Artwork courtesy of Amy Buchheit
Some days, you wake up early, storm through tons of work before lunch, and come to the evening feeling as though you’ve accomplished a lot. For many of us, though, those days are the exception rather than a rule. Perhaps you’re reading this in the middle of a rather unproductive day. Maybe you woke up late, spent time procrastinating, had to deal with a dozen “urgent” little tasks, or simple got interrupted every five minutes.
If it feels like your day is slipping through your fingers, here’s how to turn things around and make that unproductive day into a fulfilling one:
Stop and Take Stock
So often, we end up in “reaction mode”, responding in a knee-jerk way to things as they come up. This is generally an ineffective way to work: you often end up dealing with fairly low-priority tasks simply because they’re the ones which present themselves.
When your day’s running away from you, take just five minutes to completely stop. Close your email program and your browser, or simply switch off your computer monitor. Think about what you want to accomplish today. Are you on track? If not, what’s gone wrong – and how can you pull things back into line?
Pick One Important Project or Task
As you take stock of your unproductive day so far, work out one important project or task that you want to get done, something that will give your day a sense of meaning and purpose. Perhaps it’s something you’ve been putting off, like writing an important letter or email. Maybe it’s the first step in a new course of action, like signing up for a course or seminar. It could be something that will take you further towards an important goal – perhaps getting your business’s website online.
Spend An Hour Focusing On This
A whole hour of focused attention is long enough to make meaningful progress. Let everything else slide for an hour, and spend that time concentrating on your one important thing. Your emails, and phone calls can wait until that hour’s up. It might help to set a timer. If your task involves writing, try using a full-screen program like Dark Room. Shut down your email – or even disconnect your computer from the internet if it helps.
Eliminate As Many Distractions As Possible
You might have to struggle to find just one hour to devote to something truly important. To keep your day on productive lines, eliminate the distractions that are sapping your focus. That might mean that you close your email and leave it closed until it’s nearly the end of your working day. Perhaps you’ll let your phone go to voicemail. Let your colleagues know you’d appreciate only being interrupted in a real emergency – or if you work from home, explain to your family that you could really use some uninterrupted time.
Challenge Yourself to Be Productive
Some unproductive days aren’t simply caused by us succumbing to distractions – they’re partially influenced by external events. Maybe you have several meetings scheduled, a lot of family duties, or various chores to run. Challenge yourself to squeeze in as much productive work as you can: perhaps you’ll jot down some notes while waiting in line at the post office, or maybe you can blitz through some emails with your toddler on your lap. If you have routine chores to do around the house, listen to audio books or podcasts during them – it’s a great way to fit some learning into your day.
Review Your Day
When you’ve had an unproductive day, don’t waste time and energy feeling guilty about it. See it instead as an opportunity to learn about the conditions in which you work best. Spend ten minutes reviewing how your day went, asking questions like:
• Where did things start going wrong? (eg. “I woke up late”, “I checked my email first thing”)
• What distractions did I succumb to?
• What could I have done differently?
• What helped me to focus?
There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes – they’re great learning opportunities, and chances to eliminate methods of working that aren’t helpful to you.
Do you find that you regularly have unproductive days? How do you turn things around?
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I usually turn things around by doing at least one of the things on my To Do list. Even if I don’t get to them all, I feel so much better if I cross at least one thing off. You’ve offered great ideas in this post. Thanks for sharing them!
A very meaningful post.
I usually meditate for 5 to 10 minutes if I feel unproductive. Let my mind stop and come back to calm is the best way for me to back to be productive.
generally speaking, I will first meditate for 5 minutes, and then begin reviewing my goals and there are always some ideas coming to me on what to do next during the processes. I consider these ideas to be productive things for the new day and will try to work on them in the first place.
This post reminded me of Mark Foster’s “Do It Tomorrow”. Create a to-do list for the day and anything new that comes in during the day simply gets added to the next day’s to do list, instead of interrupting the work you’re doing. I completely agree that if you spend the day jumping from task to task as they come in you’ll finish the day feeling like you got very little important work done.
“Do It Tomorrow” is one of my favourite time/attention-management books – I’ve clearly internalised it more than I intended!
it sucks when you feel haven’t been productive
I really like your first point, which is to stop and take stock. Then, reorganize, re-pioritize, and get moving. I also like to set myself the goals of 25 minutes at a time, followed by a little breather after that, then plunging in for the next 25. After completing three 25 minute segments, I’ll give myself an extra 5 minutes to stretch. It helps me focus better.
Great point, I think a 25 minute “burst” of work is a good length. When I was in school, studying for exams, we were told that you can only concentrate intensely for 25-45 minutes at a time: then you need a break. I think it’s good advice!
Great points. The review part should come first for me, since it allows us to pause and take stock.
I wrote a similar post, but in a different direction – if you really don’t feel like working, have fun.
PTB is my daily staple!
Thank you, Sridhar! Spread the word!
Great piece of writing. I appreciate and totally agree with the points. It feels really good when you can find people sharing such excellent thoughts. Thanks again for the fine piece of writing.
This is article is very informative. I am always loosing my weakent. Day before weakent i thinking to do something, but i cant. From after reading this article i will try this on the next coming weakent day.
Any way thank you for all people in “pickthe brain site”.
Nazeem.K.A
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