E156: 6 Productivity Solutions You Need to Know

Creative productivity solutions to help you create more time for YOU and the things that bring you joy…

[00:28] Welcome back to the Women’s Empowerment Podcast - I really want to take this moment to say thank you so much for listening to this show. I know that there are millions of podcasts out there and the fact that you and I are here together means the world to me. I am so grateful for you listening to the show and for your support with this podcast.

If you’re new to this show, welcome! My name is Valerie and I am a Healthy Habit Mentor and business owner. Each episode of the Women’s Empowerment Podcast is created to help you become the best version of yourself through conversations and mini trainings on health, wealth, and happiness.

For today’s episode, I’m sharing some of my best practices and tips for productivity, but before we dive into the methods I will share with you today, I want to highlight a very important point. The whole point of being more productive is so that you can have more time for yourself, not more time to do more work.

I see this all the time, and I do it myself. I have a really productive day and I finish the tasks that need to be done earlier than I thought, and what do I do with the remaining time? I do more work *facepalm* I’m shaking my head right now. This “free time” is for YOU and the things that bring you joy!

Play in nature, admire your plants, paint, stretch, go to a yoga class, lay on the couch and do nothing, try a new recipe, visit a local store you love, spend time with friends and family, journal, plan your dream vacation, literally anything that brings you joy that isn’t also work or part of your task or to do list.

Now that that is clear and out of the way, let’s discuss productivity. When someone is being productive they are usually creating or producing large amounts of something.

Consider a time where you felt you were being productive. What were you doing? Where were you? Who were you with? The answers to these questions will be very helpful in understanding the best practices for you.

You see, when it comes to productivity there are many different methods and schools of thought. So for today, I want to share with you what has worked best for me in my own experience, and in the experience of the people I have worked with to get the most done, in the least amount of time so that we have more free time to do the things that bring us joy.

If you’ve listened to this show before, or if you’ve ever worked with me you will know that I like to present creative solutions. I’m all about using what we have, or trying things we’ve done before with an innovative twist! So although some of these solutions might not seem entirely new to you, let’s see if we can try them in a way you might not have considered yet.

[3:35] Solution Number One: Optimize Your Environment

I’m sure you would agree that writing a 24 page essay is a lot harder to do laying poolside while your friends splash around than if you were writing it at a desk at the library.

For months I tried to work from my bed or couch with my laptop and it only led to me wasting more time trying to get comfortable, or cleaning up spills from trying to balance smoothies on top of pillows.

Your environment affects your productivity. Consider the task at hand, and the best place for you to be to get it done.

I’m not saying I never work from my bed, but I certainly don’t get as much done there. When describing your own experiences with productivity you might use the phrase “I’m in the zone” and although you might also be referring to your mental state, I would bet that your physical outer environment is also playing a role here.

Sunshine and natural lighting literally LIGHT ME UP! I know that I function best in the morning and early afternoon. Which means I’m going to schedule deep work during these times.

The office space I work in allows beautiful natural light to come in so I also have plants in this room. The life of the plants inspires me to work without being too much of a distraction.

My chair is comfortable, but unlike my bed or the couch, it’s not comfortable enough for me to sleep on.

Here are some tips for optimizing your own environment:

Have a dedicated workspace
Keep the environment neat and tidy
Make sure whatever tools or items you need for work are easily available to you in one place so that you don’t have to search around your home or office for the things you need to get things done
Make the space sacred with a few inspiring pieces like lighting, plants, special photos, crystals, essential oils, etc.
Communicate to your family that while you are in this space you are working and need not be interrupted during that time - sometimes this takes a few reminders

[6:02] Solution Number Two: Use a Visual Planner

Seeing your day, your week, and your month at a glance is incredibly beneficial, especially to anyone with a lot of commitments - that’s everyone right?

Your visual planner can be physical or electronic, however in my experience I will definitely say that the electronic planner is the one I’ve had the most success with. It’s organized and colour-coded, it’s incredibly easy to move meetings or events around, and I like that I can share/invite people to the event and they have all the links, details, and updates they need accessible to them. I would go as far as to say the most successful people I know have a very organized and visual planner.

Your planner should show you the day, week, and month at a glance. With an electronic calendar switching between these views is seamless and I don’t have to transfer information to individual pages.

I also sometimes use a physical planner. I love the creative piece to this with doodling and using different highlighters for colours and what not. I find the physical planner is great for content planning, or goal mapping in your life and business. There is also something really powerful about putting pen to paper and getting both the right and left sides of your brain working at the same time.

However, for the day-to-day… my iCalendar is where it’s at!

Here are a few different ways I use my visual electronic calendar:

Colour-coding: blue is for when I’m teaching at the studio or doing studio work. Green is for errands or appointments like visits to the dentist or when I have to pick up dry cleaning, etc. Yellow is for when I’m working with my coach or when I’m doing courses/personal development. Pink is for my workouts or movement practices, Red is for things I am doing at home, washing my hair, plant care things. Hot pink is for my online business, or when I’m working on my business: i.e. content creation, email marketing, podcasting, meetings, etc.

I can see all the colours at once or I can choose to see only one or two colours and see how that particular schedule is.

The colour-coding keeps me organized, but more importantly it helps me with Time Blocking.

Time blocking is your new favourite time management method. If you aren’t already doing this… please keep listening to this episode! Essentially you are dedicating a certain amount of time to specific work or tasks that need to get done. To make time blocking most effective you will want to block your calendar out in advance so that you know what you’re doing for the day/week ahead.

Start by looking at your to-do list and block out the specific times for your most important tasks. Keep in mind how long you think this task might take you, and also the deadline for the work that needs to get done. With the electronic calendar, you can time block the space and say something like “Studio Admin” and in the notes section of this event include more detail such as: emails, voicemails, new client bookings, appointment confirmations. That way when the time comes to do this specific task, you know where to start and what needs to get done.

Time blocking also helps us avoid multitasking. Which is a huge productivity killer. That being said, when time blocking, including space for breaks or for “catch up time” these are usually Friday mornings for me to wrap up the week before the weekend and get things done that I didn’t get to during the week.

If possible, try batching the same work into the same days so that your schedule becomes more habitual each week. As an example, my podcasting time is monday morning, and studio admin time is monday afternoon. Since my Monday through Thursdays are very busy with back to back work, I keep Thursday afternoons open for extra self-care or time with friends.

When you’re batching work this can also mean:

Writing out a months worth of emails for your email marketing
Planning the week’s worth of content for social media
Organizing or planning out the week’s meals/grocery list
Since we’re approaching the holidays, you could batch shop for your presents one day, and the next day you’re batch wrapping. So that you’re not jumping between shopping/wrapping/etc.

A similar practice to batching is creating a theme for your day.

The theme for the days is the same every week. For me, Sundays are my weekly prep day. That means grocery shopping, meal prepping, schedule/calendar organizing, writing out all of the tasks/to-dos.

If you’re like me and work from a few different places, you can also theme your days with the actual location you are in. For example, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m at the studio in the morning. The studio is in Burlington so on those days I will run any errands in that city vs going “out of my way” on the days when I’m not already there.

Theme days can also look like:

Meeting on Mondays + Wednesdays
Client work on Tuesdays + Thursdays
CEO Day on Fridays

Your themes will be dependent on what your day-to-day work looks like, and what you’ve got going on. Also for theme days, these might change for you and perhaps you have theme weeks? Or theme half days like I do!

Batch tasks that are similar so you take time to get into the flow/focused on this specific thing, or similar in physical location if you need to run errands or take meetings.

Theme days of the week or chunks of your day for certain areas of your life/business.

These help save time, and keep you in the zone to stay focused and on task.

[12:37] Solution Number Three: Less is More

I can’t think of anything more detrimental than a massive overwhelming to do list. I cringe thinking of it. I was definitely the person who wrote out crazy to-do lists with tons of items and things that needed to get done, and then I would spend more time stressing over the list vs actually taking action on anything on the list.

To support you in getting the things done, try this 3-part practice:

Step One: Write out everything you have to do into one big master list

Step Two: Eliminate, delegate, automate.

Go through the list and decide what you can eliminate. Do you actually have to do every single item? What can you remove from the list?

Then go through the list and see what you can delegate? This is a great time to ask for help. Who could do this task, and better yet who could do it better than you?

Lastly, what on the list can you automate? Is there an automated system you can build out in your business to save you time? This could be an autoresponder email, or perhaps your voicemail greeting leaves specific instructions for people calling you. Maybe you subscribe to a weekly grocery delivery or meal prep service.

Step Three: The 3-5 Rule

This is something I created… oh gosh YEARS AGO! You’ve filtered out your massive list with things that only you can do or that have to get done by you.

Now organize each of the things into mini lists of 3 to 5 things you can do each day. Depending on how long the task takes you can choose 1-3 things for the day. These will be like mini to-do lists that you can organize into each day of the week.

Your goal is to complete 3-5 things, and that’s it. This eliminates overwhelm, which frees up time and energy to get more done.

So decide what ONE big task/goal you have for that day, or THREE medium goals, or FIVE smaller attainable goals.

I think where I see this challenge the most is when there are a lot of meetings in a day, and when those meetings are unproductive. Make meetings productive: solve problems in these times. Something I learned a lot in my yoga and pilates business is when creating a class there is a structured opening and closing. In my classes they’re about 5-7 minutes and they are the same for every class. Having this for the meetings can be helpful in the clarity of what you’re working on, the problem that needs solving and closing the meeting with next steps.

[15:43] Solution Number Four: Master Your Transitions

I have a few previous podcast episodes on productivity and one of them is all about mastering transitions.

More Episodes on Productivity:

E07: Mastering Transitions

E115: Mastering Your To Do List

E125: Powerful Productivity Practices

E121: How to Ask Powerful Yes or No Questions to Connect You to Your Intuition

E127: 6 Procrastination Stuck Spots and How to Overcome Them

Transitions are the moments between activities, circumstances, and/or interactions throughout the day. These are especially helpful if you don’t have themed days, or when you need to switch tasks often. Regardless of how your calendar is set up, you will be transitioning often in your day.

Take a look at your calendar now, and see how often the colour-coding changes, or how many tasks and meetings and appointments you have coming up. How do you usually move to the next task?

You might not have even considered it before, and that’s okay. Use these little spaces throughout the day to take a breath, to mindfully shift gears. Any time you’re interacting with a new person or new group of people, you want to reset your energy to that person.

If you are interacting with people often then you’ll want to implement regular breaks to ALLOW the space to reset your energy. This goes for introverts and extroverts too.

I find transitions the most important when you’re going from work to home. If you work from home this transition still applies to you, and maybe even more so. Implementing mindful transitions allows you to separate different activities and interactions and keep you focused on the task and hand and in the present moment.

[17:58] Solution Number Five: Constructive Procrastination

I am what one would call a procrastinator. I actually wrote a speech on procrastination in grade 5, and some of my classmates still bring it up. I am also the kind of person who can’t sit still, is not great at relaxing, and hates being unproductive.

So I’ve started to master the art of constructive procrastination. This is when you avoid the work you “should” be doing and fill the time tackling the list of all the other things that need to get done.

Artful mastery comes when you are procrastinating multiple tasks and you do the things you’ve been avoiding in the past, only to avoid something more immediate. I’ll admit it’s not the BEST practice but it can really work in your favour.

Here are some tips to support this:

Keep your master task list handy for times when you’re avoiding work or certain projects
Set a timer or boundary for how long you can procrastinate for - sounds oxymoronic but if you can do 3 little things or work on something else for 1 hour THEN you can dive right into the thing you’ve been avoiding
Complete the tasks that might help you get the avoiding task done. For example, if the project for work is organizing a massive event, consider what needs to get done before the project can start. Perhaps you haven’t started because you’re waiting for venue details, etc.
Alternatively, do something COMPLETELY unrelated to the task, like reorganizing your kitchen cupboards or finish folding the laundry to get your mind off the task so when you get back to work you can begin with a fresh mind (and a clean house)
Work in short bursts checking off the boxes for the small tasks to build confidence and momentul and create space so you can do the heavy tasks

In all honesty this isn’t my favourite solution or meant to be “ongoing” just for when we’re struggling with the other solutions.

[20:32] Solution Number Six: Realign Your Boundaries

One of the reasons why we might be overwhelmed is because we’ve said “yes” to more work that we can realistically take on. The work might have also not been something we wanted to do in the first place. Make sure that you aren’t saying “yes” when you really mean “no” - you are not only doing yourself a disservice, but you are also going to waste a lot of time complaining or avoiding the tasks that you didn't want to do in the first place.

Creating boundaries for when you’ll be at work really gets you to focus when you’re in those boundary times. Such as checking emails twice a day, blocking off creative/creation hours in the morning if that works best for you. Scheduling in breaks - and actually taking them… unlike if you were to eat lunch WHILE working. Separate these things.

This could mean closing emails while you’re in creation mode or in meetings. Turning off notifications or devices when work hours are off. I keep my phone on airplane mode when I’m sleeping. I am of help to no one when I am asleep, and I am also unhelpful when I haven’t had a good night's rest.

Another boundary could be that you wait to respond to a request to take on a new task. Reply with a “let me get back to you” and decide once you’ve been able to genuinely digest the information and feel if it’s appropriate for you to take on at this time.

I will say, “thank you so much for thinking of me, this sounds like an amazing opportunity, however I would be doing a disservice to myself if I added something else to my plate right now.” Followed by a time when they could follow up with me again, or a referral to someone else who could be more supportive. More often than not, this response is well received and the response will be something along the lines of “thank you for your honesty and I really respect how you are honouring what you need right now, this is a very helpful reminder, I understand.”

Even for myself I would much rather someone communicate with me that this isn’t the right fit rather than making themselves do something they don’t want to do and then the effort is also not fully there - anyway I digress.

Well there you have it! 6 Productivity Solutions You Need to Know! You are ready to take on the day - NOW TAKE ACTION!

If you found this episode helpful, take a screenshot and share the episode on instagram tagging me @vallavignelife I love seeing how you implement what you’ve learned with which episodes you’re connecting with!

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!