10 Productivity Hacks for 2025

Welcome to the Rise, Shine and Redefine podcast where entrepreneurship meets purpose, mindset and the energetic flow of business. I'm Karen Meininger, your go to guide and business whisperer here to help you cultivate the strategies, mindset, shifts and alignment that allow you to rise above the noise and redefine what it means to succeed on your terms. In each episode, you'll discover the tools to create a business in life that feels authentic and powerful. So if you're ready to explore the deeper side of business, let's dive in.

Today I am sharing 10 productivity hacks to help you crush 2025 and to be organized and structured in a way that feels really aligned and feels really good for you. I just wanted to start with that. There is this huge misconception about being busy, right? We tend to stay busy to avoid feeling something. Have you ever noticed you were so busy doing all the things, but a lot of times we stay busy doing things so we don't have to think, are we good enough? I'm not good at business, I can't do it, I don't have time. I want you to start questioning the mind when you tell yourself you're busy. Because busy doesn't always equal efficiency. For example, in my business I noticed that I was avoiding working on getting clients while doing the website or trying to do my social media. I was doing all the things that, yes, in a way help create my business, but they're not the actual thing that creates the income. So just watch yourself. Are you busy? What are you avoiding? Just watch the mind. Because if I'm not busy, then who am I? I'm not efficient with my purpose. This is just mindset work and this is the way I work with people is I really get to the root and understanding like how is this actually trying to serve you? And so I just want you to think about that. If you comment below when you have an intrusive thought, what is coming up for you? For me, it's imposter syndrome, right? That's my intrusive thought. So I do all the things to stay busy to try to avoid the imposter syndrome. If something's coming up for you, I would love for you to write that in the chat, whether you're live or watching the recording. So let me know what kind of intrusive thought is coming up for you. I would love to know for you to share. In order to go faster, we need to slow down. We're in such this high achieving, overachieving, gotta get it done, gotta do the Things gotta get it all done, gotta check all the boxes that we end up making more work for ourselves. Sometimes when we slow down and really receive, that's how we can go faster. I know you high achievers want to do all the things. I get it because I'm that way too. Having a clear plan to manage, strategize and become productive is essential. Especially if you're a mom entrepreneur working two jobs. Like, you really want to be able to be productive and efficient. Because I know that efficiency is a huge value for us. It is a huge value. We want to get shit done and I get it. So I want you to stay organized and I also recommend taking some notes. Some of this information is, is really good. And I also recommend that you take one or two of these hacks. I would not do all of them because then you're going to be overwhelmed and end up doing none of them. And because I know overachiever, it's like, oh, you're going to be 10 hacks, I'm going to do all 10 hacks. And, and then what happens is you do none of them because it's too much and you're, you don't have the capacity for it. So I recommend you just pick one or two of these that resonate with you and start playing with it, testing it. Be a scientist in your own life. See how, see how it feels and how it works out for you. Hack number one is prioritize what you need to get done. Okay, so the night before, write out all the things that you need to get done. There is this app I just discovered, it's free, it's called to do list and I love it. You just type in the night before or you can schedule it out further if you want, of just the task you want to get done. Boom, boom, boom. Check them off and then you feel this sense of accomplishment. So write down all the tasks you want to get done for the next day, the night before. Then I pick three, the three that are the highest priority for you. And on those three tasks, I want you to have no distractions, right? Get those tasks done and that way you can be really intentional when you're doing the task and that's going to create more efficiency for you. Remember, your time is your most valuable asset. So turn off all the distractions on all the high priority tasks. Okay, Number two, batch your time. So what does that mean? So I like to divide it into three categories and it's going to be free days, focus days, and buffer days. Your left brain is the logical side. And your right brain is more of the creative brain. When you're doing tasks that are using left brain and the right brain, it takes 30 minutes. Or scientists say that it takes 30 minutes for you to switch your brain from left to right and vice versa. So you want to batch your tasks all at the same time. For example, Mondays for me is a planning day. It's all logistics, setting up the meetings, the calendar. It's like left brain, left brain, left brain, logical logistics. That's how I coordinate my Mondays, my planning day, Tuesdays through Thursdays, which would also be considered like a buffer day. Right. So that, that's like the scheduling logistics meetings. Then Tuesday through Thursday is when I coach clients or record my podcast. I have a podcast, Rise, Shine and Redefine. It's all about elevating yourself version and how entrepreneurs really step into their highest self, even through different kinds of challenges. Health challenges, mental challenges, parenting challenges, all of those things. Check it out if you get a moment. So that is the buffer day. Focus day is performance day. And this can vary depending on what kind of business you're in. For me, it's coaching Tuesday through Thursday for my performance days. Those are also my creative right brain days. So again, recording podcast recordings and coaching. And then Fridays are my off days. That's for my creative day. I can either do self care or give myself space to get creative with my business. No actual hard work, really letting myself rest and receive the insights on that. Another thing on batching is notice if you're doing tasks throughout the day and if you can batch them together. So if you're checking ads, checking Instagram, checking emails, checking Facebook, connecting with your team, you can plan like batch all those together. So maybe twice a day you're like at 10 and 5, I'm going to check emails or check my DMs. Maybe your business, you have to be on email all day. I know there are some businesses like that. But really try to just give yourself a specific time to batch all of those together. And that's going to be really helpful on becoming more efficient and more productive in your business. Okay. The third thing is the Pomodoro technique and what that is, whatever task that you need to do, you're going to set a timer for 25 minutes. Okay. And then after the 25 minutes, you're going to take a five minute break. So you're going to work on that one task, only one task for 25 minutes. And then you're going to take a break. And then after that five minute break, you're going to go back and do another 25 minutes and you're going to do four rounds of this unless the task is finished before those two hours. After the two hours you'll take a 15 to 30 minute break and then you can go back into that again. The fourth step is the 8020 rule. So 20% creates 80% of the results. So what is your 20%? What is actually getting you the result? You need to identify your actual goal and what is the thing that's going to get you to that goal? So for me, coaching, getting on sales calls, connecting relationships, that is how I'm going to create clients. That is my 20%. Creating a website and social media aren't what's actually creating the client, it's the relationship that I'm building with them. So that's my 20%. So that's where you want to really get super fire hosed in on to, to create whatever the result is that you're looking to do and then track it, see what's working, see what's not working and, and what can you delegate? What can you take off your plate that you don't have to do? Do you have team, do you have help, do you have support? Start delegating those tasks and that will help you create more efficiency. Also focus on what's important, right? If it's making money, what are the things that you need to do to actually bring in the income and just use that 20% to get the result that you are looking for. Number five. This is one of my favorites. This is meditation and flow state. You are 500% more productive when you are in flow. What's flow? Flow is when you get into an alpha brain wave. With the alpha brain waves, that's when the creativity comes in. That's when the flow state happens. And that usually happens when you wake up or right before you go to bed. And so another way to get your brain, there's a couple different hacks to get you into flow state. So the first one is meditation. I know I don't have time for meditation, but meditation is medicine for your brain. When our mind is scattered or distracted, we're not productive, right? So when we're meditating, it calms the mind. We can become more focused and stay more present, getting us into that flow state. Other ways are listening to music. You want to listen to music on repeat. So binaural beats my, my listening to the same song over and over again. I had a friend named Sabine and she would always listen to the same song. And we would be like, okay, we need to sabine the song. And what it does, it actually gets you into alpha state so you become more in flow and then the creative downloads come in. The other thing is you want to challenge yourself, but not too much. You want to be in that balance of boredom and anxiety, right? Because that's going to push you a little bit more and it's going to trigger flow for you. You also want to take brain breaks. Like when you pause and take that self care, it refreshes the mind. If you want to go faster, slow down those breaks actually boot your brain. So they are really important to take. The other thing is nature is get in nature. It's, it's really helps with grounding and, and, and put you in flow. Also. Nature is such a beautiful thing. There's so much wisdom in nature. So if you're looking for a solution to a problem you haven't figured out, go out in nature, find a tree, find a bush. Find whatever is attracting you and just stare at whatever that is and look for the wisdom in it. Look for the wisdom in the crisscross trees or the spider webs or whatever it may be. Nature is a gift and I want you to look for the gift in nature and the wisdom in it. So start thinking about your schedule. When you wake up, what are you going to do? I'm going to meditate. I'm going to go for a walk during lunch and I'm going to be more productive in the morning because that's what my creativity is. I want you guys to just start thinking about how you're going to start creating your schedule in that way. The next thing is habits. You want to have routines that light you up because you can have a habit and you hate it and it's not going to light you up. And I'm just going to kind of give the example of exercise. I don't know how many people love exercise. I don't love it. But I have created this habit because I know the results and benefits of doing it. Scrolling on social media is not going to help you achieve your goals. You want to create habits that feel good and fuel your body. Once you start, just pick one habit. Once you create that habit, then you can habit stack. But creating that one habit, you're going to start trusting yourself more. And then when you trust yourself more, you show up differently and you show up as that 2.0 version of yourself. The seventh hack is movement. Movement increases productivity. Sweating gets your endorphins going and Helps you focus and create insights. So when I need to be on, I do movement. For example, I'm going to give you a story of today. I have two Airbnbs, and last night I had a guest who was getting there at midnight, and I did not know that she or I didn't pay attention that she didn't get the check in, the check in details. Because the way my system is is that you need to sign a rental agreement and you need to. And you need to send a refundable deposit. Well, she never sent the refundable deposit, and that's on me because I didn't recognize that she didn't do that. So therefore, it did not. Airbnb did not trigger the check in instructions. And so she never got the check in. So at midnight, she was messaging, Airbnb was calling me. I was sleeping, and she wasn't able to check in. So I woke up at 4 euphoria, freaking out, really stressed out, really upset. This really triggered me on a lot of layers, which just shows me I have more inner work to do. Overachievers want everything to be the best, so I had to really work on just noticing what I felt on my body, on that. And then I also had the Live today, which is my first live. I was really nervous about it, so I went to the gym, moved my body, got those endorphins moving, and here I am, My body's calmed down, the guest is in the Airbnb safely, and she's happy and loves it. I did everything I could to accommodate her. I gave her a refund, gave her some little extras, and it all worked itself out. But it's just noticing what happens in your body when. When things are happening. And remember, like, life's a mirror, everything's a lesson. And it's like, okay, what is my lesson in this? Sometimes we get too much in our head, and then it can snowball. This is why movement can be really powerful. The next thing is quality sleep. Quality sleep is probably the number one most important thing to be productive. You're gonna be your best. Usually in the mornings, after your mind has rested, especially if you're working double jobs. You have kids, entrepreneurship, all the things, right? You're doing all the things. So rest is so important because when we're exhausted, it takes us two to three times longer to get whatever it is that we need to get done. So also, I recommend taking naps. If you can take a nap, take a nap. Give your brain that rest. Bedtime routine. A lot of people have really Good morning routines. I think bedtime routine is really important for somebody like me who struggles with sleep. I really try to incorporate a couple of these little hacks for bedtime. Connecting with friends or family without any devices, right? Turn your devices off, let them go. You don't need them until the next day. They're not going anywhere. Maybe reading, maybe taking a bath. Sometimes I'll shower before bed because that just calms my brain down. Dim your lights. Blue light blockers. I also fall asleep with the meditation on just to really close down my mind. And my newest hack, or I don't know if it's a hack, but is I added a humidifier. I used it last night and actually I feel way more rested having the humidifier. So I'm just testing that out to see how it goes. Maybe you want an eye mask. I don't use an eye mask, but I know that can be really helpful to shut your mind down. Also, I want to touch on getting enough sleep for me if I go to bed before 10 and get eight hours of sleep. So 10 to 6, I feel way more rested and productive than if I went to bed at midnight and and then Woke up at 9. So you got to see what works best for you. But optimizing, I feel the time frame in those hours tends to help optimize productivity, efficiency, rest, all the things a lot quicker. Life is lifing and kids are crazy. So take whatever nugget you can from this. Just test it, see what works. Everyone's different, everyone optimizes differently. But these are some ways you can optimize your sleep. The ninth thing is food, vitamins, herbs, what you put into your body matters. Your gut and your hormones determine how you feel. Talk to your doctor, see what foods or supplements could be helpful. I put magnesium, longevity mushroom and chilla jet in my coffee. This helps with my brain health. Throughout the day I have different supplements that I take. And then I have my nighttime one, especially magnesium. Sly, I think it's called, is what I take at night. I take magnesium althroid. I'm probably totally butchering the names of these in the morning because that's brain. The other one, that life site is at night. And you know, I take probiotic. I take a whole bunch of different supplements to really optimize my health and body the best that I can. The tenth thing is doing the inner work, which what I've recently just learned in my program, it's called Simbu. So you want to get in under the hood through somatic, through emotional mastery through mindset, through behavioral and habit or not habit, sorry, unconscious. My brain, unconscious programming. So let me just say that again because I kind of messed it up. There's somatic, there's emotional, there's mindset, behavioral and there's unconscious work. And by doing that inner work, that's how you maintain your aligned actions and productivity. It's like running a car. You have to keep up the maintenance. Most things are an inner job. If you want to attract something different, it starts from the inside out. So Those are my 10 hacks for productivity. I'm offering one on one coaching called Live Iconic. If you have any interest, please DM me. I will give you more details on how I work with you. And yeah, let me know if you guys end up having any questions after this training, let me know. And just know. Sometimes you need a little structure, sometimes you need a little fluidity. You gotta play and see what feels good for you. Thanks guys.