The Formula for a Productive Day
We all are intrinsically motivated to make the most effective use of our limited time on earth. Doing more in less time, not letting time pass without doing anything, and being busy with activities that can improve ourselves is among our most important issues. Studies on time management in work environments where productivity and efficiency are most important show that 40% spend all day doing non-productive work. So what makes the remaining 60% more productive? Based on the daily plans and research of the most productive people in the world, this daily program flow and recommendations will help you use your time optimally when you organize it according to your needs.
Start Your Day with a Morning Routine
The morning hours, when our body wakes up with the sunlight and starts the day with the energy it collects during sleep, are the most productive hours of the day. In addition to research, the names included in Laura Vanderkam’s bestselling book “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” also spend their morning hours with any work or activity they make into a routine. Drinking herbal tea, stretching, taking a shower, walking, writing a diary, or cleaning up the accumulated emails… Although what can be done in the morning varies from person to person, the trick is to do the same thing every morning and turn it into a ritual. For example, the morning routine of Elon Musk, one of the names included in Vanderkam’s book, is to read emails that he considers essential with coffee for the first 30 minutes and then take a quick shower and head to the office. Mark Zuckerberg, another successful name known for his productivity, does not like to get up early. Still, when he wakes up, he continues his routine of running, eating breakfast, dressing, and going to work in the same order every day. Arianna Huffington doesn’t use an alarm clock to wake up. She never looks at her phone without meditating, even for a few minutes. Tony Robbins is among the names whose waking hours are uncertain. However, no matter what time he wakes up, the first thing he does when he wakes up jumps into the pool and swim. Jeff Bezos, known as one of the wealthiest people in the world, is among those who listen to his body clock to wake up. After waking up, he has breakfast with his wife every morning and creates his daily schedule.
Wake up Before Anyone Else You Live with at Home
Even if you don’t live with someone, try to wake up a few hours before your working hours when notifications will constantly distract you. During this quiet time without distractions, you can return to your important emails, clean up your emails, have a reading time, write a diary, meditate, or carefully plan the rest of your day.
Start Your Day with Exercise, Meditation, or Healthy Eating
It may sound cliché, but you won’t find the energy you need for the rest of the day by eating unhealthy junk food from your bed. Therefore, try to make at least one of these three that will activate your energy in your morning routine.
Get the Flow of the Day
Studies show that people who set concrete and clear goals in the first hours of the day and continue on this plan all day are 50% more successful in reaching their goals, and they feel that they are in control of their lives 32% more than others.
Review Your Agenda After You Create It
This way, you will have the opportunity to prepare for what you will face during the day, even how much stress you will experience and how rested you will feel. It can also be a great morning routine to review your schedule to see jams and conflicts and avoid stress at the last moment.
Engage in Anything You Love to Do
You are having breakfast, taking your dog for a walk, or taking care of any of your hobbies. One of the best ways to start the day happily in the morning and to raise your mood is to do the things you love.
Start by Focusing on Your Three Important Responsibilities
If you are constantly working on small tasks as you start your day, you may need help finding the opportunity to work on your larger goals during the day. List your three most enormous responsibilities from the previous day or your morning routine. Keep these responsibilities at the top of your to-do list. Plan your entire schedule around these three essential responsibilities, and eliminate any distractions that might hinder these tasks. For example, if you’ve set 9-11 a.m. for your first big task, turn off your phone and all notifications between those hours. Use a noise-cancelling headset if your work environment is unsuitable for working alone. When working on the significant responsibilities of the day, keep your ears on everything and focus on what you’re doing. So how do you decide which of these three big tasks to start with? With the ‘eat the frog’ technique, frequently used in prioritization and discussed in detail in our next article, you can decide which job you should start with. According to this technique, the job you need to begin with is to start with the responsibility that you have to do but that you do not want to do the most. You will feel much more relaxed for the rest of the day when you complete the task you don’t want to do because it forces you or you don’t like it, and your feet go backwards. You can spend the rest of the day much more productive with the momentum of taking off a heavy load and the feeling of accomplishment.
Take a Long Break in the Middle of the Day
One of the things you should not skip while planning your work schedule according to your most productive hours is to plan your breaks effectively. To spend your day more effectively and productively, take a break from work in the middle of the day after you pay your morning productive time working on essential tasks. Taking a break from work doesn’t mean you spend this time doing nothing. For example, Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter and Medium, uses his gaps between the day to exercise and states that he used to exercise in the morning but later moved this routine to his lunch break, so he felt much more energetic for the rest of the day. Alexa Pipia, the founder of Business Insider, is among those who take exercise to her lunch break. You can also use your lunch breaks with routines that give you happiness and energy. For example, you may be interested in the following: Do you allow yourself to rest?
Try to Make Your Phone Calls and Meetings in the Afternoon If Possible
Due to the circadian rhythm, the biological cycle of our body, we can experience a situation called brain fog in the afternoon, when the mind works slower and has difficulty focusing. Instead of forcing yourself to fight it and focus on work, you can renew your mental energy by consuming snacks and sleeping for a short time. In the afternoon, you can review your schedule, write down the work you’ve completed, and evaluate how much progress you’ve made. Doing so will help you gain the motivation you need for the rest of the day. Since your energy will be relatively low in the afternoon, you can dedicate these hours to light-intensity tasks that do not require much mental effort or distract your hand instead of jobs that will force you or require you to be creative. Phone calls and meetings are among the most effective and tireless tasks you can do during these hours.
Try to follow the 52-17 Rule
None of us is robots working to be efficient and constantly produce. However, it is an indisputable fact that we all need frequent breaks during the day to use our capacity effectively, relax, and renew. While there are hundreds of different opinions on how many holidays we should take during the day, a recent study shows that those in the top 10% of the most productive people list ideally follow a routine that includes 52 minutes of work and 17 minutes of rest. Therefore, to feel energized and energized while working, you should take 17-minute rest breaks even if you do not work at full performance for 52 minutes.
Set a Theme for Each Day
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, says he always spares 8 hours daily for both companies. The answer to how he can stay productive by working 16 hours a day is to create a different theme for each day. For example, Dorsey divides Mondays into five themes management meetings, Tuesdays as product development, Wednesdays as marketing and communication, Thursdays as software and partnerships, and Fridays as recruitment and corporate culture. He says it keeps his motivation and energy alive. Similarly, Dorsey uses the weekends for hiking and Sundays for planning the following week. Dorsey says that theming the days makes him more focused; that way, he can distance himself from all distractions.
Try to Minimize Your Decision-Making Time
Have you ever noticed that people like Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, and Steve Jobs wear the same clothes daily? The fact that these people wear the same clothes all the time, of course, is not due to their bad taste in clothing or because they are lazy. The only reason they do this is to conserve their mental energy. The mental energy required to make wise and effective decisions, especially later in the day, is at its lowest level. The way to keep your mental energy alive as much as possible is to spend as little time as possible on simple matters such as choosing clothes or choosing food and to avoid decision fatigue. Productive people try to avoid decision fatigue by automating and streamlining as many non-important decisions as possible. You can achieve this with simple practices such as preparing your clothes for the next day before going to bed, determining your meals from Sunday for all your meals, and adding your meetings to your calendar instead of keeping them in mind.
Group Your Tasks in the To-do List
As you read this article, you may be in the middle of a meeting or dealing with a job. However, scientific research has already proven that the ability to multitask, which was once very popular, is not natural. Research shows that we can’t focus on two different things simultaneously, and we fall into the illusion that we can multitask just because we can quickly move our attention between tasks. It may interest you: ‘Multitasking’ as a myth The results of a University of Michigan study show that our productivity decreases by 40% when we are more than once engaged, that is, when we constantly move our attention between tasks. If you need to focus on more than one task at a time, consider grouping your duties and functions instead of multitasking. Its implementation is as simple as you can imagine: After creating your to-do list, gather similar studies and focus on those tasks for a certain period. For example, you can fill all of your phone calls in a row in an hour or spend an hour in the afternoon just cleaning up and responding to emails you have yet to return.
Spend the Evening Rest
Your body begins to secrete the hormones it needs to rest and regenerate in the evening hours when the daylight disappears. Therefore, no matter how busy you are, relax in the evening. To spend the next day more productive, you need to rest in the evening and allow your body to regenerate. You can fill these off hours with activities that will help you reduce stress, such as meditation, taking care of your hobbies, and watching something. According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective strategies to reduce stress include exercising, reading a book or listening to music, spending time with friends and family, massaging, walking outdoors, meditation, yoga, and hobbies that can help you unleash your creative power.
Things not to do on the list include shopping, smoking and drinking, eating, playing computer games, surfing the Internet, and any activity that requires you to be in front of an artificial screen for more than two hours. The last activity of such a productive day is the most important one: Sleep. It is necessary to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, to fall asleep between 10:30 and 11:00, when the hormone melatonin is secreted, and to complete the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep.
