Imagine never having to type out your email address on a form ever again, flying through emails in a fraction of the usual time, and having social media captions with hashtags in seconds.
I am someone who is obsessed with doing things in the most effective way possible, and I can’t stand the idea of wasting life on things that don’t need to have to take all our time and energy when we could be doing something more fun, or beneficial!
I’ve learnt how to take tasks that use up hours, days and weeks of our lives, and transform them into 5-second moves!
So the question is, how can you get more done in less time and with more ease?
Here are my favourite 5 productivity hacks that save me hours of time each week, and get things done in an incredibly effective way.
Templates
So simple, so logical, but if anything you do a lot of, such as recording sessions, sending out quote requests, or even emails, USE A TEMPLATE! I have saved days of my life by creating my perfect recording template in Logic which saves me so much time routing input mic into my DAW as well as outputs into my headphones to create a perfect mix, and that’s before even hitting record. Invest a bit of time upfront to get everything where you want it, and save so much time and stress for every session from then on! % stars – would recommend!
Shortcuts
Might seem obvious to start using shortcuts on programs you use a lot, but it can be overwhelming, so for a week notice commands, or menu options you use often, and either learn or assign shortcuts to them to make your workflow, flow! Bonus points for setting similar actions (for instance cutting audio in Logic, Pro Tools Final Cut Pro, and Adobe Premiere) to the same shortcut across all platforms.
Dictation/Speech Readers
As someone who gets behind on emails often (apologies if you’re waiting to hear back from me right now!) a game-changer for me is enabling dictation on my Mac. I speak so much faster than I type and so it’s a no brainer to speak my replies. And I realise as I’m typing this, I should probably also use it for my blog posts! Doh! Oh well, one small action at a time!
Pomodoro
I’ve been doing this for around 5 years, and when I’m doing it consistently, my productivity goes through the roof and I don’t feel exhausted at the end of any given day. The concept is simple, 25 minutes of work followed by 5 minutes of something opposite from work, so if I’m working for 25 minutes in front of a computer (like right now) for my break, I will get up, stretch, maybe do some pushups or some type of exercise, breathe, make a cup of tea, whatever, then get back to it with a fresh head and more clarity 🙂
Text replace!
My ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE! Right now, go to your keyboard settings and if you’re on osx or ios you will find something called ‘text replace’. Here you can create your own text shortcuts to make things as simple as filling out your email on a form that takes less than a second, to having whole social media captions and hashtag strategies that auto-populate. Here are some of my fav examples:
For social media posts:
| Text… | …Turns Into |
| #drum | #drummer #drumporn #drumming #gearporn #instadrum #drummersofinstagram #sessionmusician #musicianlifestyle #sessiondrummer #drumminglife #drumgeek #professionalmusician #drumlove #drumtracks #drumrecording #zildjian #yamahadrums #vicfirth #remo |
| dsccap | Join Drum Stem Club and download these multi-tracks and more, FREE 🔗 Link in bio 🔗 🥁NAME🥁 |
| eilreel | Emily is Live! – YouTube/Podcast – EmilyIsLive.com |
For general URL’s:
| Text… | …Turns Into |
| ed | https://www.emilydrums.com |
| dsc | https://www.drumstemclub.com |
| /eil | https://www.EmilyIsLive.com |
And for when I’m getting back to a batch of emails:
| Text… | …Turns Into |
| aaa | Heya, So sorry for the late reply on this – currently in studio build heaven/hell! 😂 |
| cmi | Thanks so much for the kind words about Count Me In! So glad you enjoyed it 🙂 I had an absolute blast being involved, and consider myself very lucky to be amongst such legends! |
| ccc | Hope you’re keeping well and I look forward to hearing more about your progress and adventures in this mad remote recording world! 🙂 Em |
All this saves hours of time cumulatively, and it’s just things I happen to be writing a lot (at the moment – it’s ever-changing of course!)
So try these out, let me know how you get on and let me know if you have any productivity hacks you love!
Check out more on this week’s episode, and if you want to join the conversation live, then head to EmilyisLive.com
1 thought on “My Top Productivity Hacks!”