Do you feel lost and unsure of where to focus your time and energy? When you don’t know what to do, do you “freeze” and end up doing nothing else but scrolling mindlessly on social media?
You might even decide to be productive in a completely different area, like cleaning your house, instead of working on an important project (this is also called “productive procrastination” or procrastivity).
I’ve created a step-by-step 7-day schedule you can follow to see exactly how productive you can actually be!
Because you know you aren’t nearly as efficient as you should or could be! This 7-day productivity challenge is here to show you how much better you can be.
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Knowing What You Need To Do, Creating Routines, and Staying Consistent
If you need the shortest shortcut to figuring out HOW to be productive, then you’ve got the formula right here: Know What You Need To Do -> Create The Routines Necessary to Do Those Things -> Stay Consistent With Your Input.
And I wish it was just as easy to follow through with that formula!
Because YOU KNOW what you need to do and you are aware that consistency in your input is a necessity. But what would the best routine be?
Life is hectic, pulling you back and forth, dividing your attention between family, friends, work, personal goals, quality time for everyone (including yourself), and living up to standards you don’t even recognize as yours or realistic…
I want to give you an idea of what a productive day would look like. To make things fun, let’s turn it into a 7-day productivity challenge. This means you will follow that same schedule with seven tasks for seven days straight without deviating from it.
You can do it!
One week only! Can you give yourself that long to experiment with how far you can actually go?
If your answer is yes, let’s get to the challenge itself.
7-Day Productivity Challenge: Do This Every Day For a Week
Master Your Mornings
You need to wake up early enough to fit one of the following three routines comfortably.
I give you three options to choose from, depending on your lifestyle and how busy you are.
Once you pick a morning routine, stick to it for the next seven days.
!!! Stay away from your phone during your morning routine unless you need it to find music to listen to or an exercise video to follow.
Morning Routine Level One – The average time to complete is 30 minutes.
- Wake up, and don’t hit the snooze button. Get up immediately.
- Bathroom (includes your usual morning rituals such as skincare and shower if that’s what you do).
- 5-minute gentle morning stretch (you can type that on YouTube for a video or follow your own established stretch routine).
- Healthy breakfast plus coffee/tea (these are 50 make-ahead breakfast recipes if you need some ideas).
- Dress for work (whether you’re working from home or actually need to go to your workplace).
Morning Routine Level Two: The average time to complete is 45 minutes
- Wake up, and don’t hit the snooze button. Get up immediately.
- Bathroom (includes your usual morning rituals such as skincare and shower if that’s what you do).
- 5- to 10-minute gentle morning stretch.
- Journal or read a chapter of a favorite book for 5-10 minutes.
- Healthy breakfast plus coffee/tea.
- Dress for work.
Morning Routine Level Three: The average time to complete is 1 hour
- Wake up, and don’t hit the snooze button. Get up immediately.
- Bathroom (includes your usual morning rituals such as skincare and shower if that’s what you do).
- 10-15 minutes of intense HIIT workout (make sure you stretch before and after that).
- 10 minutes of morning meditation (this is one that I love and keep recommending).
- 5 minutes of journaling (you can write whatever’s on your chest, list five things you’re grateful for, or build a powerful morning affirmation)
- Healthy high-protein breakfast plus coffee/tea.
- Dress for work.
Declutter Inside and Outside
You will do that step on the morning of the first day, and then you will do it again on the evening of that first day. Afterward, you will only do it in the evenings for the next six days. You will know why in a second.
Ok, you are in your home office or your actual workplace. Start by decluttering and freeing space both around you and inside you.
-> If your desk is messy, clean it up.
-> Clear out useless papers and old receipts, and create a pile of “urgent” stuff to sort through and a pile for “waiting for…”
Next, it’s your mind!
-> Write down everything that’s on your mind: unfinished projects, emails to answer or sort through, clients to reach out to, meetings to prepare for, and questions to ask your manager.
-> Whatever is in your head needs to land on a piece of paper (preferably one you won’t lose).
Set Clear Goals and Create a Plan
It sounds complicated, but that’s only because I cannot give you anything specific (I don’t know you). Essentially, this part of the productivity challenge asks you to know exactly what you need to do.
Do you work for yourself? Write down your goals for the day and list all the action steps you need to take to achieve those goals.
Do you work in an office? Write down all the meetings, projects, and to-dos for the day. Then, write down every little task that you would have to tick off that to-do list to call it all done. Do you need some information for those meetings? Do you have clarity on all aspects of the project you work on?
My example from today would look like this:
Goals: Draft a blog post; create four pins for Pinterest; prepare a post for publishing next Friday; research wedding content for the other blog.
Action Steps:
- Draft a blog post: research topic; outline post; write the first draft.
- Create four pins for Pinterest: pick one blog post, research Pinterest for keywords, create pins on Canva using these keywords, publish one pin, and schedule the other three pins for the next few weeks.
- Prepare post for publishing next Friday: Read the draft, delete or add information as needed, edit text, add links, create printable if needed, create social media images, create email opt-in, final look-through, and schedule it.
- Research wedding content for the other blog: see what people care about through Google and Pinterest search, and jot down blog post ideas to dive deeper into.
Time Block Your Day or Use Pomodoro For Productivity
I do not know where or what you work, and because many different types of people would read this article, I need to give you two options. Choose the one that best fits your work routine.
Also, if you work with a lot of people and need better communication software, explore Atlassian Intelligence. (sponsored link)
Time Block Your Day
If you have full control of your daily work schedule, time blocking is for you. I’ve made a video explaining exactly how you can use the time-blocking system, and you can watch it below. Underneath the video, I will list the steps once again.
- Write an extensive list of everything you need to do;
- Choose up to 5 categories these tasks belong to;
- Choose a color for each category;
- Go back to your task list and highlight each task with the color of the category it fits into;
- Divide your day into big blocks of time (it has to make sense to you, and it should fit your working hours)
- Color each block of time with a category color;
- In that block of time, you are allowed to do only tasks that fall into that category (hence the colors for distinguishing the tasks)
- If you finish all tasks within the time block, you can take a break until the end of that time block.
Pomodoro For Productivity
In a nutshell, the Pomodoro productivity system is about dividing your day into equal chinks of time where you do focused work with small breaks between each chunk of time.
The most popular branch of this productivity system is Pomodoro 25/5, in which you work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break. You go through that cycle four times, and after the last 25 minutes, you get a longer break, such as 10 minutes or half an hour.
You can change the Pomodoro 25/5 into whatever suits you better: 30 minutes work with a 5-minute break, 50 minutes work with a 10-minute break, and anything in between.
Do a Digital Detox
I will keep this very brief as it’s self-explanatory. And I will be rude about it!
If you want to be productive, you need to stop wasting time on social media!
Five-minute social media breaks are the worst thing you can do to your brain.
Firstly, they’re never five minutes.
Secondly, it would take another 20 minutes to focus again on whatever is in front of you, which isn’t nearly as interesting as dogs dragging their bums on grass.
If you desperately need your digital fix, choose a time of day that doesn’t interfere with your work process, and set limits you can actually stick to.
An hour of uninterrupted TikTok scroll is okay in the evening when you’ve had one of the most productive days of your life. 12 five-minute breaks throughout the day are not okay when it takes you forever to get back on track with your work.
Mindful Breaks
Okay, social media breaks aren’t allowed, so what is allowed?
Mindful breaks don’t mean you have to meditate or gaze into the nothingness of the concrete wall outside your office.
Here are a few good ideas you can choose from:
- Talk to a loved one;
- If it’s a longer break – go shopping;
- Meal plan for the next week;
- Read a book;
- Go on a short walk;
- Play with your dog;
- Do a quick tidy-up of your office or your home;
- Doodle;
- Take the trash out;
- Make yourself a snack or a new cup of tea/coffee;
- Arrange a fun weekend with your family.
Reflection and Celebration
You made it to the end of the day! Celebrate it however you wish! Watch a movie, scroll on social media, go on a date with your loved one or meet up with a friend, go shopping, read a book… whatever it is you would love to do, squeeze it into your evenings.
And before you go to sleep, take 5 minutes to sit calmly and reflect on your day.
- What was great about it?
- What surprised you?
- Did you have an “I give up!” moment? What triggered it?
- Are you happy with the outcome?
Express gratitude for the hard work you’ve done and everything you achieved! It wasn’t easy, but you did it! Go to sleep at a reasonable time and do it all again tomorrow.
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
