There are hundreds of productivity tips and pieces of advice online, but unfortunately, most of them don’t work. The reasons are different. Some productivity tips are hard to follow in real life while others are useless. If you’re serious about boosting your productivity, following Elon Musk productivity tips will help you reach this goal.
1. Set stretch goals
Elon Musk is known for its unique traits, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. He changes the way he perceives goals and how they’re achieved. He sets amazingly ambitious deadlines for most projects of his companies and embraces the power of those stretch goals. Even the hardest-to-achieve goals, which are doomed for failure, can bring their own results. If you think your goal is impossible to achieve, give it a try. It’s better to try and learn a lesson than give up and get stressed over it.
The next time you set a new goal, make it stretch. You might not reach it in a month or two, but you’ll definitely see the results if you don’t give up on your goal.
2. Schedule
As an owner of three companies, Elon Musk should get a lot of things done throughout the day. Without scheduling, it might be impossible to stick to the rules and see the family. Just like any other successful people, Elon Musk appreciates each second of his time and is always on the lookout for the tricks to optimize it. He usually breaks the calendar – be it a paper or a digital calendar – into 5-minute slots.
Plus, he prioritizes the most critical areas of the business, including manufacturing, design, and engineering. Thanks to a smartly scheduled day, you can get dozens of projects done. If honestly, the majority of millionaires and billionaires schedule their days rather than create to-do lists. If you have a lot of tasks to accomplish for a week or a month, divide your days into chunks and schedule those tasks on the calendar. Elon Musk claims it’s a great way to stay productive.
3. Try batching
While multitasking is believed to kill productivity, Elon Musk does a few tasks at the same time and calls it batching. He says that he might be working and playing with his kids at the same time or holding a meeting over dinner or lunch. He also suggests doing some tiny tasks like reading and answering emails while eating your meal or while on a phone meeting.
Unlike traditional multitasking that requires task switching, leaving you tired and unproductive, batching involves similar mindsets, which allow you to work productively on several similar tasks at the same time without losing the workflow.
4. Improve your communication skills
The problem of the modern generation is that most people have poor communication skills, and therefore, they have to go abroad and make cash. You might not find a chance of talking to Elon Musk in person because he’s always busy with emails. If you want to find him and discuss important questions, send him an email. Be direct, short, and concise. Elon Musk often emails his companies with updates and tips on how to become more productive at work. First of all, learn the company mission and visions as well as learn to communicate with different people.
5. Communicate and work on your own terms
Elon Musk uses asynchronous communication when it comes to texts and emails. Elon Musk states he’s great at emails and he enjoys communicating asynchronously. This gives him enough time to concentrate on his companies’ actual work. There are three key rules of communicating on your own terms.
The first one is related to one of the biggest distractions today – notifications – on your phone or laptop, or any other gadget. If you have plenty of work, turn off all those notifications on your gadgets. Allow only your family members to call you.
If the office you work in is a noisy place with a host of distractions, consider working remotely. Working from home isn’t an option here, too. If you can afford, it’s best to have a private office. Decline calls and meetings that are just stealing your time.
6. Consider feedback loops
With a super tight schedule, Elon Musk tries to use his time to the limit. Elon Musk often works in various locations but this doesn’t prevent him from working productively. Feedback loops are helpful at times. They make you overthink the things that you’ve done but believe you could do them better. Questioning yourself is a great trait, but don’t overdo it. The last thing you want to do is to spend too much time dwelling on the mistakes of the past.
Elon Musk looks for negative feedback, which are hurtful, but helpful. He also hires employees who aren’t afraid to provide honest feedback to their boss. The best thing about feedback loops is that you can apply this piece of advice to your personal life. Be sure, you differentiate toxic negative feedback from the helpful negative feedback.
7. Do the hardest tasks first
Elon Musk recommends starting a workday with the most important tasks. Most employees tend to do the easiest tasks first and then end up having no energy or time for accomplishing the most critical work. Elon Musk wakes up at 7 am and begins his day with replying to only important emails, leaving less critical ones for later. As you schedule or plan your day, place the hardest tasks on the top of the list and start doing them immediately. Give yourself enough time for accomplishing each critical project at a time. If you have difficulty doing the hard projects, it’s best to give yourself a break.
As the CEO of three successful companies, such as Neuralink, SpaceX, and Tesla, Elon Musk has already reached so many things in life. That’s thanks to the productivity tips mentioned above. The tips are versatile and can be used in many areas of life. Finally, Elon Musk also recommends everyone to keep learning and boost a growth mistake.
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