Productivity hack: Achieve 20% more every day

Most people I know say they don’t have enough time for whatever it is that they want to do. First of all, I think this is typically just an excuse - we all have plenty of time, it’s just a matter of choosing what we use it for. But more importantly, most people could use their time in a more effective way, achieving more each day. We all have projects to complete and things to learn.

In this post, I’ll discuss a particular strategy for doing this - harnessing your downtime. This advice is equally valid for students and professionals alike, and basically anyone who has projects to complete and/or the need for more free time.

Basically, I’m going to tell you how to make use of the extra time hiding in the corners of your life.

Where does downtime hide?

Without realising it, you are probably sitting on a lot of untapped downtime - time that you could use for a number of purposes. Here are some of my favourite places to hunt for it:

Transportation

Your daily commute is probably the best source to turn to for discovering unused downtime. Particularly if you use a means of public transportation that doesn’t require you to keep your eyes on the road - that’s when you can point your eyes at a notebook or a screen, instead. Or, alternatively, you can look out the window, get some great ideas, and note them down. For the record, this article was mostly ideated and planned in various buses and written in an airplane.

When you’re early or they’re late

The time between appointments is a ripe opportunity. When you make sure you have something useful to do while waiting, you stay in control of your own time and productivity, and you don’t have to spend as much mental energy trying to always be exactly on time. Just show up a bit earlier and get started on that book you have been meaning to read.

Taking a break

Every once in a while one has to take a break from whatever one is doing, be it studying or working. Sure, you could play Tetris on your inevitable breaks - or you could do something else that gives your brain a break from what it was doing, while also being valuable for you. For example, you could practice a foreign language on Duolingo or another language-learning app, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

If you feel that your work requires you to take brainless breaks to stay energised, that’s fine, too. In this case, meditating or otherwise clearing your mind can be a productive thing to do. The main takeaway is, make good use of your breaks, and don’t spend them stalking your ex on social media.

When you’re bored but obligated

Ideally, we would never find ourselves in situations we find neither useful nor pleasurable but we feel obliged to be present at. Of course, life is not always ideal, and sometimes such occasions are unavoidable, which is why I would recommend having a strategy for making the most of them. For example, you might find yourself attending a mandatory lecture that isn’t teaching you anything useful. If you can’t leave, do something productive (and low-key) instead.

Please note that this is not a recommendation to answer emails at anyone’s wedding! If respectfulness is required, try doing mental work and noting the results down when doing so won’t disrupt anything.

What to use downtime for?

Well, anything that is valuable and you are able to do in the time you have and the place you’re in. Here’s some inspiration:

Small tasks

Tasks that only take a few minutes to complete are great, because you can do them more flexibly in short periods of downtime. These could be anything, such as writing a grocery list, answering an email, paying a bill, checking how many likes your latest Facebook post got (just kidding, this is not a productive use for your time), writing a birthday card, booking a hairdresser, or researching a potential employer. It’s a great idea to keep a list of possible mini-tasks you can easily pick from when you have a few minutes of extra time.

Efficient idea creation

If you ever need to be creative, such as by coming up with catchy tag lines for a marketing campaign or by brainstorming ideas for your next blog post, you’ll know that sometimes inspiration can be hard to find. Downtime, especially when you only have a few minutes, can be great for coming up with new ideas - try telling yourself that, in the next five minutes, you’ll have to come up with three ideas, even if they are completely ridiculous. This works especially well if you are somewhere outside of your normal working context - creativity feeds off mental stimulation and variance. Trying to come up with great ideas while staring at the same old desk is anything but inspirational.

Ongoing projects

Depending on what kind of downtime you have and how easily you can switch mental contexts, you might even be able to work on a bigger project during periods of downtime. Writing an essay or a business report, or making a new design for your webpage - everything is potential food for downtime. And, if you can chop your projects to smaller bits, you’ll have more opportunities for making progress on them. How about doing a quick sketch to get an idea of the new design, or reading one article for your essay?

Reading and educating yourself

Often people, particularly students and young professionals, say that they “don’t have time to read anymore.” Downtime is a fantastic way to progress through your reading list, be it fiction or nonfiction. This is especially true if you have a tablet or an ebook reader, so you can always have hundreds of books with you to choose from, without carrying a physical library in your backpack. And, of course, you can also read anything from blog posts to Wikipedia to learn more and educate yourself.

Listening to audio

Finally, audio. It’s awesome because you can do it at times when you can’t do many other things - when doing housework, exercising, biking or driving to work, to start with. Listening to audio books, podcasts, language courses, and radio shows, among other things, can be a great way to put your otherwise occupied time to good use.

Isn’t a 20% boost to productivity a little too optimistic?

It’s absolutely realistic. A modest half-hour commute, a couple of breaks from work, and one friend who is slightly late quickly add up to a couple of hours - easily a fifth of a normal working day. If you think there’s less downtime in your life, go ahead and measure it for a few days. I’m pretty sure you’ll find that there’s plenty of unused time you could be harnessing to achieve your goals.

Do you have any ideas for making use of downtime? Leave a comment and share your tricks! And while you’re at it, pick a couple of ideas from this article, give them a try, and let me know how it goes.