As cool as it may sound, being startup CEOs is one of the toughest and most stressful jobs in the world. Since it is a startup, the responsibilities are greater and so is the work pressure. You have to do all the meetings with clients, pitch your ideas to investors, regulate and supervise works and even hire freelancers when there is a dearth of human resources. In such scenarios, your productivity and efficiency should be at their peaks so that all the required jobs are done smoothly on time. For this seemingly impossible outlook to happen every day, startup CEOs are in dire needs of having the best productivity hacks. As a matter of fact, whether you are in regular or freelance jobs, you need a set of productive hacks to excel in your professional life like a pro.
Prioritization – Every startup CEO has endless tasks to do every day. This is why it is important to prioritize tasks and do the important and heavy-duty ones first. Most of the time, startup CEOs end up doing the easy ones first due to natural human nature and lack of experience. Then due to lack of time, they start panicking and the important tasks get messed up. It is a scientific fact that a person has greater productivity and energy at the beginning of a professional day and it slows down towards the end of the day. Therefore, the heavy-duty tasks deserve the top place on your priority list and use feature-rich to-do apps to prepare your list.
Bottom Line – Give importance to important tasks and only then can you do the easy ones with peace of mind.
Mind Mapping – When it comes to prioritizing short-term tasks, segregating the more and less important tasks could be a time-wasting activity. With mind mapping tools like MindMeister or MindManager, you can create an easy-to-use diagram and link the tasks to your primary objective. It will not only help you identify the important tasks that contribute immensely to fulfilling your objectives directly or indirectly but also save your time in planning and keep you on the right path all the time. You can use the same to pass on your ideas and easy tasks to other employees.
Bottom Line – Visualization brings clarity and boosts productivity effectively.
Ditch Multitasking – Multitasking sounds really cool but it is not everyone’s cup of tea. It requires a lot of practice and experience. Being startup CEOs, it is important to ditch multitasking if it is not yielding the desired result. Do one task at a time and do it good so that you can be totally dedicated towards it and have the consistency and efficiency of all tasks. It is always better to be a master than be a jack of all trades.
Bottom Line – Work in series, not in parallel.
Monitor Your Activities – All of us lose our precise time in useless activities knowingly or unknowingly. Ever since the internet has exploded, there is no shortage of distractions like blog reading, social networking, video streaming, gaming and gambling and likewise. In today’s world, most of the activities of startup CEOs take place online which opens up the opportunity to secretly monitor your own activities. Use RescueTime and its alternatives to understand how much time you spend on which sites and activities and you may just understand the reason for the lack of time in your professional life.
Bottom Line – Seeing is believing. Know your weaknesses before you can turn them into your strength.
Avoid Distractions – Once you know your weaknesses, you can either try to block them completely if you have the willpower or you can postpone them if you are addicted to them. Set a particular time to do all your distracting works like reading blogs, watching videos, being on social media sites and likewise rather than doing them in the middle of your work. For that, you can use SelfControl and its alternatives to block certain websites for a specific time period. It can do wonders for your concentration and productivity without depriving the fun time of your life.
Bottom Line – If you cannot win, come to a negotiation.
Outsourcing – Most of the startup CEOs end up eating more than they can chew. Even after prioritization, utmost dedication, and maximizing productivity, they fall short to complete all the tasks they were scheduled to do. It is important to understand the value of time and hence, the less important and easy tasks should be assigned to others. They can hire freelancers online from various platforms and get the job done in time. This will not only save time for the CEOs to invest in important tasks and get them done smoothly but also create freelance jobs for skillful people.
Bottom Line – Time in money and outsourcing will help you earn more than you spend on them.
Conclusion
Other than these practical and effective productive hacks, you have to pay attention to optimize your inner self to be calm and composed in order to thrive in every stressful situation. You may not have complete control over your outer activities as they are dependent on multiple factors, but it is instrumental to keep your interior smooth especially when things are not going as per your plan. Get up early, exercise and meditate, eat healthy food, socialize with positive and experienced people and get a good night sleep to make your next day as good as it was today.