How to be More Productive and Achieve every Goal as a Designer

As I was preparing for my talk at the Summer Design Meet, I got a chance to look back at the times when I struggled with being productive especially when I was working a full-time job which required my attention.

And in my pursuit to find the secret to productivity, I talked to a number of fellow full-time and freelance designers who at one point or the other in their career faced the challenge. Even though they dreamt to be, I dreamt to be the industry’s best.

The picture that I saw and what those designers saw was not beautiful.

And majorly it was there because I failed to picture my dream into real goals. The situation was all in line as what Denzel Washington said,

“Dreams without goals are just dreams”

And thus, it all started — the cycle of change.

Here is how I and a few fellow designing industry’s patrons found it in ourselves to overcome the rut and get out of their life of comfortable routine to get where we are today.

It all started with knowing what we really want.

What do you want to achieve?

First, clear your mind what you really want to achieve as a designer, there are a lot of people who are just doing things like working on a robotic template without knowing what they wanted to achieve which at the end of the day leads to nowhere.

And at the end of the week or in the worst case a year, you realize that you just let time pass by without actually working on your skills.

Before you manage to make yourself outdated in the industry, find yourself a goal.

For me, it is to learn and create something new every year. For you, it could be getting into your dream job or simply ace a promotion in your company.

What next? What comes after you have a dream with goals? This is the part where people sidetrack and start talking about how you should read more and be updated — all good but hollow bits of advice, which doesn’t work.

In my career, as a designer, everyone told me to do ‘this’ or to learn ‘this’, in order to become the best designer but never told me the way to achieve all those ‘this’.

So I know how frustrating it is. And so I won’t drag you down the rabbit hole.

I will give you things that actually work. Starting with …

Get an Awesome New Diary

The way to materialize your vision to be productive will take you through the routes of a pen and paper.

In a more practical sense, a Diary.

Note. I am not saying planner here and that is intentional. For planners, at the back of their day-wise design tend to create somewhat of pressure on us designers — making us all upset when a day is missed or the To-Do column is left empty.

Also, when I say pen and paper, I don’t mean stencil and phone. I mean a legitimate pen and paper. I have been through the routes of diary apps to know that you cannot be productive on a medium that operates to distract you.

Ergo a no-nonsense, non-categorized Diary.

But what do you do when you fetch a diary for yourself?

Simple. You …

Make a List

Once you have your vision in your head and your diary in your hand, the next step is to set the paving stone of sending out the signals of your intention to be productive, disciplined, and true to your plan to be serious to the universe.

And the way you do that is by writing down your categorization of goals — divided into years, months, weeks, and daily.

When categorizing, it is of utmost importance that you don’t set impossible targets. Don’t ignore a family wedding or a vacation or even an appraisal for which you would have to burn the night candles.

Once you have carefully and strategically divided your goals into years and months and days, it is Time to Plan your Whole Day in your Awesome New Diary. The time when you make your diary your BFF — one which you carry around everywhere you go.

Once you have everything written in black and white, it is time to get to the step where you materialize what you wrote.

The 3 Hours and 10 Minutes of Your Day Will Make You A Productivity Ninja

Having a goal and a diary to materialize it is good, actually pretty darn good.

But even better is making discipline a part of your everyday routine. And doesn’t even have to be something as drag and effort taking as drinking 8 liters of water every day.

In fact, all it would take for you to come into the practice of discipline if 3 hours and 10 minutes of your everyday. Only.

I know what you are thinking. I have been there.

This “daily motivation” lasts only for two days and if you are feeling two pumped up three. For when life happens, taking out 3 hours and 10 minutes every day is a TASK. But you know what? If I could do it, so can you.

I believe in the force that brought you here will make you make these steps an everyday routine too. But, at the same time, you would need some hacks to keep a fire burning below your a*s.

Ways to Make Your Boring Disciplinary Tasks Actually Easy To Convert Into a Routine

There is a whole series of steps that you can follow to make the process of forming new routines easier to follow through. Steps that can lead to productivity oozing out of your veins and into your designs. Steps that can make you rule your day.

Well, stopping myself from being too poetic here, here are those ways I am going gaga about.

• Take regular short breaks.
• Turn OFF your mobile notifications while working.
• Make a habit writing down everything.
• Maintain a proper folder Structure and maintain your work files.

While all these steps and little formulas that you just read work REALLY well, there’s a glitch.

You see, at the end of the day, all of us are digital humans- we crave technology and let’s face it, we miss our phones and laptops when they are away for too long.

This need to be online makes it a little difficult for us to be actually productive with our personal tech being out of the picture. Which brings us to our next section.

Digital Tools That Would Keep You Motivated and Productive

Airtable:

The desktop and mobile app is your one-stop solution to organize, edit, and collaborate within your team and your clients in real-time. It lets you add long text notes, attachments, checkboxes, links to records in another table, and even barcodes!

The app gives you everything you need to be organized in your life, even when you are handling multiple projects with different clients.

Toggl:

Getting distracted is easy and let us face it, super tempting.

But micro-managing your own tasks after a long unproductive day is not easy but still super tempting to avoid.

An application that I have been using to take control of the moment is Toggl. The app, which works on both mobile and desktop — in sync — is a great tool to keep a record of the time you are spending online and then self-analyze its prevention or promotion.

Briefbox:

This one software in our list is a little more inclined towards the freelance designers reading the piece.

Briefbox helps you to build up your portfolio with over 150 practice briefs to work on in-between jobs. It is an ideal resource for you to practice your skills and maintain your design confidence.

Mural:

The product is very different from the rest of the tools mentioned in the list. And a tad bit complex to understand as well.

Bear with me as I help you walk through the undoubtedly beneficial offering.

Mural is basically an online whiteboard. It is where designers like you and me and our teams come together to share ideas, sketches, and even our sticky notes to help visualize the design flow better.

iORO Invoice:

Like Briefbox, iORO Invoice is also a little too inclined towards freelance designers.

The website lets you create a free invoice for your business online. The product lets you create and share the invoice with your clients in the most hassle-free manner known to mankind.

Well here were the secrets of how I and some people I know manage to remain productive and goal-centric every day (no shitting). But enough about me and the secrets of other designers that I talked to when getting this piece together.

You tell me about you.

How do you remain productive on days when it takes sh*t loads of motivation to switch on your laptop?

Feel free to share this article! Clap for it if you like! 👏👏

For more visit abhinavagr.com You can also connect with me on my Instagram, Dribbble, Twitter.