From "Busy" To "Focused", Here's How!

Attending too many unproductive meetings?

Forever on the phone sapping your precious time and brain power?

Bombarded with emails leaving you little room to get anything done??

Life running a business is "busy". I get it, I'm in the weeds with you.

But what if making a little space, setting intentions and creating distance, could make you more productive, goal-orientated and turn your "busy" into focused?

With a few small hacks and habits applied to both your professional and personal life, I guarantee, you'll feel less "busy" and more productive.

Continue reading if your busy life is no longer serving you and your business!

Phones....

We need to own our phones, not let our phones own us!

Interestingly, productivity has slowed with the introduction of smart phones.

It's recorded, "Gen Z's" spend over 7 hours a day opening their smart phones, and touch their phones over 5000 times a day!!

It's instinctive to react to any notifications or emails that come into our inbox. Every time our phone lights up and makes a sound, we have a dopamine hit, triggering the urge to ingest new information, swipe and tap!

However, there are ways to create buffers to make getting into your phone more difficult! Here's how...

🔕 Turn your notifications off. Set your plane to flight mode overnight and during specific times of the day which you have allocated to being focused on set tasks.

👀 Move apps to a designated folder so you don't see the notifications! Creating a "Social Media" app where you're likely to receive the most notifications is a great place to start.

⏰ Go into your settings and check your screen time. Work on reducing this every day and check it every month!

📱 Log out of certain apps where you receive endless notifications or move these apps to a new "screen" in your phone (i.e. not your home screen).

Meetings...

Work expands to fill the time allocated - Parkinsons Law.

Have you ever questioned the length of time allocated to some meetings? Could regular meetings be reduced, knowing there is a strict structure for what needs to be discussed and actioned?

Here are my tips for being more productive in meetings (or not having so many meetings at all!!).

📆 Shorten your meetings. Regular meetings (i.e. a weekly WIP) could be reduced to 40mins, 30mins or 25mins. You might jump into your discussion topics a lot sooner when you have a small window to be productive! Save your longer meetings for open discussion, brainstorming and challenges etc.

🏃🏼‍♀️ Try not to be late! Everyone's time is valuable. Being late suggests your time is more valuable than others.

💻 If you are attending a Zoom meeting or online call, set a timer to "wrap things up" 10mins before the allocated end time. We enjoy interacting online when we can't physically attend meetings. But don't let peoples faces and general conversation be a distraction. Keep to the time frame allocated.

Emails...

"Of the 70% of phone notifications we receive, a large portion are emails" - Stolen Focus, By Johann Hari.

Too many of us check our emails as soon as we arrive at work. This wouldn't be a problem if most of the emails we received weren't solving others problems before prioritising your own time!

🙅🏼‍♀️ Respond to emails when it suits your schedule, rather than other peoples schedules. Read your emails after attacking your own priorities first!

🔒 Do not have your emails open all the time. Of the 70% of notifications we receive, a large % include emails, so close your laptop or silence these notifications on your phone.

✉️ Shorten your emails! Quite often we don't get the responses we want because we haven't communicated our needs succinctly and precisely.

‼️ Use your subject headings better to ensure your emails are read! Put your question or request in the subject line!