How to stay productive amidst the busyness…

Everyone is busy and its hard to see the efforts of your busyness when the pressure is on and every day feels exactly like the last (am I right?).

Further, most of us are balancing all sorts of things from our homes and offices. So even if you do get a little break in your workday, you’re probably bouncing between a child’s "urgent" request, or the various instant messages waiting for your immediate answer, or a load of laundry, or taking the dog out, or figuring out when to get food to eat... this list just goes on. Our lives are very different in 2021.

Recognize the need to stay productive amidst the busyness. Here’s my top tips that have served me well:

• Getting caught up on email. Look at only the emails you’re expecting or that require an immediate response. Everything else can wait until you have 30 minutes of downtime.
• Blocking out time. Block out small chunks of time each week which is reserved for thinking and idea creation. You’re unlikely to have fresh, bold and unique ideas when you’re stuck in execution mode.
• What is work? You don’t have to be sitting at your desk to do good work. Take a walk to think through a challenge. Call a colleague while you walk to talk through that challenge. Walk away from your computer to have lunch and check out for 20 minutes; giving your mind a break will make problem solving clearer and less overwhelming.
• When do you work best? There are “morning people”, and then there’s everyone else. (I’m only half joking on this!) Figure out when you work best, what triggers that ideal working mode, and how to sustain that. Everyone works differently and you know better than anyone what works for you.
• Take breaks. When you’re in “crazy busy mode”, taking a break is the last thing on your mind and it feels counterintuitive. Not true. I’ve tried this so many times myself and can confidently say how much calmer and manageable everything seems with a fresh perspective from a break.
• What do you want to produce? At the start of the day or week, note down what you want to have produced by the end of the week. This will help keep you centered and focused when things seem crazy mid-week or when you’re trying to sift through the noise of the busyness that is the Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday of the week.