We live busy lives and it’s easy to let our lack of energy and lack of focus prevent us from accomplishing tasks we need to. However, there are ways you can improve your productivity that don’t require buying the latest program to help get you there. Here are 6 easy steps to help improve your productivity that you can implement today. 

• Love what you do: This is a difficult concept that some may struggle with, but many would like to acquire. Loving what you do is imperative in being able to accomplish daily goals. You may be at your dream job, you may be in the process of pursuing what you love. Wherever you are in life, you can make the best out of it. If you aren’t happy at your current job, but are transitioning to achieving your goals, find something you genuinely enjoy about your job and focus on that area. We are all going to have good days and bad days whether you truly enjoy what you do or not. Just make sure that you focus on the positive when at all possible and you keep the end goal in mind. 

• Complete the tasks you dread first thing in the morning: We are more likely to put off the tasks that we dread the most whether we know it needs to be done or not. Getting the tasks you dread done first thing in the morning not only helps you to put your refreshed energy into the difficult job at hand, but it also gives you a sense of accomplishment that will help you take on the rest of the day, feeling a sense of ease as you go along. 

• Find out your productive hours: There are morning people, afternoon people, and night owls. Find out what time of day you are most productive and try to adjust your work and other schedules around those hours to maximize your productivity. Some jobs allow this adjustment to be easier than others, but there are ways to work around this rule if you’re not able to adjust your hours. If your productive time is in the evenings but you work in the morning, take a few minutes in the evening to plan out the next day and brainstorm ideas so you are ready to take on the next day. 

• Get plenty of rest: I know that this should be a given, however there are so many of us who struggle getting the right amount of sleep daily. If you are one of those people, make your sleep schedule a priority and make efforts to allow yourself to get an adequate amount of sleep. If you aren’t rested, you aren’t going to be able to accomplish even simple daily tasks, you won’t be able to focus on your work, and you won’t be able to enjoy life to the fullest. 

• Learn to say no: This is something we all struggle with. We feel the need to say yes to everything, even when it doesn’t fit our schedule. We live in a busy time. There is always somewhere to be, something to clean, a kid to be fed, or a meeting we need to attend. When we agree to events that will spread our time thin, we are leaving little time for ourselves to breathe or relax even for a moment which can be crippling to our productivity. Saying yes to yet something else means saying no to something possibly more important. 

• Organize your office: Some people may be completely fine with working in a messy office, if you are that person that is completely fine, and I may be somewhat jealous of you. For many people, being surrounded by a mess can make it very difficult to focus on the task at hand. Instead, you continue to be distracted by all those little organizational and cleaning tasks that needs to be done right there in your office. Take some time and find out what level of organization works for you. Set a few hours aside to allow yourself to accomplish that level of organization. 

Productivity is something that we all struggle with. We have so much going on in our daily lives it is sometimes hard to focus on the task at hand. Taking these few steps may help you to focus in on what is holding you back from accomplishing the level of productivity you desire.