Photo by Avel Chuklanov from Unsplash

Productivity should not be a one-time occasion. It shouldn’t have to feel like a miracle when you get a lot of things done. You shouldn’t choose which days to be productive. You should actualize your goals with discipline and consistency  to be productive every day — that’s the ultimate goal for a successful person. Focus and determination must be running in your blood, fueling your drive to wake up every day with purpose. Your night-time routine should include planning and preparing yourself for tomorrow — another day of hustling and grinding. Successful people don’t see the journey as a long, painstaking process. They see it as momentary battles to be won and conquered one day at a time. In your twenties, it’s imperative to take advantage of your time, energy, and freedom. You can do a million things effectively and efficiently once you invest in these three things. 

 

“Be a goal-driven free spirit. Keep that in mind while you’re young.” 

 

 

5 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO BE THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PERSON YOU KNOW IN YOUR TWENTEIS (THAT WORKS FOR ANYBODY):

 

BE A MASTER OF YOUR TIME  

 

If you want to get more work done with less time used, then prepare for your day. Layout a schedule of objectives to fulfill (may it be daily, weekly, or monthly) to have more control over your time. If you don’t set your mind and body to an organized planning matrix, then you will be one step behind in achieving your dreams and one step towards running out of time. If you don’t plan out your day, then somebody else will use up your time and energy.

You’re opening up the door where all your darkest fears and distractions reside, and it will be like a vicious cycle. And the worst part is, you may never get out. Allocating your tasks into a schedule and following it religiously is a manifestation of your commitment and dedication. If you can’t plan out a day of your life and commit to it, then what makes you think you can prepare yourself for the rest that’s to come? Once your mindset is constantly fed with a clear vision of your goals, then you will more likely get more effective results.

Train your mind to focus on nothing else but actualizing your goals. While others are letting the wind decide where it takes them,  you make your own choices by choosing what to work on, what not to work on, and what to plan. It gets scary when you don’t know how far the lengths are to where you’re headed, but once you decide to cut them to tiny, doable daily objectives, you will realize and prove to yourself that you can conquer anything.

EVALUATE YOUR GOALS 

  

It’s not enough to make a daily schedule and to stick to it. It’s not enough to make a to-do list and let time pass by. The problem with making a to-do list is you’re prone to creating a highly ideal one. Usually, you choose what takes up the least time and ends up postponing the more important and harder ones. That burden is what you carry until you go to sleep, and that’s why you feel like you didn’t get anything done.

You have to analyze the short-term and long-term impact of making a schedule of your goals on the entire outlook of your life. You have to be smart in allocating your time to your goals. Measure the difficulty of every goal and estimate how much time you’re going to need to finish it. When you finally have a gist on time budgeting, then you’ll be able to use up your time more wisely. Sometimes people leave the important bit of all this and that’s doing a task at your optimum level consistently.

Whatever strategy suits you (whether you prioritize the hard tasks than do the easy ones or do the quickest tasks to accomplish so you’ll have more time to dedicate to the time-consuming ones), it’s up to you. What matters is you hold yourself accountable to how you spend your 24 hours every day into a habit that helps you to become more productive. 

 

SAY NO TO TEMPTATION 

 

Learn to protect yourself from distractions and be tough when doing it. Distractions are like parasites that will latch onto you for as long as they could until you shrug them off. Always convince yourself to prioritize your goals rather than giving in (one excuse can turn to ten in a day). Every time you give out excuses and defend them, you’re losing your focus. Every time you postpone a certain task for no compelling reason, you’re giving yourself unnecessary rest that you don’t deserve.

You give yourself room to embrace entitlement once again, the main enemy of them all. Why demand rest when you haven’t done anything today? Laziness can be very powerful, don’t give it power over you and your dreams. Every time you abandon your daily task schedule, you give the opportunity to somebody else. Every time you persuade yourself you need to get some rest (even without doing anything yet), someone out there who dreams the same things as you is working twice as hard.

Instill in your mind a strict boundary between laziness and real rest. If you love yourself and your dreams as much as you say you do, then prove it. You can do so much; your imagination is limitless. However, when we talk about action plans and committed performance, it’s only a matter of time before you give up because you’re not strong enough to deny yourself of temporary pleasure. 

 

SEIZE THE MOMENT 

 

When you’re waiting in line for a take-out order, make a list of the things you’re going to do the next day. When you’re in the hospital waiting for your number to be called, read a book, or finish the project you had to postpone because your dog broke free from his leash. While your baby is asleep, take the time to write a blog post or do an assignment on your phone (and then transfer it to a Word Document afterward.)

While your sister got into the bathroom first (even if that particular hour was listed on your daily schedule), then do another task while waiting. It’s true when they say productivity isn’t merely about doing more things in less time but it’s doing what you can even when situations aren’t perfect. There are so many parts of our day when we stop doing a particular task because it’s not what it says on the schedule or the circumstances aren’t ideal for me to do them. It’s such a waste of time if you don’t know how to improvise and be resourceful. 

 

CHANGE YOUR MINDSET 

 

Often people argue with themselves and say the only reason productive people are the way they are is because they have very few responsibilities in the first place. NO. Productive people have the same, if not, even more, obligations to fulfill in a day but the reason they get more jobs done and make it look so easy is because of the way they think and approach their responsibilities. Quick. Efficient. Smart. They know they only have 24 hours to get something done every day, just like everybody else. So what do they do? They make it count.

Your schedule is there to keep you in control of your time, but during instances when it’s ambushed, your schedule wouldn’t be of any help if you don’t know how to manage your time at all. Don’t wait for the circumstances to be perfect because they’re never going to be right. Do the task even if you’re not sitting on your well-organized desk with hot cocoa near your lampshade. Do what you can even at the worst of situations and someday when the skies are clearer, you can build an empire out of them. 

 

CONCLUSION: 

 

When you want to become the most productive person you know, make a commitment to gradually changing and replacing your bad habits with good ones (since it doesn’t happen overnight). Differentiate which habits are helpful and which are slowing you down. Instead of opening your social media apps the first thing in the morning, fight the urge to pick up the phone and direct that energy to more important and better habits like making your bed. The more you get done today, the more you can finish ahead for tomorrow. Master the art of time, pain, and work management and you will be unstoppable.

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months, and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.”

Alan Armstrong