6 Tips to Being Productive at Work with Danielle Cobo
Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!
Sometimes one of the biggest challenges we have is creating balance in our lives. When we increase our productivity, it creates more time for us to sit back and enjoy life the way we're supposed to! When we're productive at work, we can go home and be present. Grab a pen and paper and tune into today's episode.
"When you eliminate clutter in your life, you immediately feel a sense of peace" - Danielle Cobo
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Highlights
💫 2:00 Start your day on the right foot
💫 3:06 Do you block schedule?
💫 4:55 Do you unplug from your personal life during work hours?
💫 6:33 Determine the urgency of all of your tasks
💫 7:39 Do you keep your inbox clean?
💫 12:40 A quick recap of the 6 tips to being productive at work
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Six Tips to Increase Productivity in Your Life
Sometimes one of the biggest challenges that we have just in life is creating balance. And sometimes it really starts with increasing our productivity when we are at work. And so if we can create balance in our lives, then we can create joy and happiness in our lives. Because at the end of the day, we spend more time at work than we do at home with our own family. And many of you guys have heard me say that on multiple occasions. And when we get to be present at work and be productive, then when we go home, we get to be present at home.
And so I'm going to be sharing with you six tips to increase productivity while you're at work.
At the beginning of your day, write down three things that you want to accomplish that day.
→ Three things, because when we write them down, it puts the action in place. And here's my recommendation for you. Have you ever heard the phrase eat the frog first?
Eat the frog first.
→ It is choosing the one task you don't want to do. So if one task is doing your expense report, eat that frog, get it out of the way, right from the get-go. Because what happens is, if you wait until the end of the day to do that, you're going to be dreading your day throughout the entire day. So eat that frog first, get it done, and get it out of the way, so that you get to spend the rest of the day working on the tasks that you enjoy doing.
Try block scheduling.
→ So one of the advantages of block scheduling is if you can create time within your calendar, where you get to do certain tasks, then try to block them in similar tasks. Because what happens is, and I'm going to use this as an example. So I create content for LinkedIn every single day, and I post on LinkedIn. And so what I'll do is I will actually have content days. And so what I'll do is I'll block out an entire day. And I write content. And the reason being is because it keeps my mind focused when I'm working on that same task. So were there tasks within your job, where if you get to block out a day or block out certain hours to do that task, you're going to keep your mind in that mindset? So one example might be to block out time for your calendar to check your email. Because what happens is, is if we're constantly checking our email throughout the day, then what happens is it can be a distraction. Our mind is on the tasks that we're doing. But then we're constantly being pulled away to check our email, and then we get distracted by the tasks that are coming up in our email. So block out time throughout your day, maybe it's better to check your email in the morning. So you write down two or three tasks that you need to accomplish that day. Eat that frog first, check your emails, see what's going on that day. Then complete the tasks that you get to during the morning time, block out time within your calendar, and check your email again. And maybe at the end of the day, block scheduling can be very valuable to increasing productivity while you're at work. Keep your mind in that same mindset for certain tasks.
As much as possible, unplug.
→ And what I mean by unplugging is while you're at work, try to unplug yourself from distractions with social media, with your phone, and constantly dealing with text messages. Try to really keep your mind focused on whatever you're doing. And when you unplug, then you really get to be present at work. Now, I also acknowledge, that you may not be able to turn your phone off entirely right because we do have incoming calls for work. And I always keep my phone on for, you know, my family just in case anything were to happen. But try to keep off, try to keep at bay, some of the other distractions that you might have. So some of the steps that I would recommend is to turn off notifications. And this is another tip for productivity. The notifications can sometimes be distractions, because anytime that you're focused on a task, and your mind is taken away by another notification, then that can disrupt your productivity. So I invite you to turn off notifications for Facebook, Instagram, as well as emails, because again, and I've said this earlier, anytime that you're working on a task, and you see that notification pop up and it's an email, it's a distraction; so unplugged from those.
Determine the urgency and the importance of your tasks.
→ So if an email comes through, and it takes less than five minutes to respond, take care of that task right away. Take care of it right away. If it takes longer than five minutes, then determine what's the urgency of that particular email, is it something that you get to respond to right away and maybe put some other things to a different timeframe within your day? Or is it something that you get to then drag that email, so if you're working with Outlook, you can drag that email into your calendar, and schedule time to do that task? So if it takes less than five minutes, do it right away. Because oftentimes, when you touch an email, and you don't do it, and then you go back to that email, and you don't do it, you're actually spending more time constantly touching that email than just taking care of that task right away. If it takes longer than five minutes, drag it to your calendar, and schedule a time for it.
Clean your inbox.
→ Are you one of those people that has 1000 emails in your inbox? I know that you're probably out there. I admit it, I was guilty at this point as well at this challenge. And so I challenge yourself to really clean up your inbox, there is a science around the fact that when you minimize clutter within your life, you actually have a sense of peace, and you get a chance to really increase your productivity because you're not bogged down by all these emails that are glooming over your head. So if you use Outlook, for example, and I'm going to say outlook, because a lot of us use Outlook in the workforce. So if you have Outlook, you can actually set your emails to conversations. So in groups, if you have five emails, and they're all associated with the same conversation, it'll group all those emails together. So that would be the first step. The second step that I would say, is to sort your emails, by who it's from. Okay, when you start your emails by who it is from, then you can kind of go through in groupings, what are some emails that you can just immediately delete? Is it a notification that you have a new credit card transaction? Because if it is, can you group all those emails together, and maybe delete 50 100 emails all at once? That's an option. And so really take into account what are those emails that you can just group altogether. Delete automatically, because when you can delete a grouping of them already, there's science behind the fact that it already feels good to eliminate that clutter in your life. So clean up that inbox. And this third step to cleaning up your inboxes you can actually set rules within Outlook. So if you use Outlook, you can set rules where if you say if I receive an email from this particular person or this particular program, and I'm going to use expenses, for example, because I know a lot of companies use Concur. So if you're using Concur to do your expenses, a lot of times it will create an email that says you have a new credit card transaction. And so what you could do is you can create a rule where either those emails automatically go into a folder that is all your expenses. Or if you're highly organized, you can actually have this automatically go into your deleted folder. And then it's not filling up your inbox. Because when you can create rules, and you can create and minimize these distractions, minimize these kinds of filler emails, then what happens is you're creating a space for the emails that are really important. You're not having to spend your morning going, Okay, I know, delete this one, delete this one, delete this one. If you find yourself constantly deleting emails, then ask yourself, is that an email that you can automatically put into a folder or into your deleted? And I know there are some people out there that get nervous about deleting emails. I get it, we get attached to these emails, we want to be able to reference them as your IT department because a lot of times these emails are actually archived. So you can go into your deleted folder, and you can still search these emails, they're oftentimes not permanently deleted. And sometimes your IT department can set up an archive where these emails automatically go into an archive.
A woman reached out to me and she was feeling stuck in her career. She had been in sales for over 10 years and always exceeded her number. But her vision was to stand up on stage, accept the award as a top performer and enjoy a paid lavish vacation. I believe every woman has the power to achieve their dream goals. With my VIP coaching program and own your career master course, I've been able to partner with amazing clients with actionable steps to achieve their career goals and create the life they desire. Whether your dream is to achieve a new milestone in your current role, or you're ready to step into a new position, I'm here to support you. I've had the honor to earn four back-to-back president's trips and lead a team to number one in the nation, I believe you can do the same. So check out https://www.daniellecobo.com/ and download a list of my simple steps to create a day of intention and schedule your Career Discovery call. Ask yourself, what would it feel like if you had someone to link arms with and support you in achieving your career goals? So here are simple tips to increase productivity during your day.
