How to make this year your most productive yet

After the excitement of the holiday season, it’s all too easy to slip into procrastination and let goals fall to the wayside, due to being unproductive. If that’s the case, it’s time to take steps now, to ensure you follow through for a productive year.

Reflect on your goals

Perhaps you wrote a list of 50 goals, including to get fit, eat healthy, invest in property and expand your business. Or, maybe you just want to feel happier. Either way, reflecting on your goals helps to make them actionable, which means you’re on your way to productivity.

The best way to start, is to write down what you loved about last year, and what you didn’t. Reflect on mistakes, goals kicked or forgotten and how you felt about life, overall. This helps bring to light what’s really important. Put a big cross through the situations you didn’t like and, providing they’re situations you can change, devise strategies and deadlines to do so. Circle what you loved and aim for more of it, with a list of steps to get you there.

Use this as a vision board and keep it where you can see it, every day, for motivation.

Hit problems head on

Productivity stalls when you don’t hit problems head on. Naturally, it’s much easier to bury your head the sand and put issues on tomorrow’s schedule. However, look back at last year and think about how many times you did this, resulting in issues becoming much larger than necessary. View each problem as a challenge and run at it, keeping in mind that when you do, you won’t have to think about it again. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Choose a positive mindset

Choosing a positive mindset sounds easy, especially when you’re thinking about cherished goals. However, in order to remain productive, a positive mindset must apply to everything, including failure. Enhanced productivity often requires changes to systems, actions and routines. In order to do this, you have to be willing to try new things, not all of which will work.

As long as you’re striving towards being more productive, it doesn’t matter if you stumble along the way. Know that failure is a positive step towards growth, rather than something that slows you down. The lessons learnt will become apparent eventually, to help make this year, your most productive yet.