3 Super Useful Tips To Improve Video Productivity

As I prepare this weekend for my 30 Day Video Challenge I have been compiling some of the new productivity tips that I have implemented over the last year. I only started using the three tips below after I had a little slump this past August. I had taken some time off in July and had a lot of trouble getting re-motivated to work on my videos after my kids went back to school. I found the tips below to be very helpful in jumping back on track and cranking out a bunch of client work this fall.

I hope you’ll give these a try and let me know in the comments if they work for you.

When Editing: Keep A Tangent Log

No matter how hard you try to stay focused on editing a video, after a while it gets boring and your mind will start to wander. A little voice inside your head just won’t leave you alone, so to shut it up, you allow it to lead you off on some unproductive tangent. It’s reminding you about something you need to get at the store, or it’s sharing with you a great idea you don’t want to miss, or it gets really annoying and starts singing a song that you haven’t heard in a while, but you remember you love and you don’t want to forget again.

Since there’s no removing yourself from your voice, at least you can pacify it without letting it derail you altogether.

All you need is a pen and paper.

As you’re focused on editing and you sense  that little voice that  urges you to fire-up your browser to look for something or to get up, go to the kitchen, and add potatoes to your grocery list, instead of obeying it without argument, write down what your being told or reminded to do, then at the end of the day (or during another break), go through the items your list and take action on them.

Don’t let the voice interrupt the flow of your work.

Ask Yourself “Why” Am I Doing This”?

For me to get motivated to start a video project and to do it with any kind of  creativity or passion, my brain has to know  “Why am I doing this?”

A lot of people forget this step when plowing through their to-do lists and goals. As a result, we have a little initial steam simply because we ‘know’ we’ve got to get things done for some reason. But that kind of steam only powers us so far. To have a long-lasting, consistent drive to take action toward anything, we need to clearly see the end-result we’re after, especially the emotional benefits – or how we’re going to feel when we’ve complete a goal.

Depending on the size of the goal or task, this can be a simple exercise of just closing your eyes and thinking about a couple of motivating reasons why, or for larger goals, getting out a sheet of paper and making a list that you can look at regularly.

Use Time Boxing for Each Task in Your Video Project Plan

Probably THE most important skill you can master is that of managing your time for maximum productivity. There are a lot of ‘systems’ out there for helping you do this, but many of them require you to live almost like an automated robot with a set of instructions that need to be followed precisely or the system collapses.

This is probably why time-management continues to be a big problem for a lot of people. But it doesn’t have to be, because it really boils down to some simple concepts that you can begin using immediately.

What you need in order to bring this all together to produce some results is order and structure. That’s it!

The way you get that order and structure is to:

1. Identify the things you need to do
2. Assign a specific amount of time each day to complete them
3. Focus solely on the task at hand and take action!

That’s called “Time Boxing”.  The reason I think it works so well is because it gives your brain 2 key ingredients that drive it to taking action: Clear definable goals (even if they are very small goals), and specific time-frame to accomplish them. In a couple of weeks Lon  and I will be sharing the best way to implement this technique so you’ll really stick to it.

And, remember, each small change you make will add up to some really big projects getting done over time.

If you have anything that works for you to get your videos and other Internet projects done more efficiently we’d love to hear about them in the comments.