Productivity tips by experts

Productivity, sounds cool, huh?

Everyone wants to be productive. But how?

I’ve already published a blog post on doing more in less time. I’ve also published a blog post on productivity tools that I use for blogging.

However, what are the other strategies that influencers are using for increasing their productivity?

What productivity tools they use?

How do they manage to do more in less time?

For this reason, I outreached some of the great influencers in content marketing and blogging space.

Productivity hacks used by top content marketers

Neil Patel

Neil Patel

Neil Patel, the founder of KISSMetrics, CrazyEgg, QuickSprout and of course Neil Patel for maintaining his personal brand!

I asked him: “What are your favourite productivity tools and tips?”

Microsoft word is my favourite tool. By writing in it instead of WordPress, it automatically spots grammar and spelling errors. I also create an outline of my blog post before I start writing as it helps speed things up…

BONUS:
The great thing about Microsoft word is it has add-on support. Ginger is one of the best free proofreaders out there. It offers an excellent add-on for Microsoft Word.

Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin Moz

Rand Fishkin! Known as a Wizard of Moz at Moz.

He co-authored/co-founded the Art of SEO, Inbound.org, and Moz.

Known for his Whiteboard Fridays on Moz.

If I come across Moz across web, Rand is the first cool guy, who comes to my mind.

His answer,

Hi Akshay – here’s my short list of tips:

Blog less, but better. There’s no prize for hitting publish anymore (as there used to be in the web’s/blogging’s early days). Today, it’s the best content that gets seen and shared, not the blogs that are simply “consistent” about having something new (but mediocre) every day.

Have a list of topics/ideas in your email drafts that you can refer to at any time, and add to easily even via your mobile. You can attach photos to these drafts, insert URLs, the works. When you finally have a couple hours free to blog, these resources are invaluable in giving you the spark/nudge you need.

Talk to people about your blog ideas in person, first. The best posts I write come from conversations I’ve had in person – they’re easier to write, more compelling, and if they resonated with people in real life, they tend to do much better on the web, too.

As you grow, build a team to manage your content. Moz has three full-time folks who focus on making the Moz blog the best in the world for our audience. Their passion and dedication means we can scale quality and be an industry-leader without sucking time away from anyone else on the team.

Cheers!

Harsh Agrawal

Harsh Agrawal

Harsh Agrawal, known as the legend of Indian blogging.

He regularly blogs at ShoutMeLoud.

Known for his blog posts, that are simple, not too jargon, yet highly insightful.

I asked him, what are the best productivity tools or strategies you are using? What are your tips to be INSANELY productive?

Bufferapp: This is social media tool and I use to schedule status updated for my social media channels such as Facebook page, Google plus page and Twitter. An alternative to Bufferapp is Socialpilot.

Wunderlist: This is an amazing app, which is available for all the mobile and desktop OS. I use this for my task-management and for managing To-do list.

ManageWP: Along with ShoutMeLoud, I have almost 11 blogs running simultaneously and I use ManageWP to manage all of them from a single dashboard. They also have a free version for anyone with less than 5 WordPress blogs. Highly recommended tool for anyone who has more than 1 WordPress blog.

oDesk: I use oDesk extensively for outsourcing time-consuming work such as transcript for my Youtube videos, doing research work and almost all the things which can be done by a virtual assistant.

My articles on ShoutMeLoud are a solution to my own problems which I face while blogging. At the same time, I offer various blogging related services and whatever I learn over time, I share them as a blog post on ShoutMeLoud. All the articles are based on real-life experience, so it’s easy for me to write such articles and so far they are working great.

To manage posting, whenever I’m into writing mode, I usually write 3-4 articles at one go and schedule them for coming days. I follow one article every-day and publish something to add value and avoid filler articles.

Yaro Starak

Yaro Starak

Founder and owner of the blog, Entrepreneur’s Journey.

He lives the laptop lifestyle!

Hello Akshay,

I focus primarily on three core productivity concepts that guide everything I do:

  1. The 80/20 Ruleto identify the highest value activities given my goals (and discarding the rest)
  2. The Theory Of Constraints, to identify what is missing or stopping me from meeting my goals
  3. The Sprint Technique– small bursts of focused activity, in harmony with my energy flow

There’s a lot you can learn just about these three concepts.

Thanks for including me and good luck with your blog.
Yaroo Starak.

Adam Connell

Adam Connell

Adam Connell, is the wizard, blogging at BloggingWizard.

Known for his content that is really unique. He likes to go social rather than being a content writing machine. That’s the cool thing about him.

Some of his productivity tools and tips are…

Hey, Akshay

Blogging is extremely time intensive so it’s important to stay focused on your productivity and use the right tools to help you.

Tips:

Out of all of the tips I’ve tried there are several that I’ve found to work especially well –

  • Start each day the right way – create a routine to inspire and motivate you
  • Eat a frog a day – complete the tasks you’ve been putting off first
  • Write a task list each day – mark off tasks as you go
  • Use a timer to do 30 minute bursts of work – this will keep you focused and alert
  • Set yourself a cutoff point – instead of working till you’re done, set a target time that you’ll stop work
  • Allocate specific time slots to manage your emails – I spent so much time managing emails until I started scheduling blocks of time and spending no more than the time allocated

Tools:

Advice can only get you so far, you need the right tools to help you.

A few of the tools I find particularly useful include:

al processes and social messages (integrates well with Buffer)

  • Evernote – synchronize notes across multiple devices
  • Dropbox – access your files anywhere
  • Lastpass – the last password you’ll ever need

There are so many tools that can help you save time on various tasks. I’ve covered them in more detail in this post.

Let me know if you need anything else for your post.

Erik Emanuelle

Erik Emanuelle

Erik Emanuelle, a passionate blogger, at NoPassiveIncome. The blog deals with surefire methods to earn money online.

Let us know, what his favourite productivity tips and tools are?

For freelance writers, I suggest Trello. It’s a free project management tool, very simple to use. It allows you and your teammates to create boards and manage people or resources to associate to each task.

My blogs are built with WordPress, so I always work to be organized for at least one week, scheduling posts and writing articles whenever I’ve free time.

I do not make use of particular tools to manage my time. I prefer the old school. Sticky notes on my desktop to remind me urgent projects and different folders in my PC and email.

For social media, I love HootSuite Pro. It’s a great tool if you want to easily manage several social media accounts with few minutes a day.

Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines, a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and copywriter. Known for her writings in American Express, Bigcommerce, Capital One, FreshBooks, HubSpot, KISSmetrics, Search Engine Watch, and Social Media Examiner!

She has her personal blog at Kristi Hines.

Let us know how he manages to be so productive in creating high-quality content.

Hi Akshay,

My favorite tools for managing all of my writing projects, including my own blog and freelance writing clients, are Trello and Remember the Milk. Trello allows me to log blog post ideas, sort them by topic, and move them to a “done” list when I have used the idea. Remember the Milk allows me to quickly log when tasks are due, so I can get client posts out on time and remind myself to do something for my own blogs as well.

Best regards,
Kristi

Conclusion

Hope you loved the insights shared by these experts when it comes to productivity.

I would like to say that productivity is not all about multi-tasking. It’s about focusing on one task at a time, mindfully, and using right tools to get it done quickly.

Let me know what tools you guys use in the comments section.