Monday Musings: A simple productivity hack for the busy and the confused

Since becoming an entrepreneur by turning Project Vanity into a company early this year, my life is no longer the same. There are simply way too many things to do if I want my ideas to become reality. I don't like bragging about how busy I am because being busy is not necessarily a sign of productivity; I learned that early on, when my tasks started to become overwhelming without me seeing any results.

But I am busy. This is what a normal day looks like for me:

I'm not going to lie, I didn't use to schedule my days within an inch of its life. This is only a fairly recent development because my old "technique" simply refuses to work for me now. Before, I would only list down the general things I need to do and get on them when I feel like, so long as they are accomplished within the day. Now doing that confuses me. I do not get the important things done.

So I read a few materials on how to be more productive. There are tons out there, but as I like simple things I decided on a simple solution to managing my time. 

It is this: I put up two collapsible sticky notes* on the upper right side of my Macbook screen. The pink sticky note lists down ONLY three Priorities for the day - the specific things I want to accomplish. The blue sticky note then lists my Schedule for the day, which is planned around my top three priorities. 

What my Monday today looks like

Let me stop you right there. I'm not some super woman who can follow my Schedule to the exact minute. That honestly isn't possible because sometimes (or most of the time) life is a little shit who thinks nothing of such pretentious "productivity hacks". I veer from my schedule quite a bit, since an email might take a too long to write, a problem comes up from one of my suppliers, or I need to do something I forgot. 

The Schedule exists NOT to micromanage my time, but to serve as a map or guide as to what I should be accomplishing instead of simply doing. When I go off course I just refer to it to see where I am in terms of meeting my goals. That's usually enough to keep me on track.

I don't beat myself up if I don't get to do everything I need to get done within the day. As long as my three Priorities are met, then it is a productive day. Productivity, I've learned, is not so much about the number of things we were able to do, but the quality of both our life and our work. It's a balance of every aspect of our lives and not just the part that makes us money.

I hope this helps you in some way. I would love to hear your tips too! Have a great week ahead! 

*You can definitely use paper or any note-taking app