how to be more productive | List Producer

4 Ways To Free Up 1 Hour of Your Day

February 1, 2016/0 Comments/in Apps, Benefits of List Making, Increase Productivity, List Making, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Do you wish you had an extra hour in your day? Some time to finally get to all those things at the bottom of your to-do list or start working on that personal project?

There’s no need to wish for longer days, instead you can just make better use of the time you have.

The first thing you need to do is stop making excuses. It’s easy to put something off, claiming you’re too busy to get around to it. If you feel that way it’s probably because you aren’t using your time efficiently.

I recently wrote a blog post on how being aware of how much time you spend on various tasks can help increase your efficiency. I like to use RescueTime.com as it tracks how much time I spend on websites and applications. This helps me to pin point my biggest ‘time-wasters’ which I can then cut down on, or eliminate completely in future. Read more

Get a Stopwatch — You Need It!

January 11, 2016/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Increase Productivity, Saving Time, Technology, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

The most common excuse for not being more productive is saying that you have too much going on.

“I’m too busy.” — you often say.

Am I right?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret — no you aren’t!

The thing with productivity is that it’s not how much you do, but how you do it. Do you get the most out of the time you have? Or are you so busy because you fill your day with stuff you don’t really need to be doing. That’s precious time you could be wasting!

The easiest way to find out is to track your time.

When I started making a note of how I spent my day I had a few surprises. For example, that thing I thought took only five minutes, actually took way longer than that. It’s never just five minutes in the end.

There are a few apps and techniques to help you track your time. You can find them in the Entrepreneur.com article I wrote on time management.

Also if you want to know more about tracking your time, my friend and fellow author Laura Vanderkam is giving away her time tracking guide for free! Laura’s written several books including What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time. If anyone knows how to manage time it’s her!

Why Being Nosy Makes You Unproductive

November 30, 2015/0 Comments/in Increase Productivity, People, Saving Time/by Paula Rizzo

I’m a naturally curious person. You might call it nosy, but I don’t see it that way.

I’m just interested in what’s going on around me. It’s why I love people watching so much and it’s also probably the reason why I went into journalism.

The problem is sometimes this curiosity can be a hinderance. When you want to be in the know about everything… well it’s a lot of research. Sometimes I get so wrapped in things I don’t even care about, because I’m interested to see if it might lead somewhere good.

So I’m taking a stand and trying to cut these nosy time wasters out of my life. Check out my list – maybe you are guilty of dilly dallying with these tasks too: Read more

Tested Strategies to Get More Done

November 18, 2015/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Boost Memory, Decision Making, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I don’t have ADHD or ADD, but I know a lot about it. That’s because I cover health news for a living. Although having this blog has taught me a lot about it too. Turns out a lot of the tips that I’ve given through the years are particularly useful to people with ADHD and other attention issues and they’ve reached out to me about it. It’s true — I struggle with distractions too and have systems to cope.

Recently I listened to Peter Shankman’s webinar on how to be productive when you have ADD. If you don’t know of him, Shankman is a public relations and marketing expert who has written three books including “Nice Companies Finish First: Why Cutthroat Management Is Over–and Collaboration Is In.” He also created HARO (Help a Reporter Out) which is a journalism tool I use daily. And he also has ADHD and travels all over the world regularly. So there are a lot of amazing sights that catch his eye throughout the day! Read more

Things You Always Do To Have a More Productive Day

October 14, 2015/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Happiness, Increase Productivity, Tea, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I’m a procrastinator by heart, so in order to make sure I get everything done I force myself into a routine. I like to always wake up at the same time and stand at the best part of the station platform for getting on the train quickly. All these little things help to make me my day more productive.

Yes – getting to know where the doors are going to stop on the platform only saves me one minute or so everyday. But it makes me feel like my commute is going faster. Which puts me in a good mood and helps to kick start my day.

Here are some other little ways you can ensure you’ll have a productive day:

Make Your Bed – I know, I know I sound like your Mom. But taking a few minutes in the morning to make your bed look nice doesn’t just give you that feel good – post clean up feeling. It gives you something to look forward to coming home to! Read more

Tag Archive for: how to be more productive