When you have complete control over your workday, it’s easy to slip into procrastination—haven’t we all been there?!

Taking the time to plan and structure your workday can make the world of difference in your productivity, but when you have a million things on your to-do list, getting started can seem time consuming and pointless. But it doesn’t have to be.

Here are our top five tips for structuring your workday and optimising your productivity.

 

First, prioritise the annoying stuff.

We all have that one annoying daily task that we hate doing. It’s something we’re supposed to do every day, but we’re not the biggest fan of it, so we tend to avoid it for as long as possible.

Here’s the thing—prioritising it will help you. A lot.

Think of it this way: getting this task out of the way first thing in the morning means that it will not be looming over your head and impeding your creativity for the rest of the day.

Smash it out early. You’ll thank us later.

Block your time.

Breaking up your workday into blocks of time is so beneficial and really effective for so many people.

This will look different for everyone, but try to think of specific moments throughout your day that would make a good ‘divider’—basically, just a point at which it would make sense to switch to a different task.

For example, if your workday typically includes meetings or appointments, the time in between each one would form your ‘blocks’.

Not only does this help with organisation, it’s also really motivating to try and beat the clock!

 

Group your tasks.

On that note, grouping similar tasks together can also help with productivity and keep you on track.

For many, this could simply mean grouping by client. For others, it could be separating your admin, marketing, and creative tasks together. Whatever it is, you’ll know.

Why do this?

Grouping your tasks helps you to tailor your schedule to how you might be feeling at different times of the day.

For example, if you find that you feel the most creative early in the morning, grouping your creative tasks and allocating them to the first block of your day means that you get to optimise your creativity.

Likewise, if you struggle to focus at the end of the day, it’s probably best to avoid doing heavy or super important admin tasks in the last block of your day—make sense?

Take an actual lunch break.

Taking breaks is so important, and we’ll never stop saying it!

As you get busier and busier, it’s so tempting to continue working while you eat. Even though you might get more work done this way, it probably won’t help your mental or physical health in the long run.

But actually, taking some time to set your mind on things other than work (like your food) for a little while can be super beneficial.

If you struggle to switch off, try keeping yourself busy by switching up your location, reading a book, watching an episode of your favourite TV show, or going for a walk to distract you from your to-do list for a while.

 

 

Don’t force anything.

Now, with all that said, it’s totally ok to have ‘one of those days’ (or loads of them).

You may have prepared a beautiful schedule in your beautiful planner, filled with sunshine and rainbows. But if you start working on something and end up struggling to get into a state of flow, try switching things up for a while by working on a different task.

You’ll thank us later.

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