3 Things to Do Right Now to Improve Productivity in 2022

Productivity is central to everything that we do, particularly the successful accomplishment of goals and the fulfillment of personal development plans.

Attempting to improve our productivity also has a significant impact on every aspect of our personal and professional lives, from how we manage our time to the methodology that we adopt in the workplace.

As 2022 approaches, we look at the things that you can do right now to improve your productivity while asking how you can select the right system for you.

Start Working on Your Personal Year-end Review

With the festive period fast approaching, it’s only a matter of weeks before 2022 starts in earnest.

So, now is the ideal time to start working on your personal year-end review, which is an excellent way to identify your achievements through 2021 while simultaneously considering where you can improve next year.

In particular, you can analyse your successes and overall level of productivity over the course of the year, while also determining if any opportunities were missed due to an inability to meet workload or academic goals.

You can learn more about how to carry out a comprehensive year-end review here, as you look to achieve significant introspection and create constructive goals for 2022.

Identify the Best Productivity System for You

From a practical perspective, you’ll find a vast array of productivity techniques and tools described online, and this can actually find it quite difficult to find the ideal option for you.

However, you can negate this challenge with a proactive approach, by testing multiple tools and systems to identify which one works best with your workload and outlook as an individual.

One of the most popular productivity techniques is time blocking, which sees you allocate specific time slots for particular activities. For example, you may block the period between 8.30 am and 9.00 am for the purpose of answering emails, allowing you to organise your day and commit a reasonable amount of time to each objective.

Then there’s the ‘Pomodoro Technique', which is incredibly simple and requires you to divide your work in 25-minute long segments (punctuated by five-minute breaks).

So, your task is to compare these systems and select the best one for you, while also choosing one more accompanying productivity apps to help you achieve your aims.

While some productivity apps have primarily been designed for business use, there are some that offer particular value to individuals. Take 'Todoist', for example, which is a simple task manager app that allows you to record and categorise items based on individual projects.

The most basic version of this app is available for free and can be particularly helpful when utilising the time blocking technique, while premium iterations can be accessed when looking to manage larger or more collaborative tasks.

On a similar note, those of you who are avid note takers will also benefit from using the 'Evernote' app.

This enables you to take organised and comprehensive notes digitally, while it even makes it possible to combine handwritten and digital notes in a secure location.

This freely available app is certainly one of the best and most practical tools on the market for collating ideas and records in a single place, making it an excellent organisational resource when managing a multitude of personal projects.

Once again, you can access a premium version of the app for as little as $3.99, although the basic iteration should be more than enough for personal use.

Set Clear Goals for 2022

As we’ve already touched on, an impartial and comprehensive year-end review should highlight clear areas for improvement, which can in turn inform your subsequent productivity goals for 2022.

The key thing to remember is that each goal is concise and realistic, while we’d also recommend creating manageable time-frames in which to achieve individual objectives.

In fact, you should consider creating both short and long-term goals that are broken down into each quarter, so that you have something to work towards all-year-round.

Try to be focused and create a system to help you track and manage your goals too, whether you use a productivity app or a simple journal to follow your progress.