Productivity for B2B marketers include waking up and diving into work with to-do lists looking the amazon forest. By the end of the day you realize you have been busy all day doing nothing productive.
Hence no results
Science has shown that focusing on one task alone would help you complete the each task faster and efficiently instead of trying to do it all at the same time.
There is huge difference between busy and being productive, being busy involves activities with no specific goal or no benefit but being productive involves work related activities with an end game of seeing results and achieving something.
Get the picture?
Here are 12 Productivity hacks for Smart B2B marketers - People who have succeeded at each hack or examples of application
Eat Your frogs in the AM
The term was coined from the book "Eat That Frog" by Brian Tracy. It simply involves handling your dreariest and most demanding task first thing in the morning before moving on to other tasks.
Psychologists have proven that the brain gets tired too, it's called decision fatigue. So before you end up with decision fatigue, attack your cumbersome project before grabbing coffee, I bet you would feel much better sifting through the day's work after eating your frog.
Quick reminder: Set and attack your most important and demanding tasks before any other work or project for the day.
Have two kinds of problems
I learnt this productivity hack from Dwight Eisenhower and taught many others who can testify it works! Dwight Eisenhower once said “I have only two types of problems: Urgent and Important.
Every night before you sleep or when you wake the next day, place your task for the day into 2 categories "Urgent and Important" and watch how you smash goals, meet deadlines, stay productivity and garner results.
There is an Eisenhower box or matrix to make this work for you
Only work on crucial or immediate projects
After successfully categorizing your problems, work on only the immediate projects, important tasks can wait or you delegate someone else to handle “important” tasks while you focus on immediate projects.
Hire a VA for transcripts, hire a freelance writer to research and create content, just remain effective and productive by hiring or asking people to help with important tasks.
Use an editorial calendar
Everyone struggles with creating quality content, from brainstorming for ideas, to research, writing finally to editing. Whew!
Save yourself hours if not days and use an editorial calendar to create content.
With an editorial calendar, you can brainstorm ideas for content months ahead and hire a freelancer to do the writing while you focus on more important task like lead generation, meetings, conversion rates, etc.
Ditch the inbox!
Tame that urge to check your emails in the morning. A survey has shown that the average U.S. worker spend about 6.3 hours daily checking emails.
Emails not only burn your time but leads you to decision fatigue right before 12pm!
Resist checking your emails until after eating your frog, instead check your emails in transit or traffic. I do that and I can boastfully tell you, it does wonders for me, Use an email tool like Sanebox which trim your emails into priorities so you know which is important and choose to respond.
Working from home? Check your emails when decision fatigue hits that usually around 3pm.
Plan and time your meetings ahead usually 2days
Meetings, meetings, meetings, my calendar is full! Face in the palm! To save yourself from this demon or nightmare as many may call it, schedule, plan. and time your meetings days ahead.
Pick a time that works, let’s say 12.30 pm, plan on things you and the third party would talk about, think of replies to give and questions to ask and finally time yourself and stick to it, make sure you don’t exceed that time.
That way people respect you and your time for being disciplined and punctual.
In a book 168 hours ( you have more time than you think ) by Laura Vanderkam, Laura says we actually don’t work as many hours as we think and we do have many pockets of time. And, most importantly, we all have 168 hours a week.
Clearly map out how much time would be spent on each task and stick to it.
Don’t ever multitask
Trying to juggle two tasks at hand would get you nowhere, you either end up ruining a task or not doing anything at all. You can't be doing the dishes and laundry at the same (except you have a dishwasher.)
I have discovered you and I can be more productive once we focus on one task at a time, multitasking results in loss of creativity and decision fatigue.
It has been scientifically demonstrated that the brain cannot effectively and efficiently switch between tasks, so you lose time.
Instead use the “power of one” in everything you do, focus on one task and finish it, focus on one goal and crush it.
Plan your day ahead
Every successful entrepreneur or marketer share one productive trait, they plan their days ahead. Before going to bed, write out your to-do list for the next day with time slots, that way you have a plan to work with when you jump out of bed in the morning.
Take short break between work (Pomodoro Technique)
Psychology research suggest that the least productive time of anyone in a day is in the mid-afternoon, somewhere 3pm. Now this is not the end of your day, you can still pull through the day with success by taking breaks in between work.
The best way to do this is to use the Pomodoro technique which was created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. This is a time management method which simply involves breaking down your work into 25 minute intervals and spend 5 minutes resting.
There are several apps based on techniques for all platforms, check it out and see which works best for you.
Stick to your ritual
Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg wear almost the same thing to work everyday, do you know why? Because it eliminates the need of thinking of what to wear! Apparently we waste precious minutes everyday pondering on what to wear.
Stick to a ritual which works for you, do you have a set of clothes for a set of days?
Stick to it and be more productive, spend those free minutes on making progress and positive results in work and life.
Ask for help or hire help
We all tend to follow the superhuman ideology of I can do it all but to be more productive and effective, it is advised you delegate tasks to others while you focus on more important and delicate tasks.
Never do for yourself what others can do for you - 48 laws of power
Remember you strong fronts and hone it, hire a Facebook ads specialist to help with Facebook ads while you do focus on other things, hire a freelancer to create converting content while you supervise or focus on creative ideas for lead generation. Never do for yourself what others can do for you!
Meditate if you can
Are you huge on the meditating side? Do it if you can. Research has shown that during continuous task performance there was an association between higher dispositional mindfulness (meditation) and more stable maintenance of sustained attention.
There are over 76 benefits of meditation but I would highlight increase in focus and memory retention so what are you waiting for? Get your mat and in position!
Play (Video Games or Chess)
I am surprised I had to add this to the list but the benefits of spending time away from work and playing video games or chess would go a long way in boosting the brain which would help you in being productive.
Apparently playing video games can increase your executive functioning, attention and vigilance while playing chess increase your IQ and problem solving skill, now I am dusting off my chess board and placing it right next to my lamp stand.
Use an outline when creating content and invite others
Content creation can be so simple once you get a hang of it, and to do this you have to use an outline when creating content, it is more like a draft of what you would like to create. Neil Patel goes into detail in describing how content outline works.
Invite friends and colleagues to help in creating and promoting your content when it's published.
Conclusion
Productivity for B2B marketers involves making judicious use of your time to reach a certain goal. Using the tips above, you should experience changes in your routine and day to day tasks, remember to wake early, sleeping for long hours could marr your performance for the rest of the day and no amount of coffee can save you.
Follow Pius on his Twitter: @lifeofwade