12 Smart Micro-Habits To Increase Your Daily Productivity

One of the simplest but most effective habits to increase your productivity is to identify your top 3 targets for the day. When you clearly identify your priorities, your entire day will be much more focused and purposeful.

So, before the workday begins, take one minute and ask yourself the following question:

Which 3 things, if achieved today, get me a big step closer to reaching my long-term goals?

When you wake up, it’s important to immediately hydrate your body. After being without water for 6–8 hours, you’re pretty much dehydrated. This leads to feeling sluggish, unfocused, and maybe even a bit irritated.

As part of my evening routine , I perform a 5-minute review of the day using my productivity planner . I ask myself the following questions:

• Did I accomplish my top 3 priorities of the day? If not, why not?
• Which tasks occupied my time and energy, but didn’t lead to meaningful results?
• Which people and activities sparked the most energy and happiness today?
• What would I do differently tomorrow?

Honestly, I could do much better with this habit. I’m naturally an introvert, so I tend to forget to reach out to my most ambitious and positive friends. I should do this much more often.

However, I’ve noticed that those days in which I talk to my type-a friends (the ones who dream big, spark energy, and radiate positivity), I get infected with their energy. This automatically boosts my mood and motivation.

Remember, energy is infectious. The mindset and habits of the people you surround yourself with rub off. Use it to your advantage.

Instead of starting your days like this — which only leads to information overload, stress, and distraction — use the morning to focus on your mission. Your goals. Your priorities. Don’t be reactive to other people’s stuff, but focus on moving your life forward .

One of my most productive rules is that the morning is for making, and the afternoon is for managing . In the morning, I do my writing, work on my courses, and perform other ‘making-type’ tasks that require my maximum performance.

In the afternoon, I tend to be more prone to distractions, have less energy, and tend to procrastinate more. This is why, in the afternoon, I perform ‘managing-type’ tasks such as email, meetings, admin work, and Zoom calls.

The smartphone is the biggest distraction for most knowledge workers. If you want to regain your focus and get more done, you need to put it away for at least 2–3 hours per day. Put it in your bag, hide it, or place it in a different room. Do whatever you can to protect yourself from this major source of distraction.

Instead of reminding myself how completing certain tasks and projects would help me grow my business, increase my income, or get me closer to my goals, I’d ponder too much over how much time and energy doing the work would cost me.

Only when I practiced ‘mental shifting ’ was I able to beat procrastination and decrease mental resistance towards my work. Instead of focusing so much on the ‘pain,’ I started focusing on the ‘gain.’

Remember, knowledge is only potential power. If you want to make a real change in your life, you need to apply what you’ve learned.