21 Productivity Hacks to Get More Done in 2023
Are you having a tough time motivating yourself to be productive and complete all of your tasks for the day?
Anyone could use a boost in their productivity, and it’s not difficult to add in some easy activities and mindset changes to your daily routine that will enable you to get more done in 2023.
2023 can be the best year of your life--if you make the most of it. With these 21 productivity hacks to help reach your potential in 2023, you’re sure to have a head start on making the most of this year.
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1. Write a To-Do List
The easiest way to get a head start on what you need to do and reach your productivity goals is to have a to-do list written or at the ready each morning. Who doesn’t love the feeling of waking up in the morning and getting everything that you need to accomplished for the day?
Writing your to-do list before you go to bed is one of the best time management hacks. Having a clearly formulated to-do list will make it much easier to accomplish your goals first thing, rather than wracking your barely-awake mind to pen down your goals before you begin your day.
2. Track Your Goals
Tracking your goals is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your productivity arsenal. Whether you decide to make a daily list, a monthly tracker, or even a yearly tracker, there’s no wrong way to go about tracking your goals on your way to success.
Don’t just take our word for it--scientific studies have shown that tracking your goals is one of the best ways to ensure that you follow through with them. While it’s not the only key to success, goal-tracking will enable you to see your progress as you move swiftly towards your dreams, giving you that long-lusted motivation you’ve searched your whole life for.
3. Focus on What’s Important
When everything is stripped away, how can we ignore what we cherish most? One thought experiment that you may find helpful is imagining who you would be if you lost your possessions or your home. What would you focus on? What would be most important to regain?
These are the things that you care the most about and would work hard to protect. Do so with a passion. In 2023, setting goals that focus on what’s important to you, your passions, and your life dreams will go a long way to ensure that your life proceeds by your own design.
4. Find What Inspires You
Your life can only be as great as you imagine it to be, so finding inspiration and chasing after it is essential to ensure that you are motivated to follow through with your productivity goals.
What books, movies, TV shows, or other media inspire you most? What types of stories do you feel most “seen” by?
Hone in on what pulls you to them so strongly and follow that thread towards motivation and inspiration for your own life. Creativity breeds creativity and finding inspiration can be tough, so turn to the things that lift you up the most when you are down to find that new idea to pursue.
5. Plan Your Year In Advance
At the beginning of each year, take some time to plan out your calendar with things you know will be coming. Even if you cannot plan your year in advance, putting effort into a monthly calendar can do wonders for your productivity and time management skills.
Take a look at your monthly calendar ahead of time, so you won’t be surprised by events as they appear. You may find that you can plan out tasks and meetings with others much more easily when you have a calendar to refer to each month, rather than waiting to write important things down the day before.
If you are a business owner, preparing a marketing plan with annual goals and strategic campaigns is one of the best productivity hacks you should consider using to succeed in the upcoming year.
6. Take a Look at What’s Worked in the Past
If you’ve been on the productivity workhorse for a while, it may be a good idea to look back and take stock of how you can improve your productivity strategies.
What strategies have worked in the past? It’s time to put those to good use--write down what productivity strategies have helped you to achieve your goals and keep doing them!
7. Be Open to New Ideas
Openness to new ideas is one of the best predictors of a successful and productive person. Learning to improve your openness to these new and sometimes confusing ways of seeing can be a vital tool in enhancing your productivity habits.
Everything you see and read can be a learning experience, if only you’re open to it, so pretend to be a sponge and absorb all that you can from your daily surroundings and media intake.
8. Decorate Your Space
A well-decorated and calming space is key to a focused mind, so it’s essential that your workspace reflects how you would like to feel. Take some time to make your space reflect your inner peace by cleaning it regularly and decorating it with things that inspire you to pursue your productivity goals all throughout the year.
9. Try New Hobbies/Skills
While it can be a daunting task to take on a new hobby or add a skill to your already-full roster, the benefits really are endless. Trying new things can help you to learn new skills that you can apply to just about any part of your life.
Take knitting, for instance. Even if it doesn’t become your life’s work, it’s still good to train your mind in the discipline involved to improve your happiness, creativity, and productivity.
Or what if your life works digitally? Perhaps you can take your creativity through graphic designing, creating an animation, or even running a business online!
Who knows--maybe you will find something that you really enjoy!
10. Put On a New Persona
Try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else--and then put that persona on when needed. If you are aiming to become a world-class author, pretend to be that for a day, and live just as your author-self would. You may not notice any dramatic changes in yourself, but it is still fun to imagine what life could be in life.
See how much more you accomplish when you put on a fun character!
11. Keep a Journal for Self-Development
There are so many benefits to keeping a journal, but productivity can be as good a reason as any. Keeping track of your self-development will be a lot easier with a physical diary of events.
One of the coolest things about keeping a journal is the ability to look back when you’re older and wiser and really perceive how much you’ve grown and changed. After all, sometimes we have to look back to look forward.
12. Dress to Impress
Science has shown that donning a professional outfit, even if you are just doing so to work from home, can help you to feel much more productive than working in your pajamas.
Mindset is half the battle when it comes to being productive, so get a head start on that by putting on your favorite outfit and doing your hair before work.
13. Make Working From Home Fun
Working from home is not all it's cracked up to be. One simple way to break the monotony is to liven up your routine with short breaks and exercise to stimulate your mind.
Challenge yourself with small games and puzzles during your breaks, so you don’t end up going into social media mode. We all know how all this hilarious work from home memes can suck us into a black hole where we end up procrastinating for hours!
The worst thing about working from home is how easy it can be to fall into the traps of social media, so freshening up your WFH routine may allow you to get work done more easily.
14. Take Some Time to Refresh Your Mind
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, sometimes the best way to be productive is to take the time to recharge.
Take a bath, read a book, watch your favorite television show--there’s always some easy way to refresh yourself when you’re feeling burnt out. Just don’t wait too long, however, or you might find yourself giving up on productivity endeavors altogether.
15. Don’t Wait on Creative Ideas
While inspiration might not be easy to find, it also does not like to stay long either. When inspiration comes, it’s a good idea to run with it, because you never know when that spark will run out.
Ensure you get on your creative ideas immediately, before you forget what you wanted to do and lose the passion that spurred you on so deeply in the first place.
16. Work on Developing Discipline
Developing discipline is one of the keystones of becoming a productive person. Without discipline, how will you possibly be able to accomplish all of your dreams and goals?
Take some time to develop your discipline skills with various techniques, such as delaying gratification and focusing on building consistent, small habits. The more you can train your mind and body to respond only to your will, the easier it will be to become a more productive human.
17. Get That Exercise Routine in Check
Exercising regularly provides your brain with natural endorphins, so take advantage of this powerful natural high by developing a routine that suits your interests. If you’re a swimmer, make sure you have access to a pool. Love football? Meet with friends to play a pickup game each weekend.
Getting together a firm exercise regimen can do wonders for your productivity as well as for your mental health by giving you more energy, enabling you to develop discipline, and also helping your mind work more quickly and easily when you are focusing on productivity tasks.
18. Build Up Your Self-Esteem
There’s no you but you out there, and you should be proud of all that you’ve accomplished. While becoming a productive person is a hard, lonely road, it’s a much harder task when you are always feeling down on yourself.
Take some time to pat yourself on the back when you are feeling lazy and unproductive--you deserve it. Then, use those feelings as a motivation to get things done and to improve your self-esteem.
19. Find Out What Motivates You
Everyone is motivated by different things--that’s what makes the characters in novels so fascinating. When you find out what you’re motivated by, you can use it to your advantage when it comes to productivity.
20. Plan Out the Steps Towards Achieving Your Dreams
What steps will it take for you to get to your dreams?
Write them down and start formulating an action plan for how you will achieve them. Having concrete goals is one of the first steps to achieving those dreams, and writing them down is a way to lock them into your mind.
Nothing says productivity like forming a plan to complete your life’s aspirations.
21. Take Advice from the Stoics
The Stoic philosophers, a group of philosophers from the Ancient Greek and Roman times, can teach us a number of things, but one of the best pieces of advice we can take from them is to simplify in order to make yourself a more productive person.
Marcus Aurelius is one of the most oft-quoted of these philosophers, and his advice still rings true today. One of the most important lessons on productivity that you can learn from him is this: “If you seek tranquility, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential. Do less, better.”
It’s a simple saying, but “Do less, better,” is advice we could all stand to follow. Whatever you do, do it with all of your passion and willpower. Doing less can paradoxically help you to improve yourself by working hard to obtain greatness in all that you attempt.
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Have a Productive 2023
It’s always important to keep upgrading your arsenal of productivity tips, but especially if you’re looking to make this year a great one.
2023 has the potential to be the year that you accomplish all of your dreams, but only if you can follow through with There’s no better way to improve yourself than to work hard on achieving your goals, and we hope that some of these tips have been helpful in providing you with some hardcore motivation.
About the Contributor
Veselin Mladenov is the Content Manager of ThriveMyWay. He has more than 10 years of experience in the field of corporate marketing and sales, and decided to pursue his passion - digital marketing and content creation.
LinkedIn: Veselin Mladenov