Why is being more productive so important to you. Are you looking for the perfect system that will fix all your problems? Well spoiler alert. There is not a perfect system that will fix all your problems. There are a handful of systems you can try, see what works and then adapt the way you use it to make your life easier.
How to be more productive as a creative person?
The best way to be more productive as a multi passionate creative person with so many ideas is to understand your energy levels, your schedule and finding a system that works for you. Plus, you need to define what productivity looks like in your own life.
What is the definition of Productivity?
Productivity is the amount of work completed in a certain period of time.
How to define Productivity for yourself?
In a corporate setting productivity is essential to getting the job done as fast as possible in order to earn money for the people at the top. This is the form of productivity most of us are use to. However, if you are a creative person trying to live a creative lifestyle you have to learn your own form of productivity.
For example, right before I started writing this blog post I was working on my debut novel. I spent thirty minutes editing one scene. I only changed a handful of words, reread it hundreds of times. If I went by word count it would be a very unproductive period if I told myself I hand to write 2000 words in 30 minutes. Instead, I am productive when I work on my manuscript. I am productive when I work on a scene. Reframing this helps me take the pressure off of working extremely fast to get the most done.
These five methods are designed to help you prioritize your day to day tasks and change how you can define being productive as a multi passionate creative.
Get it Done Method
The get it done method is designed to take a look at your day, write everything you want to get done and then grouping them into categories. This way you can mitigate jumping from random tasks and decision fatigue. The goal of the Get it Done method is to work through each task in a category before you move onto the next category.
Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique helps you focus on a task for a set period of time. Most pomodoro’s are 25 minutes with a 5 minute break. You can do as many pomodoros you need to get your task, project or assignment done. Most people do two or four. The would be one hour or two hours of work but you can pick how long you work for.
The benefits of the Pomodoro Technique are focused time management. You can reduce distractions because you are only working for short bursts of time.
Mono-Tasking
This is one of my favourite methods – see how Mono-Tasking Changed my life here – and I usually combine it with the Pomodoro Technique. Mono-Tasking is very straight forward. You pick one task to work on for an allotted period of time. This will allow you to be laser focussed on just one thing instead of jumping from tab to tab, project to project.
Time Blocking
Time blocking is a great way to plan your week and build the habit of showing up to work on different projects. In your calendar of choice you can put in time blocks which can be an hour or two where you will work on that specific project every day at that time.
Matrix Method
The matrix method helps you prioritize what is really important in the moment. Personally, this is my least favourite method because of the the third and fourth categories. For those of you who have never heard of this method. The goal is to draw a chart that has four squares.
It is divided into:
- Urgent & Important – do these first
- Urgent & Unimportant – schedule these tasks in
- Not Urgent & Important – delegate to someone else
- Not Urgent & Unimportant – delete or eliminate
As a solo entrepreneur and a creative person I will rarely categorize anything under the last two categories so it doesn’t really help me establish a system.
However, this method can be used in the corporate world, if you working 9 to 5 while building your creative lifestyle you can use this method in your day to day.
The goal of productivity as a creative is not to get the most done in the least about of time. It is to show up and work on your art however that may be. Yes, you want to see progress but allow yourself to be enveloped by the journey rather than rush to a so called destination. Need help balancing your multiple passions? This blog post is for you.
Now, go try one of these productivity methods and have fun while doing it!