What to Do When You’ve Failed to Be Productive

When you work from home, and unexpected situations come up.

Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

It’s happened to all of us.

You create a to-do list, plan a productive day, and manage to complete one or two items on the agenda. Then, the phone rings. Someone knocks. Your sister decides to tell you a long, funny story. Your kid starts crying. You go on Twitter to promote an article and get sidetracked by the trending stories.

You can schedule every minute of every day, but you’re still bound to end up doing a task you hadn’t planned.

Your organized day will never be perfect. Life will happen, and you’ll need to tend to it.

Afterward, you’ll likely be stuck stumbling through the rest of your duties as though your boss gave you an impossible deadline. So, the question is: What do you do when your productive day doesn’t go as planned?

Always do the most important tasks first

You never know how your day will take a turn, which is why you should always begin with the jobs you need to complete by that night. (There should be one to three.)

Don’t misuse your time checking social media, texts, or email. Get to work as soon as possible.