There is no end to the lists of ways to be productive, but there are a few that stand out from the rest as being truly useful. It’s not just enough to know what to do, but also how to give your self-discipline a boost to hold to these productivity goals.

Plan Ahead  

You can’t get much done without a plan.

Take a few minutes at the end of each day to plan the next day. It also helps to plan your whole week on Sunday night, and check each day to make sure you’re getting everything you need to accomplished. Sometimes you’ll find that somethings you thought were urgent were not .There’s nothing wrong with eliminating non-urgent tasks, typically only 20 percent of our work is what is going to advance us towards our goals, so knowing what is necessary and what you can go without is a big part of planning and prioritizing.

Make a List  

This is how you plan. Not only do you layout your schedule at the beginning of the week, but you outline the action steps for each meeting, deadline, or project. Lists are crucial for productivity. Writing down our action steps for our goals will help you keep tasks, goals, or deadlines from falling through the cracks. The most dependable people are those who make lists, consult the list frequently, and make sure to get stuff done. With all the dozens of distractions pulling us in different directions, a list is your road map to getting back on track after taking a distraction detour.

However you organize your lists, remember to put priorities on top. You may find, that there are a few items on your list that keep getting pushed back, this may be because they weren’t worth having on there in the first place. Don’t be afraid to chuck things from your list, if they no longer seem relevant to your goal or project, then rather than using precious time doing it just because you wrote it down, think of something that can replace that action step that will move you towards your goal.

Focus On One Task   

Being productive is different based on each person. There are some people who consider themselves multi-taskers, while others can only concentrate on one objective until it is resolved.

If you like to do many things at once and find it more energizing and engaging, then a good technique to increase your productivity it to focus on one task per hour. You may want to work on several projects at the same time, but you’ll get farther if you dedicate time solely to each task. Finding this balance between multitasking and monotasking will help you to be a multi-accomplisher instead of just a perpetually busy person.

For those who love to work at one task until it’s done, if you feel like you are getting stuck or slowing down, it might be time to step away from your work for a time. If you feel like you cannot split your concentration between different projects,perhaps this could be a good time to do some small tasks like cleaning out your inbox or organizing your workspace. Giving your mind a break helps it recover and attack the problem from a refreshed angle rather than exhausting yourself by beating your head against a metaphorical wall.

Give Yourself Deadlines  

To truly accomplish things with alacrity, you must give yourself deadlines. Parkinson’s Law states that work will expand to fill the time available. The less time you have for a task, the more you will increase your effort. The harder the deadline, the more motivated you will be to finish a task. If your friend calls and says they will be over in 20 minutes, you’d be surprised at how clean you will be able to make your house, when normally it takes you all of Saturday morning to make that much progress. When you have less time, you perform tasks with a greater sense of urgency, which means you waste less time on the superfluous and can narrow your vision to the most important aspects of your task.

How can you set deadlines that aren’t arbitrary? If you tell yourself, I need to finish this in an hour, how will you keep yourself from just pushing the deadline back because there is nothing to hold you to it? Having strict deadlines is much better for practically enabling this step. You could force yourself to not take your lunch break until a certain task is finished. Or you could have an accountability partner, and tell them that you’ll turn in the task by a certain time. Having someone expecting your work is one of the best motivating factors and the surest way to meet a self-imposed deadline.

There are countless ways to increase your productivity, but these few habits are the first step in truly increasing your efficiency and maximizing your time.