Top 6 Productivity Tips from CEOs That Are Crushing It9 min read
Successful CEOs live by these top 6 productivity tips and hacks to help them get more done in less time.
You’ve got a big vision for your business and only so many hours in a day. You don’t have time to waste and, in fact, you are probably going to skim this blog post as quickly as possible to learn the top 6 productivity tips successful CEOs use so that you can implement them ASAP and get back to growing your business. Being a successful CEO myself, and having spent over 1,000+ hours coaching successful CEOs around the world, I completely understand. So I’ll keep the intro short.
In this article, you’ll walk away knowing the top 6 productivity tips that help successful CEOs get more done in less time so that you can implement these productivity hacks in your own life and business.
Productivity Tip #1: Know Your Biggest Priority
It’s astonishing how many entrepreneurs can’t clearly articulate their top priority for the month. And I get it, when you’re growing a business and leading a team, there are a lot of things competing for your attention.
That’s exactly why one of the most important things I help my entrepreneur coaching clients do is to really clarify their top priorities and keep them front and center.
When you know exactly what to focus on, you can accomplish great things faster than you thought was possible.
Where you’ll get yourself stuck is trying to do everything at once, making everything a priority (at which point nothing is), and spending more time trying to figure out what you should be focused on than you do moving that key priority forward.
So, ask yourself: What is your focus this month?
If you can’t answer that question, there is nothing more important you could do right now than to figure that out. The faster you can identify what’s most important for you to be spending your time on, the faster you’ll see big results in your business. Download my FREE Mid-Year Business Review if you need help focusing on the goals that REALLY matter.
If you find yourself struggling to answer this question, book a discovery call and let me share exactly how I help my clients clarify and commit to their key priorities.
Related post: How to Delegate Tasks Like a Pro: A CEO’s Guide to Working Smarter, Not Harder
Productivity Tip #2: Move Your Biggest Priority Forward First
If you looked back on your calendar last week, would it reflect your biggest priority? Or does your biggest priority keep getting bumped in favor of more “urgent” things?
One of the best productivity tips that has changed the way I operate, and the way my clients operate, is to move your biggest priority forward first.
That means carving out time at the very beginning of your work day to do strategic work FIRST.
Before you go down the rabbit hole of email inboxes and team requests, only to emerge 3 hours later feeling scattered, you’ll see a huge difference in the success of your business if you actually prioritize your biggest priority for 1 hour each morning.
Doing this relieves so much of the mental weight of entrepreneurship because it allows you to feel good about the progress you’ve made on your key priorities (instead of continuously reminding yourself to not forget to do that thing, or thinking about when you’re going to get to it).
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Productivity Tip #3: Plan your week & Time block your calendar
Work expands to fill up the amount of time it’s given (this is known as Parkinson’s law). If you want to get more done in less time, and make sure you’re working on the right things, your calendar should reflect your most important priorities in a very visible way.
Decide the top 5 things you want to accomplish this week, and make sure there is a date and time in your calendar for you to sit down and get them done.
I promise, this is a game changer, especially for entrepreneurs that “don’t like structure”. Time blocking gives you the freedom to be able to spend your time doing what you want because you’ve accomplished your key priorities.
Productivity Tip #4: Keep An Organized & Inspiring Workspace
The link between having an organized workspace and having a clear mind is fascinating. As much as you might believe taking time to organize your office doesn’t move your business forward, time and time again I’ve seen that it does.
Entrepreneurs who have a clear and organized space to work in are able to get more done.
Our outer space often reflects our inner space, so if your office is a disaster, you’re likely feeling pretty frazzled too.
Taking a couple hours to get your space in order will do wonders for your productivity levels. And I hope you actually enjoy the space that you spend so much of your day in. If you’re in a space that’s dark and dingy and uninspiring, you’re not going to create the same level of output as you would if you worked in a place you loved. So splurge on some fresh flowers or paint the goodman walls and make sure you enjoy sitting in your office.
Productivity Tip #5: Carve Out Uninterrupted Focus Time
You can’t do big things in the world if you’re busy responding to every email, text, and distracting thought that pops up throughout the day. Successful entrepreneurs carve out regular periods of uninterrupted focus time.
This means closing the email tab on your laptop so that you can’t see what’s coming in and setting your phone on Do Not Disturb mode so that texts and phone calls aren’t distracting you.
If you’re still allowing your email, Facebook, and all the other apps to send you pop up or Push Notifications… you need to disable all notifications RIGHT NOW. It’s much more effective for you to actively go into the app and check notifications on a scheduled basis, rather than having them come at you when you’re in the middle of doing something.
This is one of the biggest differences I see between entrepreneurs who blow their goals out of the water and those who fall short: how much uninterrupted focus time are you creating to move your key priorities forward?
The Pomodoro Technique is a fantastic way to approach this: 50 minutes of uninterrupted focus time, 10 minutes to check your phone, go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water. Try it today.
Related Post: Achieved All Your Goals? How To Clarify What’s Next & Get Motivated Again
Productivity Tip #6: Leverage Your Natural Energy Levels
The reason many of us got into entrepreneurship is so we didn’t have to work ‘a 9 to 5’. Yet, that’s exactly the environment most entrepreneurs are recreating in their own businesses.
Successful business owners are factoring in their natural energy levels as they plan out their day or week.
If you feel most creative and inspired in the mornings, keep that time dedicated to writing content, not taking client calls. If you feel most drained at 2pm, schedule in a nap and finish the rest of your work in the evening. If you feel most productive at 6am, make sure that’s the hour you’re time blocking for strategic work.
You don’t have to be at your laptop from 9am to 5pm. The way you’re going to get more done in less time is by leveraging your natural energy levels as you plan out your week.
Whether you’re Googling productivity tips for entrepreneurs in a frenzy because you’ve got 35 things on your to do list and they all need to be done in the next 7 minutes, or you just crave more focused and productive time in your workweek, these 6 productivity tips from successful CEOs will help you get a jump start on accomplishing more in less time.
There’s so much more than just productivity hacks that go into achieving big things in your business. Part 2 of this 4 part blog post series “Top High Performance Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs” is all about creating more energy on a daily basis so that you can continue to accomplish more in your life and business. You can read it here: 7 Powerful Ways Entrepreneurs Boost their Energy and Create Motivation.
If you’re an entrepreneur building, growing, or scaling your business to the next level, I’m here to help you create not just financial success, but fulfilling success. Book a discovery call to find out how my 1:1 executive business coaching program or my 1:1 online business coaching program can help you grow a thriving business while living a fulfilling life.
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