How to be More Productive - Do It Now

The Web Worker Daily recently had a post about "The Habit of Now" and I found this quite interesting and perhaps a useful way of helping to beat procrastination and become more productive. By developing the habit of now, you ensure that you get the quick things done immediately and do not need to worry about them later; you stop procrastinating and start taking action. When you do an activity now, you save time later for those things that take more time and so become more productive. Here is some advice that the Web Worker Daily gave for developing the habit of now:

1. Write It Down

The first step that Web Worker Daily recommends in developing the habit of now is to get a large piece of paper and write a big sign telling you to "Do It Now" and then underneath that list all the items that you should be doing immediately. These items can include such things as filing, creating a space for everything and keeping everything in its place, and then when some filing comes in to do you know you should do it immediately. By having your list of items to do now you help to keep yourself focused.

2. Log It

Once you have completed a "Do It Now" action then log this activity on another piece of paper, if you don't do an activity immediately that you should have (i.e. you procrastinated) then log this too so that you can see how good you are at getting things done immediately or how bad you are at procrastinating. You can then work on improving your record and productivity.

3. Tell Others about Your Progress

If you really want to improve your productivity then it is important that you are accountable. Tell others honestly how you are coping with your habit of doing it now and where you may still be having problems procrastinating and allow them to encourage you to further improve your productivity and activity.

4. No Exceptions

Don't ever allow yourself to get slack about developing this habit and think that it doesn't matter - just this once. When you let yourself get a little slack this soon becomes a snowball effect and before you know it, you have gone backwards and are no longer doing things when you should.

If you truly want to be productive then it is important that you learn to "Do It Now" and get things done as soon as possible.