What’s stopping you from being productive? The never-ending to-do lists, lack of more hours in a day, or the lack of focus? It’s okay. We have all been there.
You don’t need more time or fewer tasks to be productive. Instead, you need the techniques that help you manage your time, prioritize your tasks and increase your focus.
In this article, we present the top 15 personal productivity tools so that you can choose the right ones for you. Some of these are useful for personal productivity while others are more suitable as tools for the entire team to increase the collective effectiveness. Just to be clear, we are not talking about productivity software or productivity apps, but ways to organize your work to ensure maximum productivity.
Table of Contents
Decision Matrix
A decision matrix is a tool used to evaluate, compare and analyze your various options before deciding the best one. It helps you to weigh and prioritize all the essential factors.
To create one, you need to draw a table on a paper, whiteboard, or spreadsheet. While the rows head the criteria, the columns will head the alternative options. Then, you can add the scores and grades for each combination.
Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower matrix is helpful to prioritize your tasks based on their urgency and importance. As you can see from the above image, you divide your task lists into four categories and take action accordingly.
- Important and urgent tasks have deadlines or immediate consequences. So, do them.
- Important but not urgent tasks achieve your long-term goals. Schedule and finish them as soon as possible.
- You can delegate urgent but unimportant tasks like regular chores, paying bills, emails, or phone calls, automated, or done sometime later.
- Neither important nor urgent are your time-wasting activities like watching TV or scrolling through social media. Just delete them.
Don’t forget the leisure time activities that may fall in the 4th quadrant, but you need them to rejuvenate yourself.
Impact Effect Matrix
The Impact Effect matrix is a tool used by teams to decide on their priorities during brainstorming sessions. You group the tasks and projects according to the efforts (time, energy, cost, and resources you need to put in and their impact (benefits, profits, sales, and customer satisfaction).
- Quick wins are your projects that give high returns with little effort.
- Major projects offer good returns but are time-consuming.
- Fill-ins are the regular tasks and activities that you can do in your spare time.
- Thankless tasks are just time-wasting tasks that give you no returns.
BCG Matrix
Companies use the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix to analyze the performance and growth of their products and services. Depending on the market share and development, you need to place your products in the right quadrant. BCG Matrix is an effective tool for teams to enhance the effectiveness and focus of their product development efforts.
- Question mark (high growth, low market share) products consume resources with low returns but become stars.
- Star (high growth, high market share) products generate returns as they are rapidly growing. But they do consume resources.
- Dog (low growth, low market share) products grow slowly and bring low returns. You can discontinue these products.
- Cash cow (low growth, high market share) products grow slowly but generate high returns with little investments.
Action Method
The Action method treats every task in your life as a project – including personal tasks. You break down each project into three folders where all the tasks and sub-tasks go.
- Action items are the actionable steps to finish your project.
- References are the resources, documents, and other information that you need during your project.
- Backburner items are the ideas that don’t immediately fit into your project, but you may need them later.
Getting Things Done (GTD)
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a popular productivity tool by David Allen that helps you organize and prioritize your tasks. It involves five steps:
- Capture every task and project by writing them down.
- Clarify your tasks and projects into concrete sub-tasks and steps.
- Organize your tasks into projects, to-do lists, and calendars.
- Reflect on your lists to make sure you are on track.
- Engage your tasks by finishing them.
The Rule of Three
The rule of three is perfect for people who tend to have too many tasks on their to-do lists and rarely complete them. It’s a simple technique where you write down the three most important tasks for the day. In this way, you will remember to focus only on the essential things throughout the day. You can break them into sub-tasks if you need to. Also, you can extend it to a week, month or year.
Deep Work
Deep work is a concept by Cal Newport where you are insanely focused on your work for some time with zero distractions. Some tips to achieve hyperfocus:
- Remove all distractions by turning off your notifications.
- Plan your deep work sessions in the day according to your focus levels.
- Take enough breaks in between your deep work sessions to rejuvenate.
- Establish a routine around your deep work sessions.
- Don’t multitask.
- Review and tweak your plans regularly.
Time Blocking
In the time blocking technique, you divide your daily schedule into small blocks of time. Then, you allocate one or more of these fixed chunks of time to your tasks. These blocks can range from 10 minutes to 60 minutes.
Time blocking stops you from stretching your tasks unnecessarily. Also, you start to realize how much time you need for a particular job. You learn to prioritize tasks and get better at time management.
The Two Minutes Rule
David Allen came up with the Two-minute rule in his book Getting Things Done (GTD). It is a simple trick to overcome procrastination and finish the smaller tasks that you might end up forgetting while focusing on your larger ones.
According to this rule, you do it immediately if a task takes less than 2 minutes to complete. Else, you add it to your to-do list or calendar. Activities like sending a text message or email, take out the trash, or drink a glass of water (hydration is important), can be done in two minutes.
80/20 (Pareto) Principle
According to the 80/20 principle, 80% of the total result (or income) comes from 20% of your essential work. So, to increase your productivity, you need to prioritize your tasks and focus on the right ones.
To implement this principle, you need to identify the projects and tasks that bring you the most results. Once you prioritize your essential tasks, you waste less time on your minor tasks.
Eat The Frog
No, you don’t need to eat a frog. The name derives from Mark Twain’s quote, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
In this method, you finish your essential and most demanding tasks the first thing in the morning. Once you complete the activity, you feel motivated and relaxed to work for the rest of the day. It is perfect for procrastinators but requires much willpower.
SMART Goals
The SMART goal is a goal-setting method helpful during the early stages of a project. It is beneficial to plan your project by setting targets and deadlines that are:
- Specific – Your goals should be unambiguous.
- Measurable – You should be able to track your progress.
- Attainable – Your goals should be realistically achievable.
- Relevant – Your goals should benefit your field or industry.
- Time-bound – You must be able to complete it within the allocated timeframe.
POMODORO
Francesco Cirillo developed the Pomodoro technique, a university student to focus on his studies. This method helps you to focus for short periods with scheduled breaks in between. Here, you work for 25 minutes and take a break for 5 minutes. You call this a Pomodoro session. After 3 or 4 Pomodoro sessions, you take a 15-30 minute long break.
Pomodoro helps you to stay focused for a long time by giving you enough time to destress. You can implement Pomodoro with Pomodoro apps on your phones or computer. In addition, you can try other variations like 52/17, 90/20 or come up with your own.
J.D. Meier’s Agile Results method
The Agile results method is a result-oriented approach. Here, you align your daily tasks and activities to achieve your goals. While most productivity methods focus on finishing your work, the Agile results method focuses on the future and the past.
In this method, you set three goals each to achieve in a week, month and year. Then, you plan your daily tasks to accomplish these goals accordingly. Here, you regularly review your completed work to know the areas you need to improve to achieve your results.
Wrap up
So, these were our top 15 personal productivity tools that have worked for many people.
There is no one perfect tool. Depending on the scenario, you need to try one of the tools one by one and find the right ones for you. For example, you can use time blocking to schedule your day, Pomodoro to stay focused while you work, SMART to set goals, GTD and two-minute rule to organize your tasks, and so on.
Which one are you going to try first?
