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Are you having a hard time keeping deadlines? Is it difficult to stay focused on a project? Do you feel like you’re simply not making the best use of your time? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, it essentially means your productivity level has declined. This decline, unfortunately, minimizes your ability to get things done in your personal and professional life.

There are a number of reasons a person’s productivity can decline. The key to turning things around is to determine the cause and find a healthy solution. Below are some common reasons for slowed productivity and ways to improve.

Lack of Energy

Your body needs essential vitamins, nutrients, and minerals to make it through the day. When your body is deprived of these needs, essentially, it starts to run on low fuel. If you’ve been feeling more tired than usual, sluggish, or fatigued, it can hinder your ability to be productive. You can make necessary changes like ensuring you’re getting 8 hours of sleep, eating a well-balanced diet daily, and increasing your exercise levels. You can also use the support of aids like hemp wellness spray to help give you a natural boost.

No Clear Goals

It’s hard to master tasks and tackle plans when you don’t have clear goals in place. If you feel as if you’ve just been going in circles, perhaps you need to identify daily goals. When you have a vision of what you want, it gives you motivation and a clear path on how to proceed each day. So, sit down and evaluate your responsibilities, decide what your goals are, and iron out a plan with actionable, measurable steps to execute each one of your goals.

Overloaded

In an effort to help others or to succeed in their own lives, people will take on more responsibilities than they can actually handle. When people accept more commitments than they can keep, they often hinder their ability to make productive gains across them all. Perhaps you simply have too much going on and need to cut back? If this is the case, review your list of commitments, list them in order of priority, and then decide which of these commitments you need to let go.

Distractions

You may have every intention of washing the clothes or finishing that project for work, but there’s always something else pulling you in another direction. Distractions are a common cause of slowed productivity both in the office and at home. From email and social media to impromptu visits and other commitments, distractions slow you down. You have to learn how to set clear boundaries and set a strategy in place that keeps distractions at bay. One solution could be to dedicate time to a particular task by blocking off your calendar. Turning off your mobile alerts or notifications for a short period of time can also minimize distractions.

Multitasking

Another reason you might not be as productive as you’d like is that you’re trying to multitask. Though it may seem like a good quality to have, trying to focus on more than one task at a time actually slows you down. Create a list of projects you need to complete then list them in order of importance. From there, start completing the tasks one by one.

Everyone slacks off on their priorities from time to time, however, when it gets to the point you’re not being productive on a daily basis, you need to make changes. Slowed productivity leads to missed deadlines, unfinished work, and loads of stress. If you believe you’re being slowed down by one of the causes listed above, start taking measures like eating better, getting more sleep, reducing your workload, and staying focused on one task at a time. It won’t happen overnight, but before long you’ll develop habits that help you to stay on point.