Develop Productive Habits

Good habits are not born, they’re made with hours of repetative actions. If you’ve ever felt that you could be just a bit more productive, now is your chance to sit down and hone your productivity skills. Joel Falconer from Stepcase LifeHack takes the nonsense out of productivity and gives some great insight on how to get out of the cycle of unproductive habits.

It’s about the way you consciously and subconsciously approach taking action in general. If you’ve got a procrastination problem, you’ve most likely got one that affects getting around to changing a lightbulb at home just as much as tasks at work.

Use Two Monitors to Boost Productivity

Unclutterer.com has a great article on using two monitors to boost your productivity. I’ve actually used multiple monitors quite a bit, during my day job as a 911 operator I actually have four running monitors at once. You’d be amazed at how many programs I can run at once. Here are some of the tips that I found helpful on how I can boost my productivity at home:

Use one monitor for time and goal oriented programs and a second monitor for working documents.

Reduce desktop clutter by limiting the number of cables you need to have at hand.

Have a More Productive Day

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can’t get going? You’re not alone. It happens to all of us - whether it be working at home, or working in an office - here are some tips from Jason Womak on how to jump start your day:

Set an alarm and work on just one thing for that period of time. Maybe it’s just 5, 10 or 20 minutes. Maybe it’s two minutes. But at the end of the time, you will notice what’s it’s like to experience real focus. And if you complete the task, you have something to anchor your day around. You’ve gotten at least one thing really done.

Spend Less Time in Your Email

It’s worse than junkmail. And, unlike junkmail, it has a tendency to grow to uncontrolable proportions. There are some things you can do to reduce the amount of time you spend in your In-Box:

1. Create Folders
2. Create a Message Rule for Common Emails

Blissfully Domestic gives you advice on how best to set up these folders and the key points for creating your “message rule.”