time management – Nicole Munoz Consulting

What Kills Productivity? We all have the same 24 hours in a day, yet some seem to get way more done than others. Let’s take a look at a few of the more common productivity killers. These can be killing your productivity in either your personal or business life.

Killer #1: Too much on your plate is one of the top productivity killers. We take on tasks even when we already have a full plate. Often times we do this because we are confident and overly optimistic. We believe we can get everything done. Or maybe we just haven’t learned to say no to those things we really don’t want to do.

Killer #2: Which leads to the next killer: You don’t know how to say no. By spreading yourself too thin, your quality of work, your health and your sanity often suffer. Taking on too much, filling your plate with every request made of you, can be overwhelming and cause you to not get done half of what you normally could.

Killer #3: Not getting enough sleep can kill your productivity. I’m not telling you to get 10 hours of sleep. Everyone’s body is different. But research says most people need 7 to 8 hours to be fully rested.

Killer #4: Not getting enough exercise can kill your productivity as well. Physical activity keeps your mind healthy as well as your body. Just a simple walk around the block can clear your mind so you are ready to start on a task when you return.

Killer #5: Not enough time for yourself. Not only do you need enough sleep, you need time to yourself. This means taking short breaks throughout the day and regular vacation time. This helps your body renew itself.

Killer #6: Not eating a healthy diet. Junk food, sweets, fats and processed foods all make your body weak, overweight and sick while slowing your immune system.

Killer #7: You’re not motivated by what you’re doing. Are you bored with what you are doing? It is hard to get motivated in the morning because you don’t enjoy what the day has to offer? Figure out what you love to do to; being passionate and excited leads to being more productive.

Killer #8: Your personal relationships aren’t in balance. Frustration, fighting and friction among your family or friends can take a toll on your energy. Find ways to reduce this stress.

Killer #9: Your finances are causing you stress. Financial stress is a big distraction to a lot of people. It takes our mind and time away from doing things we want to be doing.

Killer #10: You rely on your own willpower to get you started. If your willpower is running on low, you won’t get to the tasks done.

Killer #11: There’s no one to hold you accountable. If you aren’t held responsible for your actions, you can easily not get things done.

Killer #12: You don’t know what to do next. You don’t know what your next step should be.

Killer #13: Interruptions are a constant in our fast-paced life. Email, people, phone calls are all interruptions that can affect your productivity.

Killer #14: You haven’t set clear goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely, emotional, and rewarding.

Killer #15: Not planning regularly. Your priorities change and your plan of action should be changing with it.

Not all these things are a problem for everyone. You will have to determine which are affecting your productivity and learn ways to deal with them. You might need to change your eating and sleeping patterns or your financial situation. Whatever is causing you to be less productive can be changed.

Believe it or not, all the time you spend planning will save you time later. Taking the time in advance to define your audience, organize your information, create a publication calendar, as well as brainstorming and creating content along with the judicious use of management tools will go far in helping you save time.

Define Your Audience — Know who you’re sharing with so that it’s easier to know how to phrase your updates, as well as to know what updates will be important to your fans. If you know your audience well you’ll avoid waiting your time and theirs will irrelevant posts.

Create a Publication Calendar — You can use Google Calendar as your publication calendar. Simply create a new calendar called Facebook Calendar or whatever you want to call it and create an entry each day for the types of content you want to post. If you click edit, you can check the box to repeat entry.

Brainstorm Content — Know exactly what type of content you want to create to share on Facebook in advance. Everything you share should have a purpose of some kind. Don’t just share things for no reason. Knowing in advance what you’ll share and why you’ll share it is a time saver because it keeps you from wasting time sharing content without a purpose.

Create Content — Whenever you sit down to create content, do so in batches. Creating several blog posts about the same topic at once is faster. You only have to research once, then start writing based on that research. Your mind will get into the flow of writing. Then you can schedule the posts in WordPress easily. Next, either grab the links to share on Facebook manually (using Facebook’s schedule feature or another third party app scheduling feature), or using another app to share automatically with Facebook like NetworkedBlogs to speed up the process will help you work faster. Do be cautious about too much automation without a comment by yourself on each shared piece of content.

Get Organized — The content you want to share should be inside a spreadsheet with links ready to grab. These can also be uploaded to Google Drive. When you create a new blog post, or new content, or find content on the web that you want to share, grab the link immediately and stick into your spreadsheet for sharing during your 10 minutes.

Use Third Party Apps — Apps like the cloud-based MarketMeSuite , Hootsuite Pro, and others can help you automate your social media marketing strategy in a simple way. You can manage all of your social media for Facebook from one inbox. Messages can be scheduled in advance and appear without any type of branding or appearance of scheduling from a 3rd party app in some cases. Be cautious about using too much automation especially if the program announces it came from a third party app.

Use Facebook Features — Use any feature Facebook already offers. One of the features Facebook already offers business pages is the ability to schedule posts. When you start to create an update just click on the little clock, then pick the year, month, day that you want your update to appear on your time line.

Hire a Virtual Assistant — Hiring a contractor to help you with social media like Facebook is a great way to help create more time for engaging with others. Only you can truly engage with your audience, but anyone can post the planned updates and content to your Facebook page. If you outsource the things that don’t require personal attention, you can then focus only on what does require personal attention.

No matter what type of content you share, or how often you update, it’s important to always maintain integrity by ensuing that you are following copyright laws. It’s also important to stay up to date with the times. Social media changes fast. Technology is expanding at a faster and faster rate. For instance, most people are accessing Facebook via mobile devices than via PCs this offers the question: Is your Internet real estate mobile friendly? If not, are your Facebook promotions as successful as they could be?

Using Facebook to promote your business only needs to take ten minutes per day if you have everything planned out in advance, entered into a calendar and transferred to your “to do” list. Get started now with daily Facebook activity that will increase awareness, traffic and sales in just 10 minutes a day.