You're sitting at your desk, you should be working, you want to be working, but there are just too many distractions at your fingertips to be productive.... You tell yourself,
"It's not that much work, I can get it done later..."
Or maybe it feels like too great of a challenge, and you simply don't know where to start, so you don't. When properly honed, organization and time management can be your two most important skill-sets.
However, being productive is no simple task. It's not something that one day you're going to go,
"I should probably get my shit together..."
And suddenly be a master of time management. Like any other skill-set, it takes hours of deliberate practice to get to a point where you are 'good' at it.
I'll let you in on a little secret, the attitude with which you approach the world around you has a tendency to manifest itself in reality.
What does that mean? It's a pretty 'high concept' statement, so let's break it down a little. The idea behind it is that, whatever situation you may be facing, you interpret the events based upon your state of mind. To make it relatable: have you ever noticed that when you are in a great/happy mood, everything feels more enjoyable? or those times you are in a shit mood and everything feels like a chore? That is the core idea behind something called The Law of Attraction, like attracts like.
Why did I call that a secret? Two reasons, firstly, very few people have an understanding of the connection between their attitude and their perception of reality. Second, I learned it from a rather obscure self-help book from the early 1900's called The Master Key System, a 24 chapter correspondence course aimed at teaching the importance of mental balance and its role in all aspects of life. The audio-book is cheap and worth a listen; even if you don't follow the suggested activities, it can have a profound affect on your relationship with day to day experiences.
I'm not here to dig into the science behind positive thinking, so I'll keep it to the point; my intention is to outline its practical use within the context of productivity. Weather you are a car salesman, a food-service employee, or a graphic designer, you stand to benefit greatly from positive thinking.
Practical example: The fellow you work for is really tough on you (more so than other employees) and has high expectations. You have two options. Get frustrated and tell yourself that he is being unfair, OR, take it as a challenge by doing the shit out of your job.
Most frequently it comes down to the distribution of blame, deciding weather to play the victim or take responsibility by working on yourself. Those who choose to take responsibility have a tendency to be the successful ones. This is a pretty clear cut, oversimplification, but it gets the idea across. If you hold the mindset that you are a victim, you will see every opportunity to be a victim as a subconsciously comfortable situation because it fits your status-quo.
Think about it for a while. Take 10 minutes out of your day to just sit and meditate on how you have been addressing current events in your life. If you start to see a pattern that you don't like, then take 10 minutes another day to sit and think about how you want to change it and what it might take. This is where the next greatest tool comes into play... Mind Mapping. Create a mind map of your life, if you don't like what you see, think about how you might go about changing it.
Since discovering it, mind mapping has been my favorite method of note-taking because of it's non-linear, hierarchical approach to outlining ideas. It allows you to establish importance, clarify relationships, and draw parallels that cannot be done with traditional note-taking techniques. Also, as you expand your mind map radially, you have exponentially more space. A great book on the subject comes from one of the founders of the technique, Tony Buzan, the Ultimate Book of Mind Maps. With mind mapping you can do everything from outlining an app's architecture to planning your workout routine. Which takes me to my next point, exercise.
If you don't work out on a regular basis, start. Even 8-16 minutes, 3 days a week can be enough to keep you in good shape... For the majority of my life I have been incredibly active, too many sports to list. However, when I started to take on more freelance work, my life started to become unbalanced. I began to spend the majority of my time behind a computer screen, and over time, it felt like I was working more and more while accomplishing less and less. Both my productivity and well being suffered because I was not taking care of the instrument that is my body.
When I started training again, the effect was almost immediate. Weather permitting, you should try to get outside every day, even if it's just a walk through the park or a visit to your favorite cafe. It's important to keep in mind that your body was built for hunting down cariboo and fighting off saber-tooth tigers, not sitting in a computer chair and clickety clacking on keyboards.
Another aspect of well-being that is often overlooked is the state of your personal environment. Be it your bedroom, home, office, or workbench, physical clutter leads to mental clutter. I always feel much more motivated and productive when my environment is clean, organized, and free of distractions. This is an area that I tend to struggle with the most. My approach is to clean up my space before starting work; this gives me a sense of accomplishment and clarity when starting my work day, so it ends up being a 'two birds one stone' kind of deal.
The last piece of advice that I have brings us back to the law of attraction: be kind to yourself. Don't punish yourself for your mistakes, learn from them. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and above all else, don't compare them to the accomplishments of those around you. Competition can be a powerful tool, but don't sacrifice your pride when using it; being outdone by others only means that you have room to improve.
So get started; believe in yourself and be productive.