This list is constantly being updated. Come back soon to find more great productivity tips!

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Model the Masters

For instance, in this month’s free article we look at perhaps the most productive individual of the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso. Looking at his working day and underlying attitudes, we can unleash his radical productivity in our own lives.

Model Your Peers

We can’t all be unproductive, otherwise nothing would get done! Model those around you who effortlessly get things completed. Parents, family members, coworkers and friends can be casually “interviewed” for their techniques and solutions.

Outsource

It’s not only Fortune 500 companies that can outsource these days. Tim Ferriss has an amusing article on his efforts to farm out both his professional (research and other drudgery tasks he’d rather not do) and private (his VA’s emails to his wife are a scream) lives to India. Yes, it may feel weird, but you are employing people in a more valuable foreign currency, it’s a tax deduction, and are free to tip something extra to add to their $4 - $10 per hour fees. That may be considerable after you think about what the service is worth to your new life. Check out this review of the best (and worst) VA providers (Elance comes out on top).

Check Your Health

There are several mental health conditions which can negatively affect productivity and motivation. These include depression, anxiety, and other borderline conditions. Some of these can cause work related addictions, or low motivation. See your GP if you feel this may be you. For those interested in alternative health, ayurveda offers a comprehensive system for balancing productivity and motivation.

Don’t Check Your Email

Email reularly comes out on the top of time-wasters. Can you imagine how much email you must get if you run something like Wordpress? Well, Matt points out that “Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, advocates checking email only twice a week…. but that’s too severe for me. I’m currently trying Leo Babauta’s approach from The Power of Less, which suggests small steps like checking email five set times a day instead of constantly. It’s like dieting: People who binge diet gain it all back”, he says. A sensible amount may be just once - or twice - per day, with a completely email free day once or twice a week.

Use Multiple Desktops

There’s nothing less productive than having high priority papers on your desk, hidden under piles of paper rubbish taking up all your attention. The same thing is no less true on your virtual computer desk. Fortunately, there are many free software solutions enabling you to easily set up multiple computer desktops. My favorite is Desktop Manager (mac) and my favorite settings is to not go overboard - two usually suffice. One is to have a ‘workspace’ (for design software, internet, and word processing), whilst another holds my calendar and to-do list. It stops the ‘big picture’ being lost under the little ones.

Serious multiple desktop-ers use separate computers, or separate monitors. For the rest of us this can be set up on one screen, with a flick of the mouse enabling you to seamlessly switch between the two.

Things That Go Beep

Make use of calendars (online or desktop) that give you beeping reminders. This includes alarms to wake you up in the morning, to email reminders that let you keep track of to-do tasks.

Get a Bigger Computer Screen

According to University of Utah researchers, using a larger monitor could save you 2.5 hours per day.

Specifically, test subjects completed everyday tasks like editing documents and massaging spreadsheets 52% faster when using a 24-inch monitor than they did with an 18-incher.

There are many other ways to get ‘virtually’ bigger screens - a mac’s expose helps you jump between items faster, and double finger scrolling is faster than repeatedly reaching for a mouse.

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To Do List Tips

Soon to be a new free article of its own.

Back to Basics

If you are overwhelmed by productivity solutions, go back to basics. A book (eg. an A5 spiral bound book) to collect all your things to do is a good start, along with a standard diary.

Go Digital

Digital solutions hold advantages over paper ones in that chores can be reordered and moved easily. Examples include Word, Text or online documents, Email services like Outlook, PDAs, or iPhone apps. Just make sure you check them every day.

Less is More

It is important not to put everything in to your “To-do” lists. If it’s not urgent, don’t put it in.

Prioritize

Have a list of priorities you can also check regularly separately. This may be for things like dental appointments, checkups, dates, etc - regular things like that.

Apples v Oranges

By all means arrange your To Do list by context (by the phone, at home) or priority. Avoid breaking it up into different projects, however - lest you neglect urgent things in one in order to work on less urgent things in a more promenantly placed other.

Stay Clean

Don’t cross off items, lest your book become a mess you hate looking at. A simple tick over the first letter will usually suffice. Another trick is to use an erasable pen (see our productivity store).

What are your productivity tips? More tips coming soon…