6 Productivity Stoppers

Clear these barriers away from the path to getting your work done!

1. Notifications on devices: The constant ping of social media is a “squirrel” that is easy to chase–to see who has commented or what update you might have just missed. Shut them off to maintain your focus and finish what you start.
2. Clutter: Having a disorganized work space causes unnecessary chaos that makes it more difficult to concentrate. It’s as if the random paperwork is yelling at you to deal with it. Take some time to sort/file and get your desk in order, for greater peace of mind.
3. People interruptions: Some folks aren’t sensitive to an achiever’s valuable time, and as such unnecessarily gobble it up with trivial conversations or ones best addressed through email or scheduled one-to-one’s. Close your door for chunks of time when projects must be accomplished, and use exit strategies to shorten the interruptions in order to get back to work.
4. Internal noise: Negative, defeatist self-talk can slow your progress and lead to procrastination. Shift to an optimistic, hopeful, grateful attitude, which can be the juice that propels you forward on tasks.
5. Roadblocks without solutions: When you don’t know your next step on a project, you can get paralyzed. Take the time to contact subject matter experts (SME’s) who can point you toward a workaround and push through that obstacle.
6. Scattered priorities: When  you have too much on your mind, it can get overwhelming–and not knowing what is most important can either shut you down or cause you to do only what’s urgent. Stop and do a brain dump of all that needs to get done; then rank them by importance to determine where to best utilize your time now.

With proper boundaries and action items to get ahead of these brake-pedal maladies, you will experience blocks of time of intense focus that will build momentum toward getting your to-do list checked off for today–and the future!  If you aren’t a Target Practice subscriber yet, click on it on the home page of www.paulcasey.org and you can get all of Paul’s 33 time management tips for productivity like you’ve never experienced before!