising and end up sore and tired after working out. Start slow, and set up an exercise routine that you can stick with.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that when you were 17 you could run 5 miles, so 20 years later you jump on a treadmill or head out for a 5 mile run. You may be sore later that you end up never doing it again.

And another advantage is that when you exercise and eat right, you will have a clearer mind and will function a lot better. Try it for yourself.

4. Writing Things Down

As you work on projects at work or on a goal, it can be helpful to keep a daily or at least weekly record of what you did. Add any thoughts or observations. You can add other things that happen that aren't directly related.

You can write down birthdays, anniversaries, school events, or any other time of your life that you want to remember.

This record can be helpful in a business sense when you do quarterly or yearly reviews of your department or business. And it can be a pleasant experience to relive some of the nice times as well.

5. A Daily List 

Having a list to work from can boost your productivity. It gives you a plan for the day, and at the end of the day, and at the end of the week, you can look back and see what you've accomplished, and what still needs to be done.

You can create this list at the end of each day, or you could do it over the weekend for the upcoming week. The list will give you direction, and you can easily see if you are getting the tasks done or not. It's easier to be more productive and efficient when you have things written down.

6. Keep At It

Habits take time to establish and get good results from. You have to invest the time and discipline yourself to follow through with the habit for it to get good results.

You won't develop a good habit if you do it twice this week, and once next week, and the week after next you do it 4 days in a row. Be consistent and patient, and you will find out soon enough if a new habit is working or not.

But you'll never know if you don't persist and do it on a regular basis.

7. Plan For The Future

It's a good time to mention my favorite personal development and sales guru Brian Tracy. In his book on goals, he recommends that you have short term goals, medium term goals, and long term goals. 

I'm not going to explain these goals here. Get his book on goals to get that and a lot more. The idea is that nothing gets done without goals. So plan where you want to go in your life.

This can apply to any or all areas of your life. Keeping it to business, you could have a plan for what you want to accomplish in the next week. Write it down and make a plan to get it done.

Same thing for bigger goals that take longer. Plan out a week, then a month, then 3 months ahead, and write down the steps and deadlines that you need to meet to get that goal done.

These 7 productivity tips are here to give you ideas. They aren't new or groundbreaking. You may already know about them and using some of them.

These are here to get you thinking about ways you can increase your productivity and your effectiveness. To make your life a little better. To your success...

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