Productivity: Hitting a Daily and Weekly Groove

Mondays are tough.  Mornings are tough.  Being off the billable clock is tough.

So how do you hit your daily and weekly groove of productivity in the face of these three evils?

As a business-owner, freelancer, entrepreneur, chances are you stay tied to your work throughout the weekend.  But, luckily, there are those precious times when you are able to get away.  The problem is, getting away means your return to the normal workflow will be hindered by some level of inertia.

For me, the key to getting back into the productivity groove is to start with something small and easy to accomplish.  I keep a list of things I need to get done.  I know my working style, and I know that it will be easier for me to take care of the big things once I've gained a bit of traction.

So mornings, especially Monday mornings (<- or whichever day follows my 'weekend' of escape), are my time to take care of the little things.  Executables that I can accomplish, check off, and use as a spring-board.  The little things allow my work legs to start moving, shed the static inertia, and helps me get the traction I need to take care of the bigger hurdles.  I view my workday and workweek as a period of continual acceleration.

Sometimes you won't be able to start with the easy stuff, or you won't need to.  When your time is booked with clients or projects, your billable time starts and you are, quite easily, off and running.  This is when the transition from stasis to movement is achieved on its own.  

The hard part comes when it's time to focus on the inner-workings of your business - the maintenance projects, the strategic thinking, and the proverbial (and literal) bookkeeping - these are the things that require a conscious effort to accomplish.  And these are the times when I'll practice my strategy of task acceleration and escalation to help me grind through the tasks that I know I need to accomplish in order to move my business forward.

What gets you moving when you aren't on the billable clock?  Let us know in the comment section below.