How Can You Be Productive When You’re Having A Slow Day?

We all have our ‘slow’ and unproductive days, it happens to the best of us.

You know, the days when you’re in complete shut down mode and just can’t seem to get anything done?

We get very easily distracted, and even though we know we have lots of work to do, even if we have our to-do list laid out, we just ain’t seen to get things done. We could try to force ourselves, but it’s a battle against ourselves!

There could be many reasons why you’re having a bad day. Maybe you’re sick, or just burnt out and overworked….

Maybe you’re not getting enough sleep, or maybe you ate the wrong food that killed your energy. Whatever the reason is, you can be sure that you’re totally distracted, and just cannot seem to concentrate at all!

Not everyone battles with slow days because some people naturally have the drive to get things done everyday. But, for those of us who suffer with these unproductive spells, I’m going to share a trick or two and I hope it helps you increase your productivity on a slow day and turn it into at the very least… a semi-productive day! 😀

You should try to never waste an entire day, you should actually still get some work done.

Here are some tricks on dealing with an unproductive day:

• Do the easy things first. You could quickly plan out and reorganize the task you have before you. Try to do the easy work that requires less thinking and less work first. It’s best to leave all the hard work for when you are more energetic and ready to tackle it.I know you can get discouraged, tired and unmotivated. All these so calles ‘gurus’ are always telling us to take a deep breath and think about our goals and why we need to achieve them, unfortunately, this does not work every time for me and I’m sure it might not work for you everytime, too.So, try to get the easy work done first. You should also plan out a to-do list of what needs to be done the next day, so when you regain your energy the next day you can jump right back on track. In fact, always make a to-do list!

• Do research and take notes. Do some research and take notes on what new content for your next project or blog posts. Doing research is relatively easy because most of the time you will be browsing around and looking for tips you can use on your own business. Just make sure you’re not wasting time browsing around on the wrong sites that get you distracted.

• Try shorter working hours but be sure to work hard One thing I love to do to motivate myself is to tell myself that I can actually get done earlier than usual. In other words, I give myself a shorter business day, but I absolutely make sure I give it a 100% and get as much work done as I can in that day.This strategy actually takes away all the dread and turns it into a motivator to help you get all the important stuff done on your to-do list at a much faster rate than you normally would, and can help you turn an unproductive day into a productive one.

• Reward or Punishment system. This method is a spin-off from the trick I talked about above where you can promise yourself a reward if you can get everything done before the day ends. Make sure you choose a reward for yourself that will actually motivate you to get things done. Just make sure you don’t reward yourself if you fail, but that won’t happen, right?Also another thing you could try is to punish yourself if you don’t get things done. Some people work better when they are pushed and thus the punishment method will work for them. Personally, I prefer the reward system more!

• Deal with the problem head on. Like I said, there could be a whole slew of reasons why you are having an unproductive day. If it’s because you’re feeling down, it’s usually best to deal with the problem first before you can work. Usually when things get you down or whatever, it’s best to deal with the problem first and fast so it doesn’t cost you too many more slow days, and you don’t want that because it’s bad for your business.

Finally, there can be those rare days when just nothing seems to work. The best thing you can do at that point is to just give yourself a rest. Sometimes we just simply need a rest. Just remember to tell yourself mentally that you deserve break, and you will go back at it your full potential the next day and keep your own promises and get things done without distraction!