5 Easy Hacks to Cheat Your Way to a Productive Day

When faced with dozens of tasks, it's easy to just go for the longer hours and push ourselves to exhaustion. But is there a better way to approach this? Here are our easy-to-do hacks for the lazy but productive workers:

1. Schedule your phone time.

Being attached to your phone is not an easy habit to break. But like distractions, it's best to put it on mute, give yourself two hours of solid deep work. And schedule calls accordingly.

Let family and coworkers know when's the best time to reach out to you.

2. KISS - Keep It Short and Sweet

Meetings can be a waste timer and sometimes when we're not the host, we have no choice but to oblige. But you are in control of your speaking time and taking control when it allows you is always a good idea.

So make sure to write down agenda before any meetings, be it virtual or in-person.

Also practice an "elevator speech" for conversations you find yourself in a majority of the time. This includes who you are, what you do, and what's the benefit of getting in contact with you.

3. Invest in Your Greatest Resources

Your body and mind needs to be kept in high gear because they're both the hardware and

software running the program that is your day and, ultimately, your life.

A 5-minute meditation using a breathing app, a 15-minute in-place workout, and a healthy

breakfast should prep you up to tackle on any task during the day.

Take 15 minute rests after work too. Research shows that brief moments of diversion can

improve your productivity. Following a 2-hour deep work and 15-minute break sounds has

worked for the team.

Lastly, schedule your rests and vacations. Just like you need a 15-minute break after deep works,

you need your week-breaks for your month-long work marathons too.

4. Automate, Delegate, Eliminate

These are three words you often hear from high-performing individuals and companies. But

these are things you can implement in the smaller tasks and on the daily. Here are hacks

we do all the time:

Put an automated text and email for when you're away doing deep work. Delegate laundry

and housework if you can afford and use the extra time for relaxation or doing side hustles.

Eliminate distractions.

5. Don't Let the Fear of Failure Paralyze You

When you've experienced failure, you can sometimes find yourself stopping on your tracks. You may be in the middle of doing a similar project you've failed on before.

Don't fall into the trap that failure is a bad thing. No one gets it right the first time. There's always an iteration happening. With that in mind, you can eliminate the fear of making a mistake by saying everyone's a beginner and Elon Musk is currently failing with his self-driving cars.

We all have the same hours in a day and if you want to reach your potential, you want to

have the smarts to go along with your hard work in order to win the day.