Yetunde Onafuye: How To Manage Productivity When Your Plans Don’t Quite Work Out

No matter the field or niche you find yourself in, being productive is a priority. In simple terms, productivity is related to output. If you offer a service to people, do you meet deadlines? If you sell products online, do you deliver within your supposed delivery date? All these and many more are associated with productivity.

Productivity affects your work-rate, end-result, efficiency, and yield. In any field – especially that of freelancing – it’s great to consider your level of productivity. After all, you mostly earn according to your work-rate and how efficiently you complete your tasks.

For instance, if you are a writer, what you earn as a content or freelance writer is based on how well you meet deadlines and the level of research or detail you put into your content. Rush hour jobs may likely get rejected because you cannot proofread or edit efficiently. If you are a Vlogger or Youtuber, do you have a schedule for making and posting videos? Do you feel comfortable when you do not post after a long period? All these and many more are based on personal productivity and planning.

When Planning Fails

There’s planning and there’s effective planning. The deal with productivity is that it is closely knit with your level of planning. Let’s take a quick rundown: you work from home for most parts of the month, the first week is great and all, but what happens when you go out of steam and start lagging or get too comfortable being home? Planning comes in; you can make a daily schedule and try to work with it.

But just like new year resolutions, most productivity plans fail! You skip your daily time table, forget to contact your dispatch rider, forget to read-through and reply mails and fall short of your daily goals.

Now, once you realize that your output is below par, you are not efficient and productive enough, your plan and schedule does not work for you, and you become less in tune with your daily tasks.

These tips may work for you and help you level up:

Realize that your earning power will be at risk

There’s no bigger motivation to propel you to put in more work than your finances! Who wants to risk being broke?

As an individual, you have bills to settle, basic needs you have to purchase, savings and even catering for your relatives. Are all these not enough reasons to get up and start doing what you ought to do? As a freelancer, do you meet deadlines? Do you know that you can score a bad reputation with clients when you don’t stick to the agreed time? You’re also at risk of getting less gigs when you are not productive enough. So, the risk of losing potential cash should be a strong motivating factor when your designed plans for productivity fails.

Consider that you might miss out on potential and big client(s)

If you are still finding it difficult to improve your productivity and output, you need to rethink it! Being behind does not do you any good. It sets you apart from competitors or colleagues in a negative way. A client will rather go for a new designer, writer, graphic artist, Youtuber, and so on, that is great with meeting deadlines, posting regularly and putting out great work in good time. So, if you have a client that may have more jobs for you, being less-efficient and less productive will do you no good.

Your growth level is vital

Now, there’s no way you can move forward or develop in your chosen career or entrepreneurship path if you do not improve on yourself. One way to grow or improve as an individual is to remain consistent with your output and improve your level of productivity.

The deal is that, if at any time you don’t feel motivated to work, you should consider the fact that you need to do more if you want to move from the position you currently find yourself in to a bigger place. You need to write more, design more websites, sell your products to more customers, and many more steps to push you forward. Moreover, you can only attend seminars and take up more courses if you accomplish your daily tasks, efficiently.

It’s quite normal to fall behind on your plans and get tired of your daily work routine. But realizing how important you need to develop can help you remain productive.