3 Productivity Tips for This Busy Season

Alas, we now enter that wonderful, but often frantic time between Thanksgiving and the end of the calendar year. Prepare ye self! Our weeks will now surely be filled with extra tasks that must get done, tests to prepare for, papers to write (or grade), projects to finish, cards to write, rehearsals and concerts to prepare for, and the list goes on.

Feeling a little overwhelmed? I guarantee you aren’t alone. Here are three simple tips that can help you maximize your time this holiday season, and hopefully make things go just a bit smoother.

1. Minimize Social Media Use – Also, minimize use of your phone all together. It’s a sparkly distraction machine that is never far away, but if we can resist checking it all the time, we will find ourselves with more productive periods of focused work.  If you want to take this to the next level, try limiting your social media use to one log in per day. Try removing the social apps from your phone. Or, try going without social media for a week or two! (You can always have someone else look at your accounts for you to see if you have any important messages or notifications)
2. Zoom Out and Plan By Week – Sometimes I feel like I have 4 big projects on deck and I don’t know how I want to prioritize them. If you feel like you have a lot to do, and all those things are just staring at you waiting for your attention, it might help to zoom out, look at each week for the next 4-8 weeks and prioritize what you want to get done that week. This helps you feel like you have a plan. Just that simple exercise (like making lists for some people) can make you feel better and more prepared to tackle your to-dos.
3. Try the Pomodoro Technique: Set a timer for 20-25 minutes and commit to doing one thing during that time. Have a hard email you’ve been putting off? Something you need to write? Something to practice? Set the timer and don’t let yourself get pulled away from it.  Once the timer is up, give yourself a reward for making it through! Maybe take a short break, have a nice treat or snack, and then think about the next task you could knock off your list. This kind of focused work is super beneficial for our task list and our confidence.