Some productivity hacks that I use

There are multiple books providing tons of suggestions about how to be effective and efficient. I am not going to repeat them as some of them I find ridiculous. Here, I will just put the stuff that I have tested and worked on me.

1- Day Dreaming
This requires a bit of time to get used to it. I used to do this especially before sleeping. Thinking about all the stuff that I have to do the next day and how I could get them done. Whether I get them done or not is not the idea here, it is the idea of getting my brain wired to start thinking about those tasks in hand and being ready to tackle them later in the day.

This can stress some before sleeping. You know thinking about work and so on. But as I said, don’t focus on solving them. Focus on the idea of having solved them. This exercise can help you to understand what is end goal is so that you are not lost. Keep in mind, if you start from point A and need to get to point B, you can get there in millions of different ways. But if your end point is not clear, does not matter how hard you try, you can never get there.

2- Less decision making during the day

Again, this is a habit that may or may not work for you. Think about how many decisions you have to make during the day. Even the small ones. Each decision you have to make consumes some of your daily production capacity. If you can streamline some of your daily decisions and follow them every day, you will free some resources. Just like wearing the same t-shirt every day, having the same breakfast in the morning, writing small scripts to do stuff for you. Then you will find yourself having more time thinking about more important things. Of course, you can get bored. Just change them when you feel you have the willpower to do so.

3- Define an end goal: Perfect vs. Good

It is easy to find yourself getting dragged into details. Of course, there are times where things have to be perfect. But 99% of the time, it is not necessary. Focus on getting things done, by defining an end goal, as soon as you reach your end goal, if your result works and does not break, well, then move to the next topic. Again, some stuff is more important. So, spend less time on the least important things so that you can get more important things done in a better way.

4- Prioritization / Dependency

Combine points 1 and 4. and think about your task list before you start taking action. Which ones do you think you can do relatively quickly and without depending on others? Get them done first. Notify others that you would need them for certain tasks to get their availability and start working on those when they are available.

5- Reward yourself / Gamify things

Not all tasks are easy: Some are really boring, some are tough to do. If you push yourself to get them done, you will exhaust yourself really quickly. You can apply pomodores here. What I do is, I open a youtube video in the background and while doing my task at hand, I continue hearing. While I am really bored, I take a break and watch the video. But don’t I pay attention? Of course, I do. Again, this is something you will get used to doing overtime. You need to find your own rewarding mode that works for you. For some, it is taking a walk. All in all what I am saying is, don’t strain yourself or you will get burned out easily.

What are your hacks? Please do not hesitate to mention your own methods.