It’s the new year, and I haven’t set a single goal - in writing, anyway. I’m typically already using a five-step plan for the new life I created between Christmas and the new year. (I joke, sort of). This year feels different. It might be the combination of having started a new job last fall that has me in a new rhythm or the fact that I used the word “content” several times to describe how I felt as the new year arrived.

This doesn’t mean I won’t set goals for myself, but the process will look different this year. Regardless of goals, I’ve always been all about efficiency and productivity. I love feeling the accomplishment of completed tasks, finished projects, and overall progress.

The pandemic era has threatened that model for more than 18 months, but there are some best practices I’ve found that still break through the threat of distraction and overwhelm to help me stay on track.

If you’re looking for more productivity and efficiency in your business life, I hope these five strategies will work for you, too.

Outline your ideal workweek

After years of working a 9-5 (or, let’s face it, a 7-7 or 8-6) schedule, my entry into being a “work at home” creative entrepreneur was anything but predictable. I had all the flexibility in the world except for the fact that oh, I had all the flexibility in the world! 

No one was telling me when I needed to have things done - the only deadlines I had were self-imposed. It took almost two years to sort out a schedule that really worked. Finally, I discovered I was much more creative in the afternoons. I wrote better in the mornings. I used the end of the day (after 8 pm) to make a schedule for the following day. 

If you’re a maker or a creative, outlining your ideal workweek is extremely useful. And while it’s nice to have consistency from week to week, every week can look different. This flexibility is important when client projects finish, and you add new projects to your schedule. 

Whether you use an online calendar, your Simplified Planner with paper and pen, or a combination of the two, planning visually how you’ll spend the week helps keep you more organized and figure out what you can fit in or where you need to say no. 

Schedule time for deep work

Even with an ideal workweek schedule, there are distractions everywhere - hone notifications, Slack pings, inbox and calendar alerts, and more. So once you’ve outlined your ideal work week and schedule, it’s time to take it one step further. 

Try to schedule at least 60-90 minutes of completely uninterrupted work time for each workday. This means you’ll turn off all notifications, close all your tabs (yes, all of them), and close your inbox. It sounds simple enough but can be more complicated than you think. 

Use this uninterrupted time to do deep work - the tasks requiring deep concentration and a groove – the technical term for finding a rhythm. Start small if your schedule doesn’t allow a full 90 minutes yet. Then, each week, you can increase the duration until you have an hour or two each day with dedicated time for the most difficult tasks. 

Use batching to improve efficiency

Studies show that every time a task is interrupted, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.

In other words, switching back and forth between tasks drastically reduces your productivity. However, as you routinely perform the same tasks, you can get more done by batching them together, which can help you stay focused.

So, for example, even if you’ve worked with a high-quality web design company, your website requires ongoing maintenance. There is content to update, keywords to refresh, images to swap, and design elements to update. However, if you schedule “website updates” for every month, you’re likely to get distracted the moment you log in, and the updates may never happen.

Instead, batching this process makes it a whole lot easier. 

Schedule one day a month to write new website copy (that you can also repurpose for other uses - see the last tip for more on that!)

Schedule another day to research your keywords, do a competitive SEO analysis, and make a keyword spreadsheet to track them.

Take one day to look for new stock photos, save what you need, optimize them, and name them all.

Then, reserve one last day to pull it all together, logging into your website to update the content you’ve already written, swap out your keywords, upload new photos, etc. 

Lots of tasks can be batched - blog post writing, social media graphic creation and scheduling, and email marketing. It just takes some intention and planning. 

Repurpose your content

Constantly creating enough content to satisfy users, build a steady stream of website traffic, conquer SEO rankings and promote your services is challenging, to say the least. However, you can increase your productivity, maximize your time, and work smarter by repurposing your content.

Repurposing your content doesn’t just look like taking a paragraph of your blog and posting it on social media, though that strategy is viable, too. Repurposing also looks like this:

• Summarizing a blog post and sending a snippet to your email list

• Taking FAQs from your website and posting them individually on your social media platforms in a new format (videos or reels, for instance)

• Create a mini-workshop video as a lead magnet and then use video snippets on your YouTube channel

• Record your workflows doing actual tasks (like those blog post outlines) and share that on your blog as a how-to

You don’t have to take more time to pump out new content consistently. Instead, tie your content together on your different marketing channels by repurposing it.

Set yourself up for success

Typically, my workday needs to end at 3 pm each day to head out for the school pickup line. However, when my day actually ends at 3 pm, it’s never good. That’s because I don’t give myself an off-ramp - a way to close out the day and set myself up for success the following day. 

My off-ramp is a series of tasks at the end of each workday to close out my day and get ready for the next one. So while your off-ramp might look very different from mine, here’s a glimpse into what I do at the end of each day:

• I close out all my browser tabs, making sure to favorite or bookmark I might need later.

• I scan my email one last time, respond to any quick questions, and star the items I need to address the following day.

• I close all my open tasks - documents, previews, files, etc.

• I scan my planner and calendar and list the top three priorities for the following day.

• I tidy my desk, stack up any folders or papers, and create a literal clean slate for the next day.

This process might seem elementary or even a waste of time, but when I sit down at my desk the following morning, I’m always grateful for the prep I did the day before. It takes me about 5-10 minutes most days, so I try to avoid meetings that run right into my off-ramp time. 

If by some chance I am running behind, I’ll pop back into my (home) office and complete the off-ramp list later in the evening. 

What would you add to the list? What tools do you love using to improve productivity? Leave me a note in the comments!

Until next time,

Andrea

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