How to More Than Double Your Productivity Within a Week

I’m an internet marketer and freelance software developer who tries hard to run a lean business, keep the profit margins high, and get as much done each day as possible.

I’m able to do this by

1. Not paying for internet at home and using free wifi at coffee shops

Even though cable or DSl internet service at home isn’t all that expensive paired with some of the other things I do it can be super effective.

I learned this from a local successful business developer and accountant that I worked with who personally chooses not to have internet service at home and instead batches his tasks and then runs down to Starbucks once a day to handle his tasks that require internet access.

2. Not maintaining an office

Whether you’re just getting started or already have a successful business having an office these days is a waste of time and resources for most people. Since we’re not architects, real estate brokers, doctors, etc we have no need for an office.

We can write affiliate content from the coffee shop. We can manage our freelancers from our mobile phone. We can check our stats from anywhere. And if you really need an office for a few days a month or just so you can go somewhere, be secluded, and hyper-productive you can use co-working spaces and virtual offices for almost nothing.

3. Not working at home where I’m easily distracted

Working at home pollutes your living environment and often leads to you working longer hours unnecessarily, being easily distracted, and not being able to relax at home when you’re not working.

I have a clear rule of separation of work and home which I don’t violate. If I need to get some client work done I’ll go to the library, the park, or the Starbucks and bang it out. If I do it at home it ends up taking longer and I don’t do as good of a job as when I’m out somewhere.

I love having a special place that I only go to for doing work. This is easily one of the best productivity boosters that I’ve found. Also, if you’re in a relationship it can really impact the quality of it to always be working at home or can even sometimes lead your partner to believe that you’re lazy and don’t have a job even though you work 12-15 hours a day. Leave the house and make them feel like you actually are employed!

4. Limiting the time I have each day to only a few hours (Parkinson’s principle)

I learned about the Parkinson Principle from reading Tim Ferriss’ book “The Four-Hour Workweek.” When we don’t set aggressive deadlines for completing various tasks we tend to not get things done.

Knowing subconsciously that we have two weeks to get an article written for a client usually leads to procrastination or turning the simple task of writing an article into a much larger project in our mind.

Set deadlines for yourself that may seem unrealistic and then get to work. Don’t use future deadlines as an excuse to drag your feet.

5. Using the Pomodoro technique to hyper-focus

The Pomodoro technique is a simple productivity method that uses 25-minute periods of ultra-focused work tracked with a kitchen timer followed by a 5 minute break to force your brain to work more efficiently and for longer periods of time.

Choose a task to work on, set the timer for 25 minutes, work only on that until the timer rings, stop immediately (even if you’re only a few seconds away from finishing it), and then take a five minute break. Do this for three sessions and then take a longer, 15-minute break between that and the next Pomodoro session.

I’ve been using this technique since a partner in one of my ventures turned me onto this as a way to get more done without feeling burnt out. Partner this with the aggressively set personal deadlines for projects and turning off your internet for all tasks that do not absolutely require it and you’ll get at least twice as much work done each day.

6. Using software tools that help me get more done

I use Pomodoro software on my Mac instead of an actual physical kitchen timer. I use another program called “Things” that integrates with the Pomodoro app and lets me keep track of projects, deadlines, and priorities easily and without getting in my way. I use Pandora and my favorite music channels to keep things from getting boring. I use iWork instead of Office because it’s simpler, has less features (which I wouldn’t use anyway).

Software is cheap and if you pick well-designed software that has a shallow learning curve and an intuitive workflow you’ll definitely benefit from it but beware of software that don’t fit with the way you work. Don’t adopt software just because it’s the de facto standard; pick stuff based on what it does, how well it does it, and how easy it is to get up and running with.

7. Focusing on high-leverage tasks and outsourcing the rest (Pareto’s principle)

The Pareto principle is one that we’re all familiar with; the old adage that 20% of what we do produces 80% of our results (or any other variation of this 80/20 ratio).

The trick in applying this is to focus on the 20% of high-leverage tasks that produce the most sales, get the best ROI, get the most done, produce 80% of value with the least effort, etc, and then to outsource the rest of the low-leverage tasks to virtual assistants through platforms like oDesk, Freelancer, and eLance.

8. Turning off my phone and email while I work

This is something that was hard for me to adopt as I’ve built my business on being accessible and quick to respond but have found that while people like this they tend to take advantage of this and cause more headaches than they’re worth.

By inducing artificial barriers to contacting me and then informing them that for all but urgent matters it could take 2-3 days to get a response or will cost them more it makes them think twice before they make a knee-jerk call to me in response to a non-critical matter or concern of theirs.

9. Check email once a day or less

This is an extension of #8. Email is a low-leverage activity most of the time and we can avoid this tremendous time-sink by discouraging people from emailing us, outsourcing the reading and response of emails to our virtual assistant, or if we don’t use a VA by only checking it once a day or less.

Batch your email responses and watch your productivity go through the roof. Periodic interruptions are very difficult to recover from and throughout the period of a full work day can cost us literally hours of productive time.