How To Be Productive – 5 Rules To Live By

If you're a direct sales professional or entrepreneur, you wear many hats. You are probably a marketer. A content developer. A sales person. An administrator. A delivery person. A coach. A mentor. You get the picture.

 

How to be productive while wearing all those hats? That is THE question! Here are 5 productivity tips to help you work smarter not harder.

1. GTD. This is the popular acronym associated with the book by David Allen entitled Get Things Done. It's a must read if you want to know how to be productive in the most important roles of your life and business. Pick up a copy today! Period. End of sentence.

2. Blocks of Time. Don't multitask. And don't jump from one kind of work to another. Instead, work in blocks of time. Block out 60-90 minutes and work on just one thing. By doing so, you'll find yourself accomplishing more in less time. (NOTE: Once your 60-90 minutes are over, take a 10-15 minute break before diving into another block of time).

3. Focused Work. Shut out distractions. Close out apps. Silence your cell phone. Even be careful of what music you play in the background. Cliff Ravenscraft and Ray Edwards turned me on to a resource called Focus@Will that uses music to help you focus. It's an awesome productivity hack!

4. Exercise. If you're a direct sales professional or entrepreneur, you invest a lot of sweet equity in your business. To be more productive and for sanity's sake, invest some sweet equity in your most important productivity tool—YOU! Exercise helps you think better. It increases your energy. It even makes you happier. Wondering how to be more productive almost immediately? Exercise!

5. Outsource. As a direct sales associate or entrepreneur, the sooner you learn to effectively outsource, the more productive your business. You can outsource website work, list building, administration, shipping, artwork, and much more. Better yet, outsourcing is extremely affordable. The best productivity hack I implemented in the previous 12 months was getting serious about outsourcing. Here are a few resources which have helped me outsource more effectively:

• Virtual Freedom—Chris Ducker's book is the best book I've read on outsourcing.
• Fiverr.com—graphic design, video production, transcription, and 100s of other projects for just $5
• Fancyhands.com—a great way to start working with Virtual Assistants without it costing an arm and a leg.

 

Question: Which productivity tips are you implementing or do you plan to implement and why?