Productivity Tip #01: Apply Some Pressure

I’m sure a lot of you can relate with me when I say that since I jumped on the productivity bandwagon, I’ve picked up lots of random little tips from my own experiences and reading other blogs. It’s not practical to just bring them all together into one big mash-up of an article, so I thought I would start a new series of posts introducing and discussing each individual tip. To get the ball rolling I want to share my suggestions on how applying a little pressure sometimes can really help you to get things done.

Over the past month my work life has been all over the place, with me either working from home, in between jobs or doing my part-time webdesign projects. Thus, I have found myself with a lot of time with which to get stuff done, and when you have most of the day to do things, it’s actually quite difficult to structure your work and find that big motivational push. As a consequence my productivity levels have been up and down like a yo-yo and I have had to look in all sorts of places to try and get motivated.

When as kids we have school, and as adults we have jobs or other time consuming commitments, they all take up a large bulk of our lives. You have to fit the rest of your time around these commitments. When you don’t have those to worry about, you end up being left with a large bulk of time available and it’s very much like a blank canvas. When are you going to do this project? How much time are you going to dedicate to it? It’s one of the freelancers great hurdles.

When I had to finish a website for a client by lunchtime, meet my friend at the gym for 1PM and clean the house for visitors before they arrived at 3PM, it created pressure, sure. But I had my productivity system in place and my next actions planned. I flew through all those tasks in a big flurry of activity. Right now I don’t have that pressure so I’ve spent way too much time writing this post, and I keep putting off cleaning the house.

What does this tell me? Limited time and having commitments to other people creates pressure. Pressure feeds productivity. Unless you are an highly disciplined person who can add deadlines to yourself and stick to them, having time restraints and/or commitments to other people can actually make you more productive. This might go against a lot of advice out there, but rather than trying to create more time for yourself, try using that lack of time as an incentive to get more done.

Productivity Tips: 10 Clever Ideas For Getting Things Done is an updated and expanded collection of the first ten posts in my popular productivity tips series and is now available to all for free.