Saying Goodbye to Busyness

Today’s topic is something that has changed my life for the better! I used to claim that I was busy all the time. However, when I stopped and analyzed how I was spending my time, I realized that the busyness was due to the fact that I had a lot of things on my plate that I simply did not know how to manage efficiently. My busyness was due to a lack of efficiency and productivity in the way that I approached everyday tasks. In today’s post, I am going to share how you can say goodbye to busyness and say hello to productivity. 

Shape Your Day

For me, the first step of saying goodbye to busyness and saying hello to productivity is to shape my day. What this means is that I loosely schedule my day so that I am confident I can accomplish everything that I want and need to within the time that is available. This looks like starting with my morning routine of meditating, reading, journalling, visualization and affirmations. I have chosen to do those things before I do anything else because they motivate me and give me perspective as I begin to go about my day. After that, I get ready and head to work. I usually have set things that I have to do for work, so I schedule the actual tasks by day so I know where and when everything will get done. I give myself focused times to do each task. I have found that when I do not have focused time to do each task, my tasks overwhelm me and I don’t actually get anything done. Making focused chunks of time has made me the most productive that I have ever been. Not only does this help me in my work life, it helps in my personal life as well! 

Limit Your Inbox Time

The next thing that I do to say goodbye to busyness and say hello to productivity is limiting my inbox time. Email can consume so much of your time. I have found that checking my email at specific and pre-planned times has helped me not feel overwhelmed by all the things on my plate. I have even split up the way my email comes to me by using different apps for different accounts. I have my personal email and personal business email in one app and my work email in another app. It has really helped me take charge of my time because I am in control of what content I see and attend to during the work day. I generally check my email for ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the afternoon. Other than that, I do not really check my email. I will check my email in addition to these times if all of my tasks for that day are complete just in case there is something easy that I can action and accomplish with my remaining time. 

Find Valuable Tools

The final thing that has helped me to say goodbye to busyness and hello to productivity is finding tools that are valuable to my life and productivity! In this context the tools that have helped me the most are apps! I love apps. I love testing out different apps to see if they make my life more productive or if they are time consuming. I love finding apps that will minimize and streamline the things that I have to do. Instead of having a bunch of apps that generally do the same thing, I have found that doing an audit of my apps to see which ones will go the distance with me is key for me to tap into true productivity. I have an app for tracking my budget, my business expenses, my diet and exercise, and so much more. The reason I use different apps is so that I can stay focused on my goals and be productive to fulfill those goals! One day I will write a blogpost about helpful apps that I love! Until then, take an audit of the apps that you use and ask yourself: does this app help me go towards my goal in an efficient way or is this app not efficient and a waste of time?

Exchanging busyness for productivity has transformed my life for the better. Finding your way of being productive is key! Quit falling victim to everyone’s else’s expectations for your time and choose to take control of your time through saying goodbye to busyness and hello to productivity! Shape your day, limit your inbox time and find tools that will help you achieve your goals!