How to Increase Productivity as a Photographer

Let’s set thing straight

Productivity, Success, work ethic. These are word that we have heard and we admire people who have any of the three if not all. However, something that we don’t know is that, these people have a lot of discipline that has takes alot of time to develop.

When I started out as a creative and opened my business, a lot of work just appeared and I had a lot of trouble managing all of it. Sometimes which was most of the time, I got lazy and decided to replace the work with something fun like watching a movie or going to visit friends. As much as it felt good, it really hurt my business to a place of no income. I realized that I needed a plan to work, be productive and still have time for fun things that brought meaning to my life.

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So, I decided to research on ways to finish tasks, whether I like them or not and to make sure that I work on my business to growth. and Finally I got ways to remain productive. If you have been in my position, this is the video for you and you will learn how to increase your productivity as soon as you watch the whole video.

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1. Schedule and have a task List

Number one is have a schedule and a t0ask list. Lack of a plan is a plan to fail. I know you have heard this phrase and, yes it is true but lets put it in context. When you wake up, your body wants to continue to sleep and every slight excuse makes it harder to wake up and start work. This includes the thought process of “what do I do for the day. One of biggest resistance to our productivity is lack of a plan. When you don’t have a schedule planned out prior, you give your mind more work that it does not want. Remember, our brain is trying to work as little a possible and so it will resist thinking and you will eventually procrastinate.

I really struggled to always start my day especially when I had not planned on what to do the previous day. And that when I realized that I need to reduce thinking on what to do when I want to work. I had an easier time when I walked to my computer to an already planned task and its just starting. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can use a note book, sticky notes, or a software. For me, I use notion and I have all my tasks written down in the order that I will do them. When I finish a task, I slide it to the done column and I do that for each task one by one.

What has happened over time is that I have become more productive and I have made it a habit to always plan my tasks prior and ritten down to make my start easier. Try it and let us know what you find out.

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Start from the Hardest

Number two is start from the hardest to the easiest. There are always tasks that are harder that others because they need a lot of effort, or maybe we don’t like them or sincerely, they are hard to do. Most of these tasks make us procrastinate our work even they are very important.

For example, I hate editing and this makes it to be a very hard task for me. However, I have to do it because is important to my business like this YouTube video. Then I realized that I needed to allocate these tasks the time when I’m highly focused and energetic. And that is in the morning.

So, I decided to always have the hard tasks done first when I am fresh and full of energy. And this is what I realized which you will also realize…. When you finish hard tasks first, you will have this feeling of success and it makes that other tasks a walk in the part. Yes, its crazy but its pure psychology. Because the feeling of success is good, your brain wants to have another sucess just lik the first one and so it will reduce resistance for the tasks that follow. That is how you become more productive after all.

Brian Tracy, one of the famous Productivity coaches calls it swallowing the frog. Metaphorically, it means, at the end of the day you will have to swallow the disgusting frog whether you like it or not. So, why don’t you do it as the first thing. That hard task you have, you will have to finish it, why not them do it first and make your day easier?

Put away Destructions

Next you need to reduce all your destructions. The world is packed with a lot of noise and things to destruct us and to always hook us from work. Unfortunately or fortunately, they have been packed in our daily devices like computers, phones, iPad, watched and TVs. The biggest distractor in the current era is the internet and our social media and communication platforms take the center stage. The best codes and scientists have been hired to design these platforms so that they can capture your attention and hook you for a whole day.

Even before you leave your bed is an email notification, Instagram notification, twitter notification on your phone and when you start, you are hooked till sunset. However, we need to train our brains to consume at allocated times. We need to discipline our brains. One way to deal with destructions is to put them off. Have all your social media apps closed, your devices on silent and put them away from your sight of view. As long you have a task let your devices and notification be turned off to give you maximum concentration.

This also includes things like music or people making noise. However, this depends on the person. There are those that have to work with music in their ears and there are those who need dead silence to work. Using the best way you can, try reduce distractions, just do it and you will notice an increase in your productivity.

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Take Breaks

Next, you need to have breaks. When our brain works continuously for long hours, it becomes tired and you will notice and decrease in creativity and concentration as you work.

When I worked for 3 hours without a break I noticed that my work had a lot of mistakes and I had to redo almost half of the work. So I decided to do a study and this is what I realized. My brain got tired after 60 minutes and from that time I was struggling to think and get creative. Once I took a break of 5 minutes and came back, I could work for an hour and thirty minutes. Surprisingly, my concentration time was increasing as I continued and that I when I realized that You train your brain to increase it concentration time.

Currently I take a 5 minutes break after 1 and a half hours and after 3 cycles of one and a half hours, I take a one hour break until the next cycle. Let me explain.

In the 5 minutes break, I don’t open my phone I just walk out, breath fresh air, have a bathroom break or refill my glass of water. The mistake you can make is have a glance at your social media platform. Once you pick your phone the distraction comes in and it will be difficult for you to start work on the next cycle.

This is how you start. Go and get a working structure that works for you. Your concentration might me longer than mine and that will be great. and even if they are shorter, with time your brain will learn to concentrate for longer hours as your plan your time and follow the schedule.

When I start work at 7.00am, I work in time codes of 1.30 hours. and take a 5 minutes break, 1.30 and a 5 minutes break and then a final 1.30 hours. That makes it one cycle. after 3 1.30 time codes, I take a one hour break and when I come back do another cycle until the next one hour break.

Stay Healthy, stay alert

Finally, Stay healthy to stay alert.

If your body is healthy then the better your productivity. However there are many ways to improve your health that are best given to you buy your physician, however, the best and the first should be hydration. Our bodies need water to remain active. One of the practices you should have when working is always having a bottle or glass of water on your work desk that you refill during your breaks.

All we are trying to do is make sure the body and more specifically the brain is in its right state to work without any resistance. once you have mastered that, you can increase your health practices.

You can add home work outs before you start work, a walk during your long breaks, running on the treadmill is you don’t have a place to run from, press ups, sit up and more that you can research on. Make sure that your body is active to increase blood circulation to the brain. This will help in better concentration periods. Once you have had a very busy and productive day, our brains are left exhausted and its only fair that you give it a rest and that is where sleep comes in.

Most creatives forfeit sleep with excuses of a lot of work, pulling off all nighters and this affects their productivity the following day. The best way to have a good rest is sleeping early to wake up early. Train your body to sleep early and if you can, have a specific time to sleep and stick to it. You will realize that you will not struggle to wake up or have to take a nap in the middle of the day because you got sleepy..

In fact, this should have been the number one point. Always have enough sleep if you want your day to be productive as you wish. Lets not use our body inappropriately and expect it to give us an easy time while working. Make sure that you sleep at least 7 hours a day to have your body refreshed and rejuvenated for the next working day

{LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST:- 5 WAYS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY AS A CREATIVE}

What do you need to do?

Once you have practiced all these points we have talked about in this video, you should see your productivity increase and accomplish more during the day that you have ever done before. you just need to make a decision to start and don’t procrastinate. Every time you procrastinate you also procrastinate on the success or the result.

Hope you have success as you try to increase your productivity and I would love to get your feedback and question on the comment section below. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more self development videos that will make you a better creative. Until next time, remember your success is your responsibility. Learn Practice create – no short cuts