3 simple steps to being more productive in your life

“I’ll get to it next time.”

“Why are they so much better than me?”

“I really need to read some books.”

“This time, I’ll really save some money!”

Guessing you’ve probably said this at one point, right? I have…for years. ?

But it’s human nature for us to push things back—some fault lies on us, some because we have higher priorities. Either way, it happens and you shouldn’t feel guilty and stop.

So, here are 5 simple steps on being more productive in life and helping live a life that fulfills your goals.

Step #1: Prioritize your goals

First step, you’ll need to prioritize your goals. What makes you happy, sad, excited, depressed, and so on.

Surprisingly, we don’t spend enough time on ourselves to ask why we do what we do. Rather, we’ve been trained to do as we’re told.

In your job, you have a manager and that manager gives you tasks. They pay you in exchange for your services.

Well, it’s really easy to prioritize this because we’re getting paid. The hard thing is to do the stuff when no one is looking around, while you’re at home and when there’s no immediate incentive.

So, prioritize your goals by taking the following actions:

List out a matrix in a word document with the columns:
- What makes me happy
- What makes me sad
- What would I regret if I didn’t do this
You’ll need a system to track and measure your goals
- I recommend Clickup—a free productivity tool to track your goals, tasks, and so much more
- You can learn more about how to set up your board in my last post here.
Add your goals to Clickup using their Goals function to remind you of your goals.

Step #2: Create your productivity schedule

It’s not enough to write a bunch of goals and tasks; you’ll need to also create your schedule to become more productive.

The way to achieve this is review your goals and prepare a plan (doesn’t have to be detailed) on how you want to achieve those goals for the year.

Most of us struggle to achieve goals because we’re either exhausted, don’t see immediate results or things change. Whatever the reasons may be, creating a schedule like that of on a calendar can remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing.

In my case, it’s learning Mandarin Chinese. My wife and my in-laws are Chinese, but I’m Korean. Rather saying I’m not going to learn, I made it a priority to learn so that I can communicate effectively with my in-laws.

Because listing Mandarin Chinese as a priority, punching it in in Clickup and creating a schedule, my Chinese has improved dramatically.

Now when I speak to my in-laws, the communications are much more effective. 有意思!

Step #3: Track and measure your productivity

Now that we’ve covered steps #1 and #2, it’s time to track and measure to ensure we’re being productive and achieving our goals.

Otherwise, we go back to bad habits, lose sight of what’s important and fall back into our slump.

Well guess what, we ain’t letting that happen. ☺

To measure yourself, I recommend a tool called Toggl—a simple time tracking app that has a beautiful interface with charts, tags and more.

Within Toggl, you can create clients and projects to associate with your goals and projects. This could include things like reading, working out, building a side hustle, etc.

Whatever it may be, you can create in Toggl. Here’s an example from me tracking my reading below:

Create a new client

Create new project called “Reading”

Track your performance

March was a rough month given the whole coronavirus. ?

To recap everything

To recap, you’ll need 3 steps in order to achieving productivity and living the life you want. Here it is below:

Prioritize your goals
Create your productivity calendar
Track and measure your productivity

That’s it.

By listing out everything and really questioning why you want what you want, you’ll have a much better understanding of your goals and priorities. It gives purpose and a reason to work on your goals.

But remember, goals are hard. Life is hard.

But if you set out to live a life you want to live, you’ll be happier, more productive and more satisfied in the long run.

As always, feel free to reach out if you have questions. Enjoy and stay safe!

Being intentional and more productive with your time

There’s 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week, and 8,760 in a year.

If we think about it, we spend most of our time either sleeping or working, with the rest of it spent on frivolous things like video games or watching tv. Not much productivity there.

After my backpacking trip in 2017, I wanted to be more intentional with my time, specifically around accomplishing goals. And not just any goals, but goals I’ve had for years (as far as back as college even).

So what did that mean?

I needed a system, something to hold me accountable, and something I could measure with data.

There’s two tools I use today and everyday to track my goals and tasks. They help me measure whether or not I’m doing the things I need to do to get to my goals, to live the life I want to and to be extremely intentional with my time.

They are: Clickup and Toggl.

With Clickup, I set up my goals under the goals tab in addition to creating a folder like this:

This system has allowed me to constantly review and track what I’m doing to ensure I’m getting a) the most out of my time and b) getting me closer to the life I want.

With Toggl, I’m able to integrate time tracking directly with Clickup and measure how long each tasks takes. Take a look below:

So to wrap it up, being intentional with your time is extremely crucial in being able to accomplish your goals, being more productive, and living the life you want.

Tools like Clickup and Toggl help us to hold us accountable and measure our progress.

We’re in 2019, and it’s already October. Still time left to set out your goals and accomplish them. ?

Using ClickUp to organize your life

Table Of Contents

Using ClickUp to manage tasks, goals and projects
How I use Clickup today
Other awesome features Clickup includes such as goals, reporting, box views
Use ClickUp to accomplish goals and stay organized

**Note: When I made this originally, it was made using Clickup 1.0. So much has changed since, and for the better. I’ve updated the images below based on 2.0. Enjoy!

With today’s standards of getting more done, it’s become crazy in this day and age of staying organized and completing everything that needs be completed.

Get work done, clean the dishes, take care of the kids, meet with friends, call the plumber…the list goes on and on and on.

So what is the best way to manage everything that goes on?

An organization tool, that’s how.

Using ClickUp to manage tasks, goals and projects

I use a tool called ClickUp, a productivity platform that can virtually handle everything related to projects, tasks, productivity, etc.

I love this tool in how it’s made a huge difference in both my life and productivity. The saying goes, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.

By using ClickUp and using the GTD (getting things done) framework, I can see everything that needs to get done in my personal, professional and family life.

This is hugely important to me because I don’t want to ever slip the ball on my goals (e.g. learning Chinese!)

How I use Clickup today

Let me first add, there is no right or wrong way to use ClickUp or any productivity tool — it comes down to your own system and habits.

No tool can overcome those, so if you’re facing issues of staying consistent, try to start with a habit and doing that habit for at least one month.

Okay, so how do I have my ClickUp software set up?

Spaces

First, I set up my spaces, which are individual pieces of my life: personal, professional, family.

I keep each of them as separate as possible, otherwise, it becomes overwhelming. See below:

As you can see, here are my spaces as they’re set up today. I prefer this set up as I can laser focus in on areas that require my attention.

Projects & Lists

Next, once the spaces are created its time to create projects and lists specific to your spaces. Think of them as very specific goals within your space, e.g. your job.

Here is an example of how I set up my personal space:

As you can see, I have a project labeled “Yarty GTD”. It encompasses all the stuff I need to get done, some of which are personal and goal-oriented.

This helps me to stay focused so that I never (or least try to never) forget the important stuff (e.g. my wife ?).

Tasks

Like any project management system, you’ll need actual tasks to complete.

For many, we use the traditional pen and paper method. I personally love leveraging software like ClickUp because I can always access my projects and tasks via their web app and mobile app.

Essentially, it’s always with me. ?

So, what do tasks look like? Here’s a few of mine below:

Its super simple to add a task as well. You can create tasks through the large green button in the upper right corner or you can create within your lists.

Another awesome feature of ClickUp’s is being able to see which tasks are coming due, what’s on hold, etc.

This is great because you can quickly decide which tasks require your immediate attention and which can maybe be pushed off till a later date.

ClickUp’s filters function comes in handy for these purposes. I use them every day. Sample below:

Other awesome features Clickup includes such as goals, reporting, box views

Personally, this is what makes ClickUp so amazing compared to other alternatives I’ve tried.

The goals, reporting and box views are just simply awesome.

Want to hold yourself accountable to those New Year’s goals? Want to ensure never missing an anniversary?

ClickUp’s the answer. ?

Here’s an example of each below:

The possibilities are endless, and I use these functions every day to stay on track with my goals, projects and more.

Use ClickUp to accomplish goals and stay organized

With ClickUp, I found myself accomplishing so much more than I ever have prior to using the software.

Being able to capture all my projects, tasks, goals in one place is hugely valuable.

Because everything is sync’d with their web app and phone apps, I have my tasks with me wherever I go.

There are a lot of things I want to accomplish, and by having a system in place like ClickUp, I don’t feel anxious or frazzled that I might let something slip.

I’ve used a number of systems over the years like Trello, Excel, Google Sheets, pen and paper. But none of them come close to ClickUp and their functionality / ease of use.

To anyone looking for a tool to manage their lives or to stay better organized, I highly recommend ClickUp. Because there’s a forever free plan, there’s no risk in trying it out either.

Feel free to use this link to sign up today. If you have any questions on setting your board up, feel free to reach out to me as well.