Shownotes:

Productivity is one of the main concerns of people. Some of us may have a problem with focusing because of certain factors such as chatty co-workers, slow network connection or your laggy desktop. But either way, if you really wanted to boost your productivity, there are lots of ways to do that effectively. Have you tried any techniques before? If not, take notes as I will introduce you to strategies that you can use!

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about productivity mix. We all want to be as productive as possible whether we're working for ourselves, working for other people. As introverts, it's even more important because we want to be productive maybe in small bursts so we have longer time to recharge. Today, I want to talk about just the different ways that you can boost your productivity.

Everyone is different. There is no one quick fix or one way to be productive. Everyone is different. Everyone will have their own mix and things of ways that work for them. Some people work on sleep-rated cycles where we get told that our body is in four hour cycles, so people will sleep for four hours and work for four hours and sleep for four hours and then work for four hours. Some people do what's known as a time blocking method where you take your calendar and you block out times, maybe 30 minutes long or an hour long or two hours long for specific types of tasks, be it create tasks, admin tasks, daily job stuff, food, leisure, etc. Some people will actually block out each hour of their day and this prevents context switching where you're switching from one kind of work to another type of work, so you know that you're just going to focus on this one thing for two or three hours.

Now, the thing is when you are scheduling out blocks of time for this, you need to have a mixture of reactive and nonreactive blocks. So, reactive blocks or proactive blocks are when you focus on things that need to get done and reactive blocks is sort of going through your email and that sort of a thing. So, that's one other thing that you could do. Some people try the most important task method. So, they think about okay, most important three things for me to do today that will earn me money or get me a promotion or whatever your main overall goal is. You think about those three things, put them at the top of your list and they're the first things you're going to work on. Now, this is great if when you start working, that's the best time of day for you but for some people, it's not. So, depending on how you work or depending on when you want to fit in these most important tasks, it's a good method for some people and works in various ways. You need to be very focused, however, and ignore all distractions. That's why some people like to do it first and get everything out of the way and it clears the way for anything else that you might need to do.

Another very popular technique is The Pomodoro. This one, I found, is very used in a lot of co-working and virtual co-working groups. So, you pick a task, set a timer for 25 minutes, work on the task until the timer goes off, take a short break around five minutes and then start again. Do this for three or four cycles and then you would then take a slightly longer break, say 15 to 30 minutes. Now, there's lots of timers online but you can just use your phone. It's a great way of getting things done and you don't realize just how much you get done in that short amount of time. The trick, however, is figuring out which task will take you 25 minutes.

And then there's ... Some people go for 90 minutes focus session where they work really hard for an hour and a half and then rest for 20 minutes instead. It's just a different version of The Pomodoro Technique and you just work and then rest and then work and then rest and work and then rest. Same thing. Another thing that people love to do is a mixture of all of the above or anything else. Like I said, there's no one thing that works. What I've been doing is I've tried some Pomodoro along with some ultra working along with some "These things need doing first" along with some planning and along with some blocking out. It really depends on how your day looks. If you have one day that's just for meetings, for example, that's a great way of blocking out your time. If you just have one day that's for creative work or one day that's your day off in the middle of the week or one day that's for yoga, whatever it might be, having that schedule and knowing in advance that, "Hey, it's Monday, so Monday I do an hour of this and an hour of that" and it is already laid out for you is one less decision you have to make. Decision fatigue is real.

So, think about these different ways that you can be more productive so it reduces the amount of decisions you have to make per day 'cause that's what it really comes down to that people don't talk about. They talk about being more productive and how your brain works and all of that good stuff but the main core issue that you need to solve is how many decisions you need to make per day and how you can reduce that amount to give you more space to be more creative and do all those other things.

Thank you for listening. My name is Janice. Thank you for listening. If you have any questions, please email me at janice@thecareerintrovert.com. Looking forward to helping you in your business or your career in balance with your introversion.