5 Secret Weapons of Productivity That Will Change Your Life

9 min readMar 16, 2022

Introduction: What is the Secret Weapon of Productivity?

The Secret Weapon of Productivity is a concept about productivity. It is a guide that teaches you how to be more efficient and productive with your time to live a better life.

For many years, productivity has been a topic of discussion. People use a variety of techniques and methods to increase their productivity. Some of these techniques are effective, while others are not.

I would like to share my thoughts on five secret weapons of productivity and their positive effects on our daily lives.

🧬 1. Create Your Life’s Vision

What is your life’s vision?

It is your destination, the destination of your soul. It is the purpose of your life and the reason for everything you do. It should be a living, breathing thing that changes as you change.

The question “what do you want?” can be overwhelming and difficult to answer. When people were asked about their life’s vision, they often don’t know how to answer it or why they should answer it at all. But if you can’t answer this question then how will you ever know what to work towards to achieve happiness?

The first step in creating your life’s vision is by identifying what you want to achieve in the future.

To create a vision for your life, you should first think about the things that you want to do.

What brings you here?
What do you hope to achieve?
What is your life’s mission?
What is your best possible future?
What do you find satisfying?
What makes life worthwhile in your opinion?

Fulfilling life without a vision will often lead to living life without meaning, which can be very defeating and difficult to continue when so much effort has gone into achieving something without a clear direction.

We need to have the vision to understand what is going on in our lives and the consequences of our actions. We must be able to create something larger than ourselves, our families, and the world. Even if it is something small.

My life’s vision is to be able to use my skills and abilities, being a good listener, a problem solver, an encourager, serving the community for the benefit of others.

This is a good time to reflect on what you want for yourself and your life, and what the outcomes of your actions are.

Whatever your vision is, it should be something that you are passionate about as this will help you stay motivated.

🎓 2. Setting S.M.A.R.T Goals and Action Items

Setting goals is an important part of a successful future. The most important thing about setting goals is that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. The goal should be specific enough that you can tell if you have accomplished it or not- this will help keep you on track with your goal as well as motivate you when the going gets tough.

To set goals, it is important to first identify the desired outcome, then identify what needs to done to achieve it. Once you have both of these, you can start formulating a plan and identifying the steps that need to take to reach your goal.

The effective way to achieve goals is to write down every day your plans and stick to them. How do you break down a goal into smaller milestones? Achieving a goal is like climbing a mountain. To make progress, you must break it down into smaller milestones and work on each one.

Goal setting template:

Write down your goal in the present tense (e.g., I am ____)
Write down what you want to achieve with this goal (e.g., I want to be more organized)
Write down how you will achieve this goal (e.g., I will organize my clothes by color, type, and size.)
When do you want to have achieved this goal?
What are some obstacles that may get in your way? How can you work around them?

Setting action items is as important as setting goals. When you set an action item, this means that you are committing yourself to take specific actions to achieve your goal. This means that whenever there is something on your plate that needs attention, you will do everything in your power to get it done and move on with your life.

😊 3. The Power of Positivity

Positivity is not about being happy, but rather about finding the good in everything and focusing on the things that make us happy.

“Gratitude is the honey of life.” — Aristotle

Believe it or not, attitude is contagious. A positive attitude gives energy to you and those around you. But it’s not other people we can affect when we’re in a good mood, it’s also ourselves. A recent study found that people who are happy and optimistic are more likely to be successful than their less optimistic counterparts.

If you’re feeling like a downer, try some of these simple tips to change your mood and become a more positive person. (Notice I said, “try.” Positive thinking is hard work. You’ll need to practice this every day for weeks or months before changing your whole outlook. If you’re feeling like a downer, try some of these simple tips to change your mood and become a more positive person.

The point is to show you the power of positivity and how you can use it to make your life better.

Positivity can achieved by changing our mindset, being grateful, and focusing on the positive things in life. It can also achieve by practicing gratitude and meditation.

“You’re braver than you believe and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” A.A. Mine

⏱️ 4. Getting Control of Your Time — Managing your schedule and priorities

Most people have the same problem: they have too many commitments and tasks that they need to do, but they don’t know how to focus on them. They are so overwhelmed by the number of things on their plate that they feel like they’re spinning in circles.

So over the past 10 years, I have read many books on productivity and time management. And in that time, there are 5 things that I still use in my life, use to help make my time management more efficient.

1. The Pomodoro Technique:

This technique based on the idea that you should take a break after every 25 minutes of work. You can use this time for anything you want, but it is important not to check your phone or email. After 4 Pomodoro, take a longer break of 20–30 minutes.

2. The Eisenhower Matrix:

This technique divides your day into four quadrants and assigns tasks to each quadrant: Urgent and Important (quadrant 1), Not Urgent but Important (quadrant 2), Neither Urgent nor Important (quadrant 3), and Urgent but not Important (quadrant 4). The quadrants used to classify tasks according to their urgency and importance.

3. The Daily Highlights

The Daily Highlights is a simple and easy way to manage your time.

The Daily Highlights is an application that provides you with an overview of the day ahead. It asks you what your goals are for the day, and then it tells you how much time each activity will take so that you can better plan your day.

It made up of three different types of cards: Today’s Goals, Current Activities, and Tomorrow’s Planner. The cards are customizable and allow for a more personalized experience.

4. Use a To-Do list

A to-do list is an excellent way to manage your time and tasks. It helps you focus on your tasks and have a clear understanding of the order in which you need to do them.

A to-do list can use in many ways, such as:

Create a new task or add it to the bottom of your to-do list
Prioritize the order of your tasks, based on their importance
Organize your tasks by category, such as work, school, chores, errands
Set deadlines for each task and decide when you need to complete them by
Review and update your task list every day

5. Parkinson’s Law — Get More Done by Giving Yourself Less Time to Do Things

Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

To account for Parkinson’s law, you should try to estimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task before scheduling it or starting it.

Then, if you’re accounting for Parkinson’s law while scheduling tasks for others, you should encourage them to finish their work within that timeframe.

For example, if you know a task will take 10 minutes to complete, you won’t be able to complete it in two minutes and still do a good job, and you shouldn’t try. Rather, your goal here should be to figure out how long it takes to complete the task and set a time limit based on that, so you don’t waste 30 minutes on it because you can.

The following corollary to Parkinson’s law exemplifies this concept:

“If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.” — The Stock-Sanford corollary to Parkinson’s law

The law can apply in different ways in your life and business:

Setting deadlines for yourself
Setting deadlines for others
Prioritizing tasks

📔 5. Note-taking: A powerful tool to support memory. The Outline and Cornell System

Note-taking is an important tool in supporting memory and productivity. It helps us stay on top of things by compiling our thoughts and ideas into a single place. Besides, it helps us organize our thoughts and it provides an easy way to review the information that we have already learned.

Digital note-taking is a simple and efficient way to organize information. It saves time by not having to search for notes or papers, and it allows you to be more productive by having everything in one place.

There are a variety of note-taking techniques to choose from. One of my personal favorites is a hybrid of the Outline and Cornell systems, in which notes are divided into key points in a text and organized into a hierarchical structure. This is accomplished by using Summary and Cue to create headings and subheadings to aid recall.

The Cornell system was first developed by Walter Pauk, an American professor of education and psychology, in the 1950s.

Pauk found that when people take notes in this way they can recall more than when they write down what they hear or read.

This system is based on three steps which include

Main Notes: The first step of the process is to identify your main idea of Notes and break down the main points in a text into a hierarchical structure. This is done by creating headings and subheadings.
Summarize: The second step is to write a summary sentence for each paragraph. This should include all important information in the paragraph and it should not be more than one sentence long.
Support: The third step is to support what you have summarized in the previous steps with evidence from the text or other sources (e.g., personal experience, other people’s work).

Conclusion — Get Things Done Faster with These 5 Secret Weapon of Productivity

Productivity is a key to success. It not only helps us to be more productive but also helps us to make time for other important tasks.

The best way to increase productivity is by focusing on what we are doing and getting rid of distractions. The secret weapon of productivity is the ability to plan and get things done faster with a little bit of help from technology.

With so many distractions in the world today, it can be difficult to stay on track with your work. The answer is to set achievable goals and create a realistic schedule of what needs to do. This will allow you to track your progress and make adjustments as necessary.

Waqas Shami is a productivity nerd and an avid traveler. He is trying to live more meaningful and purposeful life! Follow him on this new journey of balancing digital and physical life. He is living in Stockholm, Sweden.

I am a writer who believes in purposeful life. I believe that you have greatness inside of you. I want to help you unlock it. You can help me out by buying a cup of coffee ☕ at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/waqas.shami

He is on Instagram @waqas.shami, twitter. @WaqasShami3