Productivity is a superpower. To be productive is to focus on what is most important and tune out the noise. It is to purposefully invest our time. And, it is a power that all of us can learn with practice. If you would like to learn how to have a productive day, this is my method.
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The Difference Between Being Busy and Productive
Busyness is having too many things to do. Feeling like you are constantly busy is a red flag that you aren’t setting your priorities and managing your time to put them first.
Productivity is doing the important things consistently and doing them well. It’s accompanied by that empowering feeling of making progress every day towards your most important goals.
The Ingredients of a Productive Day
The key ingredients of productivity are simple:
- Identify your priorities;
- Invest more time and energy in activities that align with your priorities;
- Ruthlessly eliminate activities that don’t align with your priorities
The Daily Wins List
To put these ingredients into practice on a daily basis, I use a daily wins list. This is how it works:
- Write down your 5 most important things to achieve that day;
- Work to complete those tasks as soon as possible in the day;
- When you have completed all five, you’ve won the day;
It’s truly that easy! Over time the habit of completing five important tasks aligned with your priorities every day will accumulate into significant progress.
How to Choose Your 5 Most Important Tasks
It can take a couple of weeks to get a good at choosing your most important tasks. It’s scientifically proven that humans underestimate the amount of work that they can get done in a day.
Your five most important tasks should be:
- Aligned with your goals and values;
- Achievable, aim for tasks that can be completed in 5 – 30 minutes;
- From different areas of your life including career, exercise, wellbeing, family and social;
Does the order matter?
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs it’s best to eat the biggest one first”
-Mark Twain
If there is a task on your daily wins list that you are dreading, that is the task that you should do first. It is the frog. By completing your dreaded task you are starting the day with your biggest win!
Benefits of a Daily Wins List
There are so many benefits of a daily wins list, it will help you to:
- Start the day on a positive and productive note;
- Build the habit of reflecting on your priorities daily;
- Increase your confidence and happiness by consistently achieving small wins;
- Increase your focus and productivity;
- Improve your work life balance;
- Make big progress towards your goals over time;
Free Daily Wins List OneNote Template
To download a copy of my simple Daily Wins OneNote Planner click here!
What is OneNote?
It is a free digital note-taking app created by Microsoft. I love using OneNote to keep my professional and personal life in order and share my templates to help you do the same!
If you’d rather, you can use a physical journal or any other note-taking application.
How to Install The Free OneNote Template
Follow these simple instructions to download and install The Better Grind’s Free Daily Wins OneNote Planner:
- If you don’t have a Microsoft account already sign up here.
- Check your email for the download link.
- Download the ‘The Better Grind Daily Wins OneNote Planner’.
- The download is compressed, un-zip the file, so you have a regular folder.
- In any modern web browser, visit OneNote Notebook Importer.
- Login with your Microsoft account and click ‘Import’.
- Select the ‘The Better Grind Daily Wins OneNote Planner’ folder extracted in Step 4.
- When the upload is completed visit OneDrive and login with your Microsoft account.
- Click ‘Documents’.
- Select ‘The Better Grind Daily Wins OneNote Planner’.
You’ve installed the The Better Grind Daily Wins OneNote Planner!
You can start editing the notebook straight away online. I recommend you click ‘open in app’ to open the notebook in OneNote for Desktop.
How to Download OneNote for Desktop
I really recommend using the template in the desktop version of OneNote. The desktop version runs faster and is generally nicer to use than the online interface:
- You can download the software for free here.
- Visit OneDrive and login with your Microsoft account.
- Click ‘Documents’.
- Select the 2020 The Better Grind Weekly Career Planner.
- Click ‘Open in App’.
The planner will now open in OneNote Desktop.
Did this post help you understand how to have a productive day? Let me know in the comments!
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