The New Year is here and it’s important we plan accordingly to ensure the errors of 2018 aren’t repeated in 2019.

For the best result and optimum productivity, these six factors must be seriously put into consideration:

1. Accept Change

The pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus, succinctly puts it that change is the only constant thing in life. This is true when you consider the fact that the world is in a constant flux.

The world is taking giant leaps in different spheres of life; be it commerce, science and technology. One of such advancement is in the area of Artificial Intelligence with Elon Musk’s Tesla taking the lead in man-less cars. There is evidence of change all around you, rather than be wary of change you should be open to embrace it. If you fail to swim with the tide of change, you will be swept away.

Change is happening all around us whether we’re open minded enough to see it or not. Development as a result of change doesn’t require our permission to exist.

2. Knowledge Is Power

You can never dispense with this advice as reading has been proven to expand the mind. Not only does reading improve your knowledge, it makes for an improved focus and concentration, memory improvement, stress reduction amongst others. All these are beneficial to your mind as an individual and should translate into positive result in your chosen field.

To maximize productivity and get results that are erstwhile unattainable, you have to move from the norm in preparation for 2019. You have to engage in things you’ve never done before. You can read five online articles a day starting from tips to become healthier, best vaping method, lucrative business ideas, predictions and forecast for the years ahead and so on.

If reading books isn’t your thing, this is the time to start because it’s foolhardy to keep doing a particular thing giving the same variables and expect a different result.

3. Embrace Technology 

As stated above, there is a constant advancement in the area of technology. At this point you must realize that technology is here to stay and the earlier you embrace and apply it to our business, the better result you’re bound to get. This is because the effectiveness of machines and humans are incomparable.

Take digital advertising for instance, it’s bound to overtake regular advertising in a few years’ time. More people are taking advantage of advertising on platforms such as Google and Facebook. The amount of data available on these platforms to enable ads reach target audience is enormous unlike regular television or newspaper ad and other traditional platforms.

4. Block Distractions

Turn off push notifications on your mobile devices especially social media notifications. Not every message requires your immediate attention. Social media is created and are constantly being updated to ensure you’re addicted to your device. It gives you a false feeling of being able to handle it along with whatever task you have at hand. This is an illusion.

Also those little chitty chats are a huge time wasters and tend to derail your attention from set goals especially at the work place.

5. Multitask

The above tip on shutting out distractions leads us to the issue of multitasking. However, tempting and glorious the idea of multitasking may appear to you, please resist the urge to multitask. To get the best result, it’s necessary you handle a single task at a time. This is because you most likely will not get the best out of your effort when you multitask.

6. Get Rest

According to science the average adult requires 8 hours of sleep to perform at an optimum. While you may not subscribe to this theory, it’s very essential for you to find out what works best for you. The underlying fact is that it’s necessary for you to get adequate rest to have adequate mental and physical energies to achieve your set goals.

Richard Agu is a researcher, entrepreneur and freelancer, passionate about entrepreneurship and self-development. Currently, Richard writes for Entrepreneur.com, Goodmenproject.com, among others. Follow him on Linkedin.com by clicking here now.