What do you do if you're caught in common time-wasting habits as a creator?

One of the bad habits I see creators develop is spending too much time and energy reading the comments. It can suck the soul out of you! Dedicate enough time to logical see what’s going on, but don’t dedicate too much time to ponder on how you can get them to change their mind. Just keep showing up for work everyday despite what the comments are saying!

To address common time-wasting habits as a creator, start by identifying specific habits that consume excessive time or distract from productivity.

Delegating tasks that are nonessential to your success is crucial for content creators. Focus on what sets your work apart and delegate the rest. While some processes require your personal touch, anything that can be done by someone else on your team should be. This behavior is hard to master but easy to start. Once you've successfully found a delegation flow, you will be more available to tackle the key elements of your content and career that truly engage your audience and can only be accomplished by... YOU!

“What have I been doing all day? Why does this short text take so long?” you may ask yourself. When I catch myself in such a situation, I start tracking my time. All of it. Including scrolling through social media and other forms of procrastination. I highly recommend using special apps, like Toggl or Clockify, writing down the time of the day and your activities in a simple notepad. This way, you’ll quickly recognize which tasks consume more time than needed.

Start small. Pick one habit to change. Track your time to see where it really goes. Set clear, achievable goals and don't forget to reward progress. Remember, change takes time. Be patient with yourself. Small steps lead to big changes.

Setting priorities is key to overcoming time-wasting habits. Focus on tasks that align with your goals and have the most significant impact on your productivity and success as a creator.

Priorities can be very difficult for self-taught, self-made, and self-managed creators. They're used to doing just about everything on their own, and on their own time. Usually this inevitably results in some form of burnout. (Reduced uploads, creative block, late nights, etc.). Prioritizing the most important pieces of the creative flow is incredibly important, and the less important steps can often be outsourced to other members of your team. It can be scary to make that step if you've never worked with a team, but the growth opportunities it allows for are impossible on your own.

Prioritize audience engagement and satisfaction, consistent quality content creation, staying updated on trends, and building a strong personal brand. Focus on fostering community interaction, optimizing content for search engines, and diversifying income streams. Allocate time for content planning, creation, and promotion while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Continuously assess and adjust strategies based on audience feedback and performance analytics to ensure long-term growth and success.

As a creator, it's essential to know what matters most to you. Whether it's revenue, engagement, or fulfillment, having clear priorities guides your decisions and actions. Make a list of your priorities and keep it visible for regular reflection. Ensure that your daily tasks align with these priorities to stay focused and productive. Additionally, share these priorities with your team so that the team is aligned and has a decision making metric to judge future and past actions by.

The Pomodoro technique is very useful for short busts of focused work, and you can adjust the time blocks based on your task. But also remember Parkinson's law - Work expands to fill the time that is allocated for it. So set a feasible but also logical time frame.

Creating a schedule helps structure your time and ensures you allocate enough focus to important tasks while minimizing distractions and time-wasters.

Creating a schedule is indeed a helpful technique. Yet, making a schedule is the easy part. The hard part is to stick to it. It might not work out from the beginning, but eventually, it will free you from having to keep all your deadlines and goals in mind. After the days when it doesn’t go as planned, it’s important to return to your set routine anyway.

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress or Squarespace for website creation and management. Social media scheduling and analytics platforms such as Buffer or Hootsuite for efficient content distribution and performance tracking. Creative software like Adobe Creative Cloud or Canva for designing graphics, editing images and videos, essential for producing visually appealing content across various channels.

There are tons of productivity apps out there, but my top 3 picks are as follows: Pomodoro Tracker. This tool uses a famous Pomodoro technique to help you stay focused. It is easy to use and customizable: you can adjust the duration of the work and rest intervals to suit your needs. Notion. This one is good for note-taking, making to-do lists, creating content plans, and many more. Canva. This tool is super convenient for those who aren’t skilled in graphic design but want to make their schedules appealing.

Its easy to get lost in the rabbit hole of creator economy if one is not focussed and get distracted with the pulls and pushes. To stay focussed and to achieve one's goals, reflection on a periodic basis is critical. Here is how I am starting to work on it, I have adapted to the Balanced Score Card system and made it into a custom personal balanced score card which categorises different goals that I am chasing, further dial down of that into priorities, targets for quarter/year and then reflect on each of those on a weekly/monthly/quarterly basis. Some goals could be multi-year while some could be achievable every quarter. Depending on the time horizon of the goal, the frequency to reflect is set. Reflection works, trust me!

Regular reflection allows you to assess what's working, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your habits and routines accordingly to optimize productivity and creativity.

Reflection reminds you why you do what you do and whether you’re still on track for your goals. There are many ways you can reflect on your work. Personally, I prefer keeping a journal in Notion, but a simple notepad would also be a good option. Jot down your thoughts and observations regularly, to think clearly and broadly.

I’d say that it’s vital to seek support not just from your fellow creators but from your family in the first place. Sometimes, one can waste time procrastinating because of balancing work and home responsibilities. Openly sharing your feelings with your loved ones and delegating part of your chores can be just what you need to boost your productivity.