MY TOP 10 TIPS BOOST PRODUCTIVITY | KAIROS GLOBAL | MARCH 2020

Author: Annilyn Sebastian

Intro: Dr Annilyn Sebastian shares a few tips on how she manages a large household and still finds time to pursue her passions.

Lots of people ask me how I manage to do a lot, despite managing and caring for a household of 11, on top of homeschooling, ministry and other activities that we are actively involved in.  The truth of the matter is that I don’t manage to do all the things on my list, but I can say with confidence that I do have my methods to make me as efficient as I can be. 

Talking about efficiency, I do have to mention that there are times when I fail; like the week I overlooked the start date for the community college classes my 2 high schoolers had to take at the college campus. It almost turned out to be a disaster! But luckily God intervened and I was able to drop them off right on time for their second class. So yes, I do have my days, and times when my methods fail me for I am not a foolproof efficiency machine, by any means. But, I would love to share some tips that I find useful in my own life. 

1) My first and foremost productivity booster is spending time with God and understanding what He wants me to do that day.  

If our actions are in sync with God’s plan, then we are off to a great start. My less achieved days are the ones that I started off without consulting God. When we let Him direct our path, we actually achieve much more than what we think we would have achieved on our own.

Throughout the years, I have felt God nudging me to do something that was very relevant at the time, by giving me a certain ‘timely’ passion. For example, the time I was thinking of starting my blog, “Efficient Living With Grace From Above”, I had the passion to spend hours and hours trying to learn from scratch how to set up a blog, as I had no background whatsoever about anything web designing related. I was soon able to implement it. There have been so many other instances in my life like that. 

However, there has also been several times when I felt my ‘productivity’ hindered because I had to do something ‘extra’ like console a crying baby or attend to another who would be more clingy than usual or deal with some character issue. Although frustrating at the moment, these are the moments that God want us to be addressing then instead of seeing as a hindrance to achieve other things on our list. He calls us at that precise moment, to attend to the matter with our full attention, as this is what He wants us to see as most important at the time. And so, we shouldn’t feel that we are wasting our time in doing so because as Pope Francis puts it, we have to ‘waste’ our time for our precious family. It is when we give our full attention to our family when they need us the most, that is when we are actually very productive! We then would have achieved way more than what we would have achieved doing our routine, mundane tasks. Or, at least we will be one more step closer to holiness, which I guess is what matters the most. 

2) I stay away from social media. 

The only ‘social media’ I use is WhatsApp group chat, in which I don’t open 80% of videos or forwarded text. I however do reply to incoming text and thus reachable for the most part. 

I think in today’s culture, social media is the number one time killer as well as productivity decliner. Though I am an introvert at heart, I do love company and enjoy the fellowship of those around me. But by not engaging in social media, I have all that extra time to channel into other positive things. 

3) I always make it a point to keep the kitchen counters clean and the house reasonably organized. 

This is itself a great productivity booster. I find it hard to function when there is stuff all over the house especially where they don’t belong. For me, a cluttered house leads to a cluttered mind. All our kids pitch in to keep the house clean, with their assigned chores. 

4) After attending to the essentials needed to manage the family and house, I utilize the gaps of time. 

I fill time gaps with things on my ‘wish list’, whatever God prompts me at that moment, or insights I get during prayer time. If I feel I need to rest, I do so without feeling guilty, as rest is also very important. 

5) I check email only once or twice a day. 

I have turned off push notifications on my phone. However, when I am expecting an important email, I check more frequently. 

6) Sometimes when I have the extra motivation and energy, I go into a 1 hour decluttering or cleaning frenzy. 

By setting a timer and working really fast, I get a considerable amount of work done. 

7) By being a fast worker

By nature, I talk and walk very fast; but on top of that, I also deliberately work on routine things at a fast pace – when you move around fast, it’s good exercise too, so you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone!

8) I love entering things I need to do on an app or notebook, and check off as I do them. 

The mental satisfaction from checking off actually motivates me to do more work efficiently.

9) I always have a reading booklist handy

When I am not doing anything physically, I’ll be reading something during my resting time, which is also probably something I had wanted to do anyway.

10) I utilize appliances and gear that help me save time

I save time in the kitchen by using handy, timesaving equipments. 

By keeping our focus on God, adopting ways to save time, understanding our number one time killers and trying to avoid them, it will not be hard to achieve more in a day. One thing to remember, however, is that we should never compare ourselves to others, or even our own past. I have been super productive at different seasons of my life, and not so in some others. We just have to understand the season of life that we are in now, embrace it fully, and live in the moment. For those who feel that the only thing they ever do each day is taking care of very basic household necessities, or taking care of little ones, just remember that one day “this too shall pass”. I oftentimes need this reminder myself!

Dr Annilyn Sebastian, an MD Pathologist by profession, is currently a stay-at-home-mom. She lives in Houston, USA, with her husband Dr Anup Skaria and eight children. They homeschool their children.