When I quit my 9-5 to pursue full-time entrepreneurship last year, I’ll be honest: for the first several months, I really struggled with productivity. Going from such a rigid schedule to being totally in control of my time (even though it’s exactly what I wanted!) was a humongous adjustment. So many days, when Mike got home from work around 3 pm, and I realized my workday was over (another realization in and of itself…), I’d think to myself, “what did I even DO today?!” 

Fast forward 8 months and I’m happy to say that the #WFH lifestyle and I are in a much better spot. I’ve tried out a TON of time management and productivity tactics, and have honed in on a few that have made the biggest difference in elevating my work-from-home output and fulfillment as an entrepreneur.

Here are the three biggest habit adjustments that have transformed my daily productivity.

1. Coming up with a solid, yet simple morning routine

This habit adjustment I didn’t even mean to do – at least not on purpose. But my morning routine slowly evolved and came together over time, and now it’s something that’s a crucial part of my days. If, for some reason, I don’t get to complete my morning routine, my WHOLE day feels off-kilter, so I know how important it is for me to make time for it.

Here’s my current morning routine:

• Make my daily gratitude list
• Write down my monthly goals
• Write down my yearly goals
• Read, or do some sort of “personal development” (like watch a webinar or inspirational video) for 20 minutes
• Share daily accountability list on Instagram (see #3 below)

…And that’s it! That’s the morning routine that I’ve committed to every single day that’s made a huge impact on my productivity and output. It typically takes me about 25-30 minutes.

Why does this work so well for me? I think it’s because it primes me to be positive, appreciative, and motivated for the day. There’s a saying that 90% of success stems from mindset, and these practices all help put in my in the right frame of mind going into the day. They remind me what’s important, what I’m grateful for in my life, and what I’m working towards.

And while I encourage you to sample from MY morning routine, it’s important to create one that is unique and meaningful to you. Everyone’s morning routine is different – and it should be! Different things motivate, energize, and fulfill different people. If you need some help creating your perfect morning routine, check out this blog post.

2. Time-blocking

This was a real game-changer for me. For me, time-blocking was the difference between a big old to-do list (even if it was super organized), and a strategic game plan for tacking my daily and weekly tasks.

You may be wondering, “What is time-blocking?” Time-blocking is the idea of literally blocking off chunks of time in your day so you can dedicate that time to specific tasks.

The nature of my business is very dynamic – I serve a lot of different consulting and coaching clients, and while it’s great to have some degree of flexibility to executive this work, I’ve found that when I don’t have a weekly plan of attack where I block off time for each one… the result is I get VERY stressed about “when am I going to do all this work?!”

By time-blocking out specific work blocks for specific clients, I put my mind at ease knowing that there is time for the work to be done, and the work WILL happen. So even if I know I have a TON I need to get done for client B this week, and I’m currently working on client A – I don’t stress because I know I’ve allotted time for the work for client B later in the week.

Make sense?

My system involves scheduling out my time-blocking in my weekly Google Calendar – the same as I used to do with meeting invites when I was working in corporate marketing (funny how some things don’t change!) I also color-code my project types, so I can see how my week looks in terms of different workload obligations. Here’s a real-life example of one of my recent weeks (blue is P&P work + coaching, orange is consulting, purple is acting work, and light pink is personal tasks):

It might seem excessive to some people, but I can’t say enough what this time-blocking practice has done for my peace-of-mind, as well as my productivity!

Another time-blocking tip: I always try to block out my days the night before (this is how I like to make my to-do lists, too). If I can, I block out as much of my week as possible on Sundays so I know exactly what to expect, and what I’m working on, and can protect my time as new inquiries and opportunities come up.

3. Daily accountability posts on Instagram

This was something I started doing for fun – I saw a couple other online entrepreneurs sharing their daily task lists and I loved the idea (anyone else LOVE seeing other people’s morning routines/daily task lists? There’s something so humanizing about it). So I gave it a try!

…And I can’t tell you how much this has helped me on a daily basis, in terms of output and productivity! (I also can’t tell you how many comments I get from people on either how THEY find it motivating as well. See? Humanizing!)

There’s two reasons why I believe this habit works so well for me:

1. Posting it in the morning requires that I have my daily to-do list already completed and laid out, so I know EXACTLY what I’m going to be doing every single day.
2. Posting these daily to-do lists creates accountability for me – not only am I responsible for completing the tasks I’ve committed to, I’m also responsible for sharing my results.

Here’s an example of one of my daily IG Stories task lists for accountability, at the beginning of the day…

And at the end of the day…

In this example, you can see a WHOLE bunch of checkmarks (success!), but I can assure you that this isn’t always the case! Regardless, the point of the IG Stories Accountability Checklist isn’t showing “look how much work I did today!” – it’s being accountable to myself and what I promised myself I would do.

So, these are the three habits that have had the most impact on my productivity and fulfillment (also stress-management!) as an entrepreneur. What tactics have you seen success with? Or what would you like to hear more about? Share in the comments!

Are you dreaming of quitting your 9-5 as well! You CAN! Start your journey with my free “Quit Your 9-5 Jumpstart Guide.”