Productivity Hacks - Get the MOST out of your day

Welcome to episode 6 of the Chloe Careers Podcast. Welcome back if you've been with us for a few episodes now or from the beginning, and hello and welcome if you are someone new and that is just joining. This is the podcast where we talk all things careers, job search, women in business, and being a woman in general. I share my life ups and downs, the ins and outs, everything I'm going through, as well as all of the experience, exposure, and expertise that I have to the careers market. So Welcome, uh, love that you're here and, um, excited to get into this week's topic. So first things first, as always, we do a bit of an update on me, where I'm at, what's happening, what's been going well, what's not going well, uh, and then we get into the topic of today. So, um, the week that's been, uh, it's been an interesting week. So if you follow me on social media, you would have seen that I had a bit of a meant to be weekend, um, just been I, you know, I have a history with mental health. It's been something that I combat, um, pretty consistently, and I have lots of good measures in place to help me with that. But last weekend was just one of those weekends where I just wasn't feeling 100%, wasn't feeling great, um, and I just had to kind of move through that. Usually I would, I don't know, do things to distract myself or just try and fix myself and get better straight away, but in that moment I just felt that I needed to be sad. So I let myself cry, I let myself be angry, I let myself feel what I needed to feel. And I had a low moment of reaching out to someone that I shouldn't, which we all know about because I spoke about it on socials as well. But it was not a great moment for me. And I have reflected on that and gone, okay, not my finest moment, but that's okay. These things happen in these moments of feeling really emotionally low. So it's kind of going, okay, well, how, how can I avoid this from happening next time I go into a spiral? Like, what are some practices that I can put into place that, you know, support the emotional processing that I'm going through in those moments instead of doing things that are essentially self-sabotage? And, you know, I'm very honest on this podcast, but I've been— does self-sabotage from time to time, and I think we're all guilty of that. It's like whenever you are trying to be a certain way or get— or live your life a certain way or work towards a common goal or something like that, there's almost moments of self-sabotage. And as we know, self-sabotage is when you knowingly do something that you know is not good for you. You knowingly take steps towards something that you shouldn't, and you know it's not going to make you feel good, but you do it anyway. I think we all have moments of doing that. And what's important, I think, is when we come to those moments is to think to ourselves, well, why? What are we trying to feel in this moment? What are we trying to achieve? Just an analogy here, you're trying to be healthy and go to the gym 5 days a week and you don't go to the gym 2 days in a row. You just sit on the couch and watch Netflix, something like that. What are you trying to feel in that moment? Are you trying to feel that you're trying to feel more comfort or is it that you're trying to, I don't know, are you trying to give up or show yourself like, oh no, I can't do this and give up and take the easy way out? What is it? I don't know. I'm obviously not a neuroscientist, but I'm curious to understand when we set these goals for ourselves or when we want to live a certain way and then we do have these moments of self-sabotage, it's like, what are we trying to feel in that moment? How can we remind ourselves of why we have made this choice to either pursue that goal or live a certain way. And so I think for me, when I think about another moment where I might be tempted to do something that I know is not good for me or speak to someone that I shouldn't, it's like, okay, well, what am I— what is the feeling that I'm reaching for there? It's like you're not reaching for a person, you're reaching for a feeling. So what is that feeling I'm trying to get and how can I get that within myself? So next time I have moments like that, I'm going to work on, you know, trying to bring that feeling to me. And I think for me, it's just about happiness, acceptance, uh, joy, warmth, all of those things. So I think next time I have one of those moments, I'm going to find that within myself. Um, so I'm not trying to reach out and get it from someone else that I know I shouldn't. Anyway, that was a big part of my week because it kind of did impact how I started the week. But what I think was really important from there is that I I kind of refocused and went, okay, I'm not going to let this shitty thing that happened dictate the rest of my week. That is just not what is going to happen here. So I kind of just accepted, acknowledged what happened. I was like, right, this happened. Let's, like, we've processed it. Let's move on from it and let's take back the week. Like, don't let this bad thing or don't let this negative thing ruin your entire day, week, or month. Like, yes, you have to process it. Yes, go through the emotions, but like don't let it overtake your progress or where you were at. Anyway, so I kind of, um, put that to the side after I processed it and just went, right, how am I going to tackle the week to make sure I get the most out of the week that I can? And so I looked at what I wanted to achieve this week, and then I just put my head down and got to work. Now, this is kind of going into the topic of today, which is productivity. I really wanted to talk about productivity today because considering how I've been approaching my business lately, uh, and what I've been getting done in a day is honestly blowing my mind. Like, I cannot— like, I've never been this productive in my entire life. I've never achieved so much in a day in my career before. And I wanted to share with you, like, what is changing for me and how I'm kind of operating in a space where I don't know, I don't feel that I'm losing energy. Uh, yes, I'm tired at night, but I'm getting just— I'm getting through everything in a day, and it's, it's just kind of taking me to this whole new level. Um, so, you know, when this thing happened on the weekend, I thought, no, I can't let this ruin my progress. And lo and behold, it's— I'm recording this podcast late, yes, but it's Friday and I'm getting it out and I'm getting it done. Um, and everything I wanted to do this week I have done, and this is through specific productivity hacks that I implement in my day-to-day. So in terms of productivity, I think we can either be one of two people, right? We can be, or maybe one of three actually, but you can be that person that feels that they're always busy, but you're not really achieving much. You're like, I'm always busy, I've always got things on, I've got so much to do, I've got so much happening. You spend all this time going, I have so much to do, I have so much happening, that you're actually not getting through the things you need to. And I've definitely been guilty of that. I can think of myself in moments in my life, in my career where I've gone, oh, there's just so much on. I'm so busy. I have so much to do. And then you'll find yourself sitting on one, sitting on your emails and doing admin tasks that aren't going to assist with the productivity every day. You end up doing tasks that aren't as important as the real tasks that you need to get done. Then you find yourself getting distracted and then you completely lose track of where you need to be, and then you don't get through those really important tasks that you knew you needed to because you're so focused on how busy you really are. So there's that thing. I think, um, the other part of it is, yes, being distracted, but the other one is trying to do a million things at once. I also have been that person where I will start one task and then I'll be like, oh, let me just do a little bit on this task, and let me just do a little bit of this task and let me just do this one other thing and let me just do this sort of thing. And you keep focusing on all the different tasks around you that the very first task you are focusing on never gets done. And that was probably the most important one because you just, just because you distract yourself and you're focused on yourself on all the other things you should be doing, you're not actually getting each task done and you're, you might be getting some of it done, but you're probably not getting it done as well as you can. So I know these have been behaviors for me, and it's been like, they've been behaviors that I really had to pick myself up on and go, okay, well, I can't sit here and try and do a million things at once because it's not going to benefit my day, my week, or what I'm trying to get through. And when I was in corporate, I remember I— that was when, like, I'd say yes to everything, and I was trying to do every single task. And, you know, of course, because I was a people pleaser and because I was wanting to be, like, just seeking approval, um, And if I ever said no to anyone, it was like, oh, you can't, like, you're not good enough, you shouldn't be here. I had this, yeah, I had this thought in my head that if I said no to any task, they'd be like, oh, Chloe can't, Chloe can't handle it, Chloe can't cope, knew Chloe wasn't made of what we thought she was, Chloe's not that great. Like, I had all these internal thoughts in my head that would run through. So, you know, for me, it's been really important to go, okay, I cannot do everything all at once, and I cannot do everything I am asked of. I have to say no, I have to set boundaries, I have to prioritize what I need to get done in my day, in my week, whatever it is. So I think the first thing that I would recommend is acknowledging what kind of person you are with your days. Like, are you that person that talks about how busy they are but are not really that productive? Um, or are you the person that tries to do a million things all at once? Or there's probably even another person as well, which is definitely not me. I've never been like this, but I probably did a little bit of this. But the person that has 10 things to do and like, oh my God, I have so many things to do, but they hyperfixate on one thing and they take so long to do one thing because they're maybe like a bit of a perfectionist, want to do a really good job, which is amazing, but they spend so much on that one thing that they actually never get through to, like, they never get through all their tasks and they probably focus on things that they don't need to really focus on. It's like, okay, let me spend 5 hours working on this intricate little thing and making it perfect and then not having any time to do the rest of my day. You know, like, I'm sure you're listening to this and kind of, what's the word, identifying which one you lie with. So yeah, I think that saying you're super busy but not being productive, doing too many things at once and hyperfixating on the things that aren't probably super important and not getting everything done. So see which one you probably more so identify with, and that's like the first part of how you kind of become a more productive person and get more done in your day. Another thing that's really important about being able to have a really productive day get things done is to reduce decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is something that I looked into pretty recently, actually, and looked at how, how having too much brain noise, too much clutter in your head, can actually distract you or hinder you from getting through what you need to do in a day. So decision fatigue, what that can look like is if you have things that you're mulling over in your head, or little things that you just need to make a decision on, but you haven't done it yet. Or maybe it's a big decision and you're just kind of scared about what decision you should make on that. All of those thoughts are taking up space in your head, which is then impacting what you can do in a day and how quickly you can deliver on that. The less head noise you have, the more clarity you have to be able to deliver. So I want you to have a think about, like, yeah, think, have a think about right now if there are decisions that you are mulling over at the moment that you know that you could just make a quick decision on, or if they're decisions that you are causing your own decision fatigue around because you just can't decide. It's really important to identify those because you actually need to make a decision. Now, I don't know your life. I don't know what decisions you are making, but we can't just have these decisions mulling around our head and with no deadline. If it is like, let's go through the scale. If it's a very small decision and you can just make a quick decision, like, do it now. Like, take 5 seconds to be like, right, I need to make a call on this. I'm just going to do it. Done. Decision done. Out of the way. Next. If it's a more mid-sized decision, it's like, okay, I need to give myself another 24 hours on this. Okay. Set the deadline. I've got 24 hours to make this decision. 24 hours, decision made, done. If it's even more serious, then maybe give yourself a week. It's like, okay, I need to consult these other people when I'm making this decision, but I need to make a call on this by the end of the week. Because if we're not doing that, then it's that consistent brain noise of going back and forth, back and forth, and we're not actually giving ourselves that clarity as to, okay, well, on this date, this decision will be out of my head. Okay, so I want you to take that, do that exercise. The tiny decisions, literally decide within the next hour. The mid-sized decisions, give yourself another 24, maybe 48 hours max. And then those larger decisions, of course, you know, depends on what you're going through. But if it's a week, if it's a month, however long it is, like, give yourself a deadline as to when that decision needs to be made. And that will just help you, as I said, give you a bit more clarity. and less of that head noise, that actually has a huge impact on what you do day to day. Because I found for me, as soon as I started reducing my decision fatigue and just deciding on things, like all these things I've been thinking about for a year, honestly, like whether to do a podcast, whether to change all these things in my business, whether to refine my frameworks, whether to do a YouTube channel, whether to do this, whether to do that. Like I had all these things running around in my head of things I thought I should be doing, or I could do, or might do. And I was like, right, let me just write down everything I've been thinking about of what I should and shouldn't, or what I could be doing, and let me just make a decision on each of them. So I went through all of them and I was like, right, I'm going to do a YouTube channel, done, start tomorrow. I'm not going to make this change, I am going to make this change. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I cannot tell you the impact that this has had on my own brain clarity. So That's your exercise for this. That's one of the exercises for this episode. Reduce your decision fatigue by making some decisions on some things that you've been thinking about for way too long. Okay? The next thing that you are going to look at is like, so you've identified what kind of person you are, you've reduced your decision fatigue, and now you are going to look at managing your days. Now, I know people that love a good list. Writing out a list of everything you need to do. And, you know, it could be like every single thing you need to do in that day. It doesn't matter. Whatever you need to put on that list, you put on that list. It could be about making a phone call. It could be, um, you know, going through emails. It could be doing, starting a project. Whatever it is, you put it down on that list. Now, what we want to avoid is if you aren't someone that writes daily lists, you don't want to go from 0 to 100. Uh, you don't want to write like a list that is just completely unachievable, because the thing is, if we write too many things down and what we can get done a day, we're never going to get through them all. And then we're going to continually show ourselves that we cannot get through our list. So, and what that does for us, it's like negative self-enforcement. It's like negative reinforcement. Sorry. So you're like, well, I can never get through my list. I can never get through all the things in one day. I'm— and then you'll go back to that thing of being like, oh, I'm so busy and I never get through anything. It's like, well, you're never getting through anything because you're never getting through everything because you're setting yourself up to fail. Like, don't put 20 things on the list. Put 5 things on the list. They have 5, like, non-negotiables that need to be done today, but 5 things on the list. And then if you get through those 5 things, then do a couple of other things that you can do. Like, I'm pretty sure that, you know, you don't have 15 non-negotiables that need to get done in that day. Write down the non-negotiables and only write those down. Don't write down anything else. And get those 5 non-negotiables done, then move on to your next. So you can actually show yourself like, oh, I'm achieving this. And that gives yourself a sense of achievement and that makes you feel better about sticking to something like writing a list. Okay. So that's a little hack on how to actually effectively manage daily lists. If you're not someone that, if you're not someone that doesn't, that writes down a list, maybe you're someone that manages in your, in your phone, like on, um, like in your calendar, daily task list, Notion, um, notes, whatever it is that you use. Um, What I highly recommend in this, and of course everyone's going to be different, but for me personally, I like to do a, um, what I have to do in the week. So like at the start of the week, I'll have a goal of like, okay, these 2 projects need to be either started, mid, done, or finished in this week. If I have coaching calls, they'll all be planned out for the week. Um, content planned out for the week. Like there are certain things that I will have planned out for the week. Um, so I know ahead, like I'm staying ahead of what needs to be done, but then I will also do like a day-to-day plan. So I have my week plan of everything that is just like mapped out for me. I'll usually do that on a Monday morning. It will all be in my calendar. So I know exactly what's coming up. And then on a day-to-day plan, I will actually at the start of every single day, map out my entire day. And I map out my entire day by time blocking. Now this really worked for me because as I said, I was the person that A long time ago, I was the person that was too busy and never got through everything. Then I was the person that I would do too many things at once and I'll get distracted and then I would forget what I was starting on. So for me, what needed to really happen was structure around the time I was spending on each task and actually making myself focus on the task at hand. So I was working through that, just doing that one task. Now, I know they all say, we're women, we're multitaskers, we can do everything. Yes, we can. We can do everything. We're amazing. But your brain just simply cannot handle doing 2, like doing 3 things at once. It is going to be better for you to focus on one thing at a time, starting it and just finishing that thing. Get that thing done. So it's done off the list. Move on to the next one. So what I like, I had to really force myself to start doing that and it was not easy. So I, So I manage the day, I plan it all out, and I, yeah, so I, and then I time block it, sorry. So every task has a time limit. Now how this really helps is that you might have 6 things or 10 things, whatever it is that you really need to get through in that day. If you write down those 10 things, you start focusing on, you know, task 1 or 2, and they're taking a little bit longer, and then they kind of leak into it and leak into your day. And then it's lunchtime and you're like, oh my God, I haven't even got through half of my list, and then you get to the end of the day and you've done 3 things. Like, that can be the trap that you can fall into if you are not using time blocking strategies. Now, there's certain softwares that you can use that literally will track how long you spend on each task. One that I really like is Clockify. I'll add it to as a link to this, to this episode, but Clockify is really good because it it tells you how long you're spending on each task. Toggl is another one, I think, and you like click the button when you're starting a new task and then you click the button when you stop it. And what that is really effective in doing, it probably highlights things you're spending too much time on that you don't need to be. I know it certainly has for me. I'm like, oh my God, I did not know I was spending that much time editing a post, or I did not know I was spending that much time on emails. You know, it really highlights areas that you, you think that you're like not spending that much time on, but you really are. So that's a really, really good thing I would recommend implementing. So with going back to the time blocking though, what is most effective is to put the time blocking on each of your tasks, but you have to actually be really strict with it. And I was talking to a client about this the other day, like you have to follow through and set the boundary with yourself of going, okay, I'm spending 30 minutes on this task and that's all I've got, 30 minutes, and then I move on to the next thing. And what that will do is, A, it will force you to focus in more because you're like, okay, well, I've got 30 minutes to do this. I have to get it done. Let's go. Focus in, boom, 30 minutes, no distraction, like get it done. And it actually will, and what it also does is it enables you to literally get through more in a day because you are spending a certain amount of time on each task. You are not letting things take up like a huge chunk of your day, and you will find that you will obviously, because of that, get through more things. Now, what's really important as well is that you don't want to be spending— like, I wouldn't say you want more than an hour unless it's like something really specific, like a coaching call that goes for 90 minutes, or, um, maybe you've got like a meeting or a specific project that takes longer. Like, whatever. Like, there's obviously going to be exceptions to that, but for general tasks, no more than an hour. Like, I would say 45 minutes max because your brain needs to focus, right? And our brains cannot focus for that long. Like, again, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I just know these things because I've learned about it and I've experienced it myself. Your brain will not focus for 1 hour straight. Like, it will need— like, well, maybe you can. Maybe you're that person, the third person. Maybe you're like my sister, actually, who can just, like, literally focus on one thing and focus on it for so long. And, um, actually, you— there are people like that. I've had a client like that. She'd say, like, I just get lost in a task and it's 2 hours have gone and I'm like, oh my God, I spent 2 hours on that. So that's— you can focus on it for that long. But the thing is, again, like, you're going to be spending too much time on that task. So regardless of what, like, you know, what channel you sit in, you want to be setting boundaries on those time limits. So 30 minutes, 45 minutes max, whatever it is. Now, if you need to spend more time on a task, you can, but put it at another part of the day. It's like, okay, well, I've got 45 minutes to spend on this task now, but I need to move on to something else after that. If I need to go back to that other task, like, I know that I need— will need to do that. So I'll put another 45 minutes for that at the another part of the day. Like, I know for me, um, today, for example, I needed to get through some content scheduling. Um, I did some in the morning, I didn't get through everything, but I've scheduled some more for time for this afternoon to do it because I had so many other things I wanted to get through. So time blocking every day, 30 to 45 minutes max, sometimes even 15 minutes, and you will amaze yourself of how much you can get through in one day through doing that. Okay, the other thing I think is really important as well in managing all of this is managing your distractions. Now we are in a society now where distractions are so easily there. Like you can just pick up your phone, look at it, like scroll, doom scroll, whatever it is. You need to put your phone on do not disturb. Like if you have to really focus on a task and you need to get it done, that phone goes on do not disturb. Now I'm not sure as well if you, and of course there's going to be people that cannot do that and I understand, but if you can put your phone on do not disturb. What I also want to highlight here, which is a really useful tool, is delayed gratification. What delayed gratification is, is like rewarding yourself after you achieve something, right? So we all, we all now want instant gratifications, like we want things now, we want things like You want to find out something, you just look it up, like ask ChatGPT, whatever it is. We are in a world now where we can get things now. What will help you with getting through tasks and getting through more things in a day is delayed gratification. So for example, in the morning, you're like, oh, I have to do a couple of cleaning things in my house. I'm not going to have another cup of coffee unless I do that, or I'm not going to have my cup of tea that I love having in the morning until I do this one cleaning thing. So you do that cleaning thing and then you're like, oh, now I can have my tea. And that delayed gratification is going to feel so much better than you sitting and having the tea, spending too much time doing that, then going, oh God, I have to do this task now. It's like, do the task, then reward yourself. That's another really good tactic that I encourage you to do. Like for me as well, I'll do things like that. Like I want to get another tea, I want to have a little treat in the afternoon, but I won't let myself do that until I do a certain amount of tasks. Or I won't have lunch before I've done X, Y, and Z. Give yourself that delayed gratification and you will feel how good it feels to reward yourself like that. Cool. So I thought this was a really interesting topic to start talking about because I think life, career, whatever stage we're in, we're always doing stuff, right? So if we can manage how much we're doing and how we are managing that day to day, then you can just feel more in control of your life. And I think that will overall reduce stress. You'll feel more zen because you know what you can get through in a day, you're getting through so much and you're staying on top of everything. It's just as easy as that, guys, just do that. But no, in all honesty, through implementing some of these hacks, for me personally, I have seen huge shifts, especially for me, the do not disturb, like I have my phone on do not disturb all day, not joking. So no one can contact me. I set my own availability. I do the time blocking. I am really strict with it. And also, like, you know, I'm doing things like I've reduced my— like, I don't drink coffee now. I have tea, so that's caffeine. But I do a lot of things that will support me being my most productive self and not crashing and just getting through as much as I can. And then having those moments to give yourself a break. You know, I think another really important thing to call out quickly is don't feel that you need to fill up every second of your day. You need to have moments of brain rest where you're just thinking about nothing. You're letting creative thoughts come in, you're letting actual thoughts come in, you're letting those moments of going, like going back to the decision fatigue, like, okay, let me give myself half an hour to just think about these ideas or thoughts that I've been ruminating over and make a call over it. Like, you need to give yourself moments in the day where you give yourself time to breathe. And I think that's, I might go into this in another episode, but that's all around that whole I'm feeling guilty around not being productive. It's like, well, if you don't give yourself any time to relax or to think without being productive, then you're not actually letting yourself process anything or go through any of those decision-making moments that you actually need to, to reduce that decision fatigue and to give yourself more clarity and to open up your brain more to be able to do more in a day. Okay, awesome. Well, I look forward to hearing how you implement these hacks into your day-to-day, how they improve your productivity. How they clear out your brain, reduce that decision fatigue, and just get you feeling more in control and better about what you're doing day to day. Well, thank you so much for tuning in, everyone. If you like this episode, please give it a review and rate it on Spotify or Apple, wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you're not following me already, I am on Instagram, TikTok under Career Coach Chloe Spillane, and YouTube as well. And you can always give me a follow on LinkedIn. My DM's always open. Thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in, and I will see you next week. Have an amazing weekend.