5 Tips for How to Be More Productive in 2022 + Free PDF
Achieve YOUR best life with these 5 tips for how to be more productive in 2022 with a free PDF to boost your productivity today and get more of the best productivity tips for moms.
Life comes at us hard and lately it can feel like you are caught in a hamster wheel and not getting enough done or making progress on the goals that matter to you. Like you, I struggle with “not having enough time” to get everything done on my goals list (the things I want to do) or my master task list (which includes the things I gotta do).
We are going to get off the hamster wheel today and we are going to focus on how to be more productive and intentional with your time.
We know that time is money, right?
Well, budgeting our money and making sure every dollar has a purpose has made me very intentional with our spending. If the purchase doesn’t help us fulfill a need or a financial goal, then we don’t spend it. It’s a waste of money and precious space in our home or minds. Simple. Done. I don’t have to think twice about it.
I realize that we need to think of time the same way. Time is a precious resource. Time shouldn’t be something you’re constantly chasing, but as something where every minute or block of time has a purpose and should be spent doing something we need or that moves us closer to our goals.
As Harvey MacKay says, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”
But, Michael Altshuler says…“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
Ready to be the pilot? Let’s go!
I think there are 5 keys to be more productive and intentional with our time.
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5 Tips on How to Be More Productive in 2022
How to be More Productive in 2022 Tip 1: Set clear and achievable goals
I love setting meaningful goals, goals that fire me up. Goals that transform my life. Goals that inspire and encourage others. Goals that make a difference.
Goalsetting can be as simple or as complex as you make it. To make a quick goal this week, you can ask yourself, “what’s one thing that will make my life better this week”? Go do that. To set a goal that will have a lasting impact on your year, ask yourself “what’s one thing that will make a difference in our life this year?” and it will prompt you to set a bigger more impactful goal that can help you achieve your best life.
Knowing what’s important to you, why and what the end result of that goal looks and feels like is the key to driving how you choose to spend your time. Goalsetting helps you identify and live out your priorities, and overcome your obstacles. Breaking your goals down into bite-sized pieces will allow you to take intentional focused action. Tracking your progress and rewarding yourself for completing goals will also help keep you motivated to focus and finish the goals you set.
How to be More Productive in 2022 Tip 2: Get everything off your mind
The biggest thing standing in the way of my productivity is me and my racing thoughts and I have a feeling you might be the same way. As David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, says,“your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”
Call it a mindsweep, a brain dump, whatever you like. But get your ideas out of your head and into a master task list. I like to sort my master task list by categories so they are easier to find when I am ready to work. My categories are sorted by how long or what resources I need to accomplish something:
- quick and easy wins (ex. phone calls, texts, emails)
- mental clarity needed (ex. finances, blogging, Etsy)
- physical energy needed (ex. cleaning, decluttering, errands)
- personal assistance needed (ex. I need someone else’s help or to do it with…like take kids clothes shopping, or talk with hubby about next home project to tackle)
You can take it one step further and write how long you think the tasks will take you next to it. That way when you have a free block of time whether it’s 5 minutes in the carpool line picking up your kids or 2 hours, you know exactly the next best thing that you can focus your time and energy on.
How to be More Productive in 2022 Tip 3: Block, plan and track your time
Time blocking is a valuable exercise where you assign your tasks to certain blocks of time in your day. I like to think of time blocking as how I budget my time. Whether you time block your week all at once or at the start of the day like I do, time blocking is budgeting how you will spend your time.
When you subscribe to my weekly newsletter, you can download my free time blocker and 40 other free printables in the Exclusive Subscriber Library to get you started.
Be intentional with your time. Be ruthless with your time. Be protective of your time. Be present with your time. Be focused with your time. Use your time for the things that serve you and your family well.
Use your weekly or daily planner to keep your time budget on track and figure out how to be intentional with the time you have for that day given the things you need to get done.
This is the quickest way to boost your productivity TODAY >> Use a weekly time tracker to record how your time is actually spent. When you wonder, where did my time go? Your weekly time tracker will tell you exactly where. It will help you in the future to know how long something realistically takes you so you can budget your time accordingly. I think it’s easy to underestimate how long things take and then we get stressed out when it takes longer than we want it to or we’ve given it time for. When you subscribe to my weekly newsletter you can download your free time tracker and 39 other free printables and planners in my Exclusive Subscriber Library for even more planning, productivity and life management tips.
How to be More Productive in 2022 Tip 4: Cultivate habits to promote productivity
Habits and creating routines are essential for putting things on autopilot. Doesn’t it feel great when something runs smoothly? Cultivating habits that can help you be productive and start/end your workday in a calming way can really boost that productivity and get you motivated to stay focused. Whether your workday is an outside the home job, a work from home job, or a stay at home job taking care of your family and all the things, we all have work we need to get done and should be efficient as possible with that workday time.
To have a productive day and a clear mind, as a SAHM and WAHM on this blog and Etsy shop, I need my kitchen and living room clear and decluttered so I can focus on my work. So here’s what my workday startup routine looks like:
- coffee
- breakfast and take meds
- empty dishwasher
- load dishwasher
- clean kitchen counters
- clean off kitchen table
- tidy living room
- journal
- plan day
That simple routine sets me for having my best day possible. What do you need to have a smooth and productive day? What makes you feel the most productive? Start your day with a few simple things so you get in a positive mindset to get things done so you can have more fun.
How to be More Productive in 2022 Tip 5: Reflect and journal to document lessons learned and ideas to make things better
We can keep going on autopilot, but sometimes that can lead to burnout. I’m not suggesting you work, work, work until you crash into bed. I’m suggesting being fully intentional with your time so you have productive, rewarding and fulfilling days.
Start your day vision journaling about what you’d like to accomplish that day. How would your day go if it went smoothly? What does your ideal today look and feel like?
Similarly, take a few minutes at the end of the day to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how to make things better. I like to do these kind of reflection exercises at the end of the day, at the end of the week and the end of the month. It really helps me think of new ideas to try and be more efficient and intentional with my time so I can crush my goals. And we have been crushing some big ones we didn’t think possible!
This might sound like a lot but they are the 5 keys I’ve been using to be more productive and intentional with my precious time and I hope they help you too.
Get the Simple Productivity Printable Planner
If you need more assistance in working through these tips, then you’ll love the Simple Productivity Planner Printable with 50 pages of worksheets I created to guide you through each of these 5 tips.
You can see what each page of the Simple Productivity Printable Planner includes over in my Etsy shop and it’s at a super low price for a limited time because my priority is not to become a gazillionaire selling printables. I love to create planners and my priority and the thing that fires me up most is helping you live your best life. And I think this Simple Productivity Planner can help you be intentional with your time so you can achieve your goals. I hope you’ll stop by and check it out. I appreciate your support and would love to hear what else you’d like me to create for the shop that will make a difference in your life.
These are fabulous tips. Thank you so much for sharing with us at Encouraging Hearts and Home. Pinned.
Thanks for pinning and stopping by Joanne!