Are You Busy or Productive?

I wasn't sure what I was going to write about for this blog post. Then I came across an article from the Chopra Center about How To Cut Out " Busy and Start Living. It got me thinking about my choices about how I speak about my weekend and my work. I usually say the weekend was "busy but good", even when we are camping and enjoying life. I am going to change my words and when asked, I am going to speak about how productive and fun my days are and the same for the weekends.

One of the messages in this article is to "Focus on being productive rather than busy? says Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Work Week."

How do you look at your work week and your evening chores? Do you keep busy or do you create ways to be more productive? Do you look at the list, get overwhelmed and instead of taking time to prioritize, organize and do, you get paralyzed and end up doing nothing except being busy? Doing nothing but "busy work" can create a lot of stress. When you find ways to organize, make time on your calendar and get items completed, you become more productive. One of the best ways to do this is to be realistic about what you are able to accomplish during the day or evening. Learn to set achievable goals for productivity each day instead of trying "to get everything done".

Take time between tasks to stretch, breathe and refocus and watch your productivity increase.

A great example of making a quick change is when you are frantically searching for a paper that you know is on your desk, be it at home or at work, taking some time to get organized may save you a lot of time in the long run. Then the next time you go looking for something, it will be in the right place. Even if you are a pile person, knowing which pile something is in is very helpful. Another great tip is to take a few minutes at the end of the day to organize your next day. This way, when you begin the day, you know what to get started on instead of taking time to figure out what needs to be done.

And of course, the best way to be more productive is to make sure to take care of yourself and make time for yourself each day. ​