7 Things You Need to Stop Doing to Be More Productive

Just Because You're Wandering, It Doesn't Mean You're Lost You may be following a path that has an unforeseen, an unknown destination, but that doesn't mean you're lost or stuck. It just means you're seeing where this path will and can take you.

The key to success is not hard working but smart working. There’s a notable distinction between being busy and being productive. Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being productive. Being productive is less about time management and more on managing your energy. It is the business of life. We need to learn how to spend the least amount of energy to get the most benefits. I am so lucky to work with an amazing team here at Filemobile. Everyone always challenges me and helps me sort my priorities to become more productive. I learned to reduce my work week from 80 hours to 40 hours, and get a lot more work done in the process. In other words, less is more.
Here are 7 I things I stopped doing to become more productive.

1. Stop working overtime and increase your productivity Have you ever wondered where the 40-hour work week came from? In 1926, Henry Ford, American industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company, conducted experiments with interesting results: when you decrease your daily working hours from 10 to 8, and shorten the work week from 6 days to 5, your productivity increases.

2. Don’t say “yes” too often According to the Pareto Principle, 20% of the effort produces 80% of the results; however, 20% of the results consumes 80% of the effort. Instead of working harder, we should focus primarily on those efforts that produce 80% of the results and forgo the rest. We will have more time to focus on the most important tasks. We should stop saying “yes” to tasks that bring low or almost no result.
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.” — Warren Buffet.

3. Stop doing everything yourself and start letting people help you At some point in my career, I was managing a very large community and couldn’t handle it. I tried to do everything myself. I burnt out, but the community ended up taking over and managing itself. Surprisingly, members did a better job than I have ever done. I learned the power of community and why brands need user-generated content.
Consumers understand what they want and how they want it better than any marketer. Did you know that, according to Octoly, user-generated videos are viewed 10 times more than brand-generated videos on YouTube? When seeking information about a particular brand,over half (51%) of Americans trust user-generated content more than the content on the brand website (16%) or media coverage on the brand (14%). It’s important for marketers to open up and seek help from the brand’s community.
4. Stop being a perfectionist
“We found that perfectionism trips up professors on the way to research productivity. The more perfectionistic the professor, the less productive they are,” Dr. Simon Sherry, a Dalhousie University Psychology Professor who conducted a study on perfectionism and productivity, tells University Affairs magazine. Dr. Sherry found a robust correlation between increased perfectionism and decreased productivity.
Here are some problems associated with being a perfectionist:
They spend more time than required on a task.
They procrastinate and wait for the perfect moment. In business, if it is the perfect moment, you are too late. They miss the big picture while being too focused on small things. Marketers often wait for the perfect moment. In doing so, they end up missing it.
The perfect moment is NOW.
5. Stop doing repetitive tasks and start automating it. According to a research study conducted by Tethys Solutions, A team of 5 people who spent 3%, 20%, 25%, 30% and 70% of their time on repetitive tasks respectively reduced this time to 3%, 10%, 15%, 15% and 10% after 2 months of enhancing their productivity.
6. Stop guessing and start backing up your decisions with data If you can optimize websites for search engines, you can optimize your lives to grow and reach your maximum potential. There are so many research studies out there that can provide answers in a range of areas. For instance, did you know that most people are more easily distracted from noon to 4PM? This random statistic comes from recent research led by Robert Matchock, an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Even if you can’t find the data you need, it doesn’t take a lot of time to run a split test.
For instance, last week we did a few tests to figure out the best way to optimize images for Twitter in-stream preview.
Keep asking yourself how you’re going to measure and optimize everything you do.

7. Stop working, and have do-nothing time Most people don’t realize that we’re essentially locking ourselves in a box when we are too focused on something. It’s important to walk away from our work once in a while and have some alone time. Alone time is good for the brain and spirit, according to The power of lonely , an article in The Boston Globe.
One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone. Another indicates that a certain amount of solitude can make a person more capable of empathy towards others. And while no one would dispute that too much isolation early in life can be unhealthy, a certain amount of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and earn good grades in school.
Source: The power of lonely