If you’re a procrastinator like me, you live by the mantra: I’ll do it later. Laundry? I’ll do it later. Am I cleaning the bathroom? I’ll do it later. Am I organizing my desk? I’ll do it later. The problem with this, however, is that I never end up doing it until I need to wear my black dress that has been sitting at the bottom of my laundry heap for weeks, or until shower scum has taken over my bathroom, or until I cannot find my passport that is buried in my desk drawer. It’s when these things happen that I resolve to be more productive and not let life’s messes build up—only to fall back into my old habits later.
Why do I do this over and over? Because whenever I’m faced with laundry, cleaning, or organizing, I have an overwhelming sense of dread. I think to myself; this is going to take forever—I don’t have time for this right now and put it off for later.
Falling into this pattern has been one of my most profound weaknesses in life. Not only are things not done in a timely manner, but my stress level skyrockets because I always feel like I’m putting out fires rather than getting ahead. And more often than not, I mentally kick myself because I know if I had just taken 15 or 20 minutes to prepare and think ahead, I could have saved my family and me hours of frustration.
And it always seems to be the simple, daily things that end up exploding into the unmanageable. I fight with my kids every morning about getting ready for school on time. But this week I discovered if I help my them pick out a week’s worth of school clothes on Sunday and put them in a safe place, we don’t fight about it! Voila!
I have found three simple productivity resources to use as ways to increase productivity in your electronic life, so you don’t have to stress out later—and some of them might surprise you.
Simplify your bills: Manilla.com
Using Manilla has helped me in two ways: first, by converting to paperless billing, it has reduced my paper clutter, which has, in turn, reduced my overall clutter; secondly, it put all of my bills and household accounts into one place so that I never have to look around for my billing information and due dates. Manilla also sends automated alerts when your bills are coming due and offers free, unlimited storage of documents.
Simplify your social media: Hootsuite
Like most people, I have Facebook and Twitter accounts. But, I also have Foursquare, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, and WordPress accounts. That’s seven different social media accounts, with seven different usernames and passwords, and seven different websites. With HootSuite, I can manage all of my social media networks in one place, on one easy-to-use dashboard.
Simplify your email: TheSwizzle
I also have three different email accounts: one for work, one for personal use, and one for offers or mailing lists. On top of that, each inbox is full of emails I don’t need (or want). TheSwizzle not only syncs to all of your email accounts so that you have a consumable daily digest, but it also helps you easily unsubscribe from emails so that you have a clear overview of the mail you want to see. TheSwizzle saves you time by making sure you see the email you want and getting rid of the email you don’t.
So even if you’re the world’s biggest procrastinator (like me), give these three tips a try. They’re easy to do, take hardly any time to set up, and increase your productivity in more ways than you can imagine. Another bonus? Increasing your productivity is addictive and will have you start looking for new ways to be more efficient in your everyday life.