The #1 Thing I Did to Increase My Productivity
Self-improvement

The #1 Thing I Did to Increase My Productivity

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Now that I’m working from home, I’m responsible for my daily actions. This means if I take a nap or spend an hour on social media, instead of writing like I should, then the only one that’s mad is myself. When I made the decision to leave my job, I had to learn how to increase my productivity.

We are all responsible for how we choose to spend each day. And it SUCKS when we have a long to do list, but barely scratch the surface. However, if we’re being honest, the list wasn’t too long, we just weren’t disciplined. Am I right?

The #1 Thing I Did to Increase My Productivity

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The #1 Thing I Did to Increase My Productivity:

I’ve been doing a lot of research on the 5 second rule and how to win the morning. This has boiled down to me learning different ways to increase my productivity. And it’s surprisingly not that hard!

My phone is my biggest distraction.

If you think about the thing that you use MORE than anything else throughout the day, it’s probably your phone. You check it maybe 50 times a day. And that doesn’t include the hours you spend scrolling through things.

It’s a slight addiction if we’re being honest with ourselves.

I recently got the iPhone X, which is all sleek without any front buttons, but that became a problem. I find myself randomly touching the screen throughout the day to check for notifications. And sometimes the same notice of an email would claim my attention at least 3 times a day! The same notification.

I knew I had to solve this obsession before I could think to increase my productivity. But I didn’t realize how great of an impact it would have.

So I turned off the distraction.

Since all of the pending notifications on my screen were my biggest time waster, I decided to get rid of them. Meaning, I went to settings and simply turned off ALL notifications except for direct contact with humans. I even had Snapchat turned off for awhile, until I realized I was checking my phone more to see if someone had replied to my snap.

Now that I don’t have the little red numbers hovering over my apps, and I don’t have floating screen reminders, I find that I ignore my phone more. Especially when I’m working. My phone can even be sitting next to me, but since it’s not glowing every couple of minutes, I barely notice it.

If you’re obsessed with clearing the red numbers like I was, I recommend trying this. It’s really freeing to know you don’t have to go into your apps multiple times a day.

Then scheduled set times to look at things.

Honestly, my biggest time waster was email. I’d see that little red number pop up about every hour throughout the day and have to clear it. After I read the 4 Hour Work Week (Which I’d highly recommend reading. But note it may make you change your life!) Tim Ferris suggested only checking email 2xs a day.

I know. You might be thinking “I have a very demanding (whatever) and HAVE to check certain things”. If you honestly do, like I need to see the chat for freelancing, then you can keep the notifications. But if it’s something like email, I challenge you to try it and see if you ACTUALLY needed that time.

The rule I find best to follow is, if it’s direct human contact (IE: Facebook messenger, Text, Phone call, etc) then keep a notification. But if it’s not a personal contact, then it can probably wait. Including tags to posts on Facebook, emails that you more than likely won’t read, etc.


If you really want to enjoy your life, you have to be disciplined in your productivity. This is just my tip that I used to increase my productivity. I’d love to hear more from YOU! Anything that worked especially well that you’ve found?

Also, I encourage you to check out the 4 Hour Work Week. Tim Ferriss has some AMAZING tips on general work, life balance.

The #1 Thing I Did to Increase My Productivity

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