Time Management

10 Productivity Hacks That You Did Not Expect

May 14, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

In order to get more goals accomplished, we need to be productive for as much time as we can. There are many things that prevent us from being productive such as television, surfing the web, and other forms of procrastination. However, there are several productivity hacks that can boost your productivity. While some of these productivity hacks are obvious such as setting goals and fulfilling deadlines, there are other productivity hacks that are not as obvious. These are the 10 productivity hacks that are not as obvious.

Exercise. Exercising has been proven as a great way to boost productivity. Exercising requires determination, and after you are done lifting the weights or running around your neighborhood, you will be able to take that same determination to your work. In addition, exercising allows you to clear the mind and do something that does not require you to sit behind a desk.
Have a chain of accomplishments and keep that chain going. If you want to boost your productivity, get a calendar and put a red “X” on each day that you accomplish your goal. Having this visible chain will make you want to keep that streak going for as long as possible. Once you have a good streak, you will never want that streak to end. In order to keep the streak going, you will have to boost your productivity.
Meditate. Meditating clears the mind and empowers the soul. Once you are finished meditating, you will feel empowered as you continue your work. Instead of stopping and encountering writer’s block, meditation gives you the imagination you need to finish writing blog posts and books.
Uninterrupted work. Social media has a big impact on our productivity. A big mistake people make is to check their social networks while working “for a few minutes.” Those few minutes turn into 30 minutes that you lost. If you are working on a goal, the work you do needs to be uninterrupted. Make sure your phone is out of sight and that you will not do anything else to procrastinate.
Start work earlier and work fewer hours. You do not need to work for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year to get your goals accomplished. The secret is waking up earlier. We are at our peak of productivity when we wake up in the morning. As a result, you will be able to get more done in the morning. Then, you will not have to work as long throughout the day.
Get a second monitor for your computer. A common reason why many people are not productive is because they have too many things up on their computer. If you are one of these people, then you need a second monitor. One monitor can contain all of the clutter while the other monitor only contains your work. If you want to be even more productive, get two monitors.
Don’t think about how much time your goal will take. Many people overthink the situation. I was a big overthinker with my Twitter following. When I was gaining 100 followers every day, I calculated too often how long it would take for me to reach 100,000 followers. Now, I no longer do any of those calculations. In the end, performing a calculation does not get me any closer to my goal. Instead of thinking about how much time your goal will take, start thinking of some ways to make your goal happen faster.
Achieve three goals per day. Three is the magic number. If you are just starting to be more productive, giving yourself 10 goals to accomplish in 1 day will overwhelm you. However, only giving yourself 1 goal will make that day too easy. Three is the magic number that will make your day not too overwhelming but not too easy either.
Declutter your working space. If you are the type of person with a lot of papers on their desk, sticky notes all over the place, plants, and other things on your desk, then you need to clean that desk. Clutter encourages distraction. If you lift your head from your computer screen and stare at the clutter, you will be wasting valuable time. What you need to do is declutter your working space so you are able to be more productive. Another benefit is that by having nothing on your desk, you will pay more attention to the sticky notes that you place on your desk.
Learn to say no. Not everything is worth doing. If you say yes to everything, then some of your time will be wasted on doing things that are not important. Do not be afraid to say no. Saying no will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Those are the 10 productivity hacks. By implementing these tactics, you will be able to increase your productivity. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you use any other productivity hacks? Please share your thoughts and productivity hacks below.

5 Time Management Hacks To Boost Efficiency

May 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

Time Management Tips

Time management is the most important way to get more done. While there are certain ways to get better time management such as setting the goals and giving yourself the deadline, there are certain hacks that can boost your efficiency as well. These are five of them.

Wake up one hour earlier. The earlier you wake up, the more you will be able to focus at the task at hand. When you wake up, you need to start the day off productively by working. Some of the most successful people wake up before 6 am. If you can do that, then that would be great. If you can eventually wake up at 7 am instead of 8 am, then that’s great too.
Be happier. Happiness is the key to success. In fact, happiness is the truth. By being happy, you will have a deeper appreciation for what you are accomplishing. You need to be happy with what you are doing in order to see growth. If you are sad at work and do not look forward to the work you have to do, you need to give yourself new work to do that makes you happy.
Listen to motivational music. There is motivational music that simply makes us want to be productive. I listen to the classic Rocky music before running on the treadmill. In fact, I listen to the Rocky music several times while I run on the treadmill. The music has worked wonders in my ability to run longer distances on the treadmill without feeling too fatigued…or too bored.
Turn essential tasks into habits. In order to become really good at your work, you need to turn the essential tasks into habits. When I had difficulty writing and thinking of my own sentences, I was not a professional writer. Now that I am writing blog posts and books, I have had more practice. I turned an essential task into a habit, and now it is easy for me to write 4,000 words every day during the school year. I anticipate writing over 10,000 words one day in the summer.
Take 30 minute naps. Naps are important to refresh the mind. Studies have shown that the people who sleep for 6.5-7.5 hours every day are the ones who live the longest. No matter how many hours of sleep you get, there will be some moments in the middle of the day when you feel tired. You may feel exhausted because you did a lot of work or just because you are a bit tired. Taking 30 minute naps is a great way to relax and take a break. After the nap, you will be wide awake and ready to go back to your big project.

Those are the five ways to hack time management so you are able to be more efficient with the time what you have. What are your thoughts on the list, and do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and/or tips below.

5 Ways To Get Your Goals Accomplished Faster

May 3, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Goals

The big reason many goals remain unaccomplished is because people do not know how to accomplish them fast enough. Most people go into their goals with no set plan. With this “blindfold mentality,” people do not know how to accomplish their goals. The only reason people remember and still try to accomplish these goals is because they were written on a piece of paper somewhere or just happen to be recalled every once in a while. However, what if there was a way to get your goals accomplished faster? In fact, there’s five ways.

Wake up earlier. Waking up early removes all of the distractions that take place later in the day. The earlier you wake up, less things get in the way of you accomplishing your goals. Waking up early also has several health benefits.
Give yourself the staircase. You cannot get from one floor (where you are now) to the next floor (where the goal is accomplished) without creating the staircase to get you there. If you want to write 7 blog posts every week, you would do 1 blog post every day and add steps to your staircase until you accomplish the goal.
Write your goals on a score card. I wrote a blog post about how my first score card dramatically increased my productivity. Since then, I have been using score cards every week to track my productivity and my ability to accomplish goals within a certain amount of time.
Improve your time management skills. Watching TV is easier than writing. Watching TV does not involve any action on your part, but writing requires thinking and the ability to turn thoughts into sentences. However, writing will help your business more than watching TV will. Many people do not know how to effectively manage their time which is why many hours get gobbled up for unnecessary reasons. These are some tips that will help out with improving your time management.
Never lower the bar. Lowering the bar once results in a temptation to lower the bar even further. Cutting back from 4,000 words every day to 2,000 words every day and remaining that way for several weeks could eventually result in the ability to surpass 1,000 words every day. Lowering the bar lowers hopes, expectations, and dreams.

Those are the five ways to get more done faster. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips that you would like to add? Please share your thoughts and tips below.

Do The Work Right From The Start To Accomplish Goals Within Their Deadlines

April 26, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Last Minute Stress

When we give ourselves a deadline, many people make the mistake of doing the work as the deadline approaches. Some authors give themselves a month to write a book they were supposed to write within a year. As the deadline approaches, we put in more work than we have ever put in before.

Instead of living the crunch time lifestyle as the deadline approaches, why not do the work in the beginning. I was recently listening to one of Seth Godin’s lectures, and he explained what happens when people work in the beginning and when people start working as the deadline gets dangerously close.

The people who work in the beginning are able to get their goals accomplished before the deadline. Working in the beginning and finishing before the deadline will give you the overdelivering effect which is always good to have.

The people who start working towards the deadline create an overwhelming schedule that is virtually impossible to implement unless sacrifices are made for that period of time. Some bloggers who try to write a book sacrifice updating their blog to add content to their books as the deadline approaches.

Working in the beginning will save you a lot of time and stress. Starting to work towards the end will result in deadlines that are not reached. The reason most people do not get their New Year’s resolutions accomplished is because they start working to accomplish their resolutions with 6 weeks to go before the New Year.

There are two choices that you have. You can either start early or rush in a desperate attempt to get some goals accomplished as the deadlines approach. Your best bet is to start early so you aren’t cramming everything in later.

How To Create An Effective Schedule

April 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

One of the best ways to effectively manage your time is by creating a powerful schedule. The ideal schedule is an uncomfortable adventure that results in progress in the right areas while not being a burden at the same time. I enforce a strict schedule on myself every summer that ultimately allows me to get a lot of work done but also gives me some time to kick back and relax. I do not schedule anything just to put more work on the table. Everything has a purpose. Just to give everyone an idea, this will be the typical day for me this summer.

Work out for 4 hours. I want to have a very strong Junior year for my track and cross country teams.
Work on a book for 1-2 hour. I want to finish another book during the summer and have it published before the New Year. This will make sure Lead The Stampede is not my only physical book.
Create videos for 1 hour. I will be launching membership sites and training courses in the near future. Summer is going to kickstart that.
Write blog posts for 1 hour. That’s enough time to write at least 5 blog posts every day.
Write video scripts for 15 minutes. Before I start a video, I need to know what I am going to say. Speaking off the cuff was horrible, and those days are over.
Other business activities for 30 minutes (reading or responding to emails). When they come up, they will get done.

I understand that I will not be able to do this every day in the summer, especially on vacation days. Regardless, my goal is to get as close as possible towards accomplishing all of these goals on my schedule. This 9 hour schedule does create some discomfort, but the discomfort is needed in order to get more accomplished. It still beats the 9 to 5 (no traffic),

The key elements of my schedule is that everything has a purpose, it is not an easy schedule to follow, and it promises big rewards for being implemented. The idea of getting big rewards (for me, that would be a bestselling book, a membership site with the potential of making thousands every month, and getting a lot faster) will allow you to push through the work. By giving yourself high standards, you will be able to get more accomplished. I could easily get by with writing two blog posts every day and not doing anything else. However, I would not be able to unlock my potential by limiting my growth.

You will never know how much you can truly accomplish until you raise your standards.

8 Ways To Increase The Amount Of Time You Have In Your Day

April 6, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

If there was one thing we could all wish for, we would all wish that there were 10 extra hours in the day to get everything done. It seems as if our days are getting increasing busy, and there is less time to complete the tasks at hand. With a big pile of work, many people fear adding on to that workload, even if adding on to the workload means getting more opportunities. However, there are simple ways to hack the workload. In this blog post, I am going to reveal 8 of those methods.

Identify any patterns that take up time. If you are scheduling tweets of your blog posts, chances are you search for the blog post on your blog, paste the link into Bitly, write the tweet on HootSuite, paste the link to your blog post in the tweet, and schedule the tweet. I have all of my tweets in a document on my computer which saves me from the first three steps. Joining HootSuite Pro allowed me to save even more time. It is easy to imagine that I save 4 hours every week.
Choose wisely. Not all work is productive. Walking around your neighborhood with a flyer with a link to your blog is not as effective as becoming a guest blogger for a popular blog. Some opportunities are better than others, and it is important to pounce on the good ones when they come.
Wake up earlier. This is an obvious, but easy way to get some extra time in your day. We are at our peak of productivity in the morning. By waking up at 7 am every day instead of 9 am, you will be able to be productive for an extra 60 hours every month. Imagine the things you will be able to do with 60 extra hours every month.
Upgrade to save time. That’s exactly why I upgraded to HootSuite Pro for $9.99 every month. HootSuite Pro allows me to save a lot of time, and it allows me to organize my tweets and lists very effectively. What can you upgrade to save extra time. If you save an hour a day by spending $30 every month, you would have spent $360 for the year on those services, but you would have gained 365 extra hours. That’s enough hours to write a book, run it through an editor, get it copyrighted, and market it to the masses.
Focus on what you are good at instead of trying to be something else. I decided to give coding a try, but it ended up becoming a very bumpy road. After spending a few weeks trying to learn code, I gave up. Now, I focus on what I am good at: my writing and expertise in social media, business, and blogging. I saved a lot of time by giving up on the coding early on so it would not swallow up any more of my time.
Create rubrics. Imagine writing the same email, word for word, over 100 times, and the only thing different was the person’s name. I encountered this problem immediately when I submitted a query on HARO. Instead of creating custom messages, I created a rubric message for the people whose pitches I liked. Creating the rubric message allowed me to email hundreds of people within a week instead of sending out personalized messages which could take months.
Do something incredibly time-consuming for a week while doing everything else at the same time. I will never forget the working curve it took me to send out replies to the people who sent in pitches to my HARO queries in 1 week. It was a time-consuming process. However, when I was done responding to people’s pitches, I had a big slice of time left. While I was responding to pitches, it would take me entire days to do all of my work. When I responded to everyone’s pitch, I was able to get my work done twice as fast and even able to extend my break by another hour. The reason summer is my most productive season is because I gain 8 extra hours since there isn’t any school.
Hire assistants. Once you start to make it big time, have other people send out the HARO queries, respond to the pitches, and answer emails for you. Hiring assistants will be able to give you more time to produce quality products.

What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any other suggestions? Please share your thoughts and advice below.