Discover 10 solid, practical ways to increase productivity and creative thinking in your life. Wouldn’t it be nice if every day was a highly productive day? Well, there’s an art and a science to it and when you begin to implement these 10 simple things, you’ll find that productivity and creative ideas flow to you naturally more often than not.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

• The counter-intuitive practice that makes you feel like you have more time

• Why multi-tasking is a myth and makes us vastly less productive and creative

• The real reason why morning is the best time to get your most important work done.

How to have a more productive day:

Slow Down
Counter-intuitive when you have a million things to do but the act of slowing down increases your precision and reduces anxiety and will allow you to focus on the task at hand more effectively.

When you’re at work, work
Sam Carpenter who wrote the book ‘Work The System’ says that when you’re at work, focus solely on work; don’t check social media and don’t waste time doing ‘busy work’ that’s unproductive. This not only gives you high productivity in the workplace but also the ability to fully switch off when you leave work, knowing that you did a great job and got much more done than if you’d been in a half-committed state all day.

Take a media break
We live in a world of fast-paced technology, adverts and media messages everywhere that fog and clog our minds and stifle innovative thinking. Take a full media break and unplug from the system at least once a month and you’ll come back more productive and creative.

Check emails twice a day max for a more productive day
Emails are a time-drain and if we’re not careful we can become a slave to the Inbox and other people’s constant demands. By going into your Inbox and replying/filing/deleting emails twice per day at the maximum, it avoids context switching (see below) and allows you to get on with your less urgent but more important tasks the rest of your work day. Even the most email-dependent workers can get get away with doing this as long as you let colleagues and clients know that you’ll answer them at the specific times that you set.

Don’t multi-task, it’s a myth
Copious psychological research shows that we cannot multi task on anything that we are not able to do on autopilot, so of you think you’re adept at answering emails and being on the phone to a client, think again. Instead our brains constantly flit back and forth between the two or more tasks. This is called ‘context-switching’ and creates mental lag time of up to 45 minutes (says Cal Newport in his brilliant book, Deep Work).

Set a social media curfew
I like play a game with myself to see how late in the day I can check my social media so that my mind is free earlier on to get my most important tasks done. This really helps with increasing productivity I find (and the research backs this up too).

Go for walks
there’s really nothing like getting outside in the fresh air and going for a walk to spark new ideas and perspectives and stimulate your brain. You’ll find that the time taken to go for walk more than accounts for itself by making you more focused and productive when you return to your work.

Drink enough water
Drink 2 litres+ per day, You’ve heard this before. If you’re not doing it, start today! There are enough things in our lives to distract us from being productive, don’t fall at the first hurdle by neglecting your brain’s need for fluid.

Do your most important/focused work early on in the day
We have a bank of around 200 decisions that we can make every day before we get ‘decision fatigue’, therefore it;s wise to do your most taxing and important jobs done early on in the day while your fresh. And for goodness sake, don’t check your email or social media first thing, you’ll rob yourself of valuable brain power at your peak time!

Renew your mind with God’s Word
The Bible is God’s inerrant Word to us and the Creator if the Universe knows us better than we know ourselves. Let the Good Book shape your mind and thoughts and ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12:2).

Links & resources mentioned:

• Optimum Health Scorecard
• ‘Deep Work’ – brilliant productivity book by Cal Newport
• ‘Work The System’ – book by Sam Carpenter

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I hope you enjoyed this podcast and blog post – How to Increase Productivity And Creative Thinking. Do leave a comment below with your thoughts and questions.

Catch you next time on Eternal Health,

Laura