6 Best Courses On Skillshare That Boost Basic Productivity
- Chris D
- March 27, 2020
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Skillshare is an online library of educational videos that makes learning an enjoyable and interactive experience.
The platform caters for a wide range of creative skills such as writing, illustration, graphic design, animation and photography. Business and lifestyle are other fields that Skillshare specialise in.
Lessons are taught through short videos that add up to a whole tutorial. Think of it like a learned version of YouTube where creators post content alongside supplementary course material that is reviewed by students.
In an attempt to pick up tips and sharpen our own capabilities at being productivity we selected and took 20 Skillshare productivity courses taking turns at applying the techniques and suggestions to our very own daily routines.
Some of the courses were incredibly inspiring, providing genuinely useful easy to apply tips that we will never give up. Others less so. Below is our top 6 courses of the bunch, each providing some of our favourite tips.
Another great thing is that it’s possible to make these absolutely free productivity courses! For unlimited access Skillshare provides everyone with a free 30 day trial of their premium membership that stretches across their entirely online library.
If you have the energy, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from delving deep into the 26,000+ online courses over the trial month, and cancelling when your brain is fried. After the free trial the month by month cost for premium access is currently set at $15 per month and can be cancelled at any time.
Author: Michael Karnjanaprahorn
Length: 23 mins divided into 6 lessons
Reviews: 2126 – Rated as Best Suited for Beginners
About This Class
“Fuelled with years of research and trial-and-error, this short class is packed with rules and tools, including lessons on:
- Building a”Plan, Do, Review”strategy exercises for prioritizing tasks
- An”Ideal Week”calendar demo
- 4 app types everyone should try
This class will be useful whether you’re freelance, full-time, or searching for a way to balance many projects at once. You’ll gain a toolkit for personalizing your productivity system and accomplishing work that drives real impact—every day, every week, every month, every year.”
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- Maintain consistency with your approach to work. For us this meant in stop skipping between different cloud storage services and instead focus on fully integrating just one across all of our devices and shared folders.
- Don’t try and achieve everything all at once. New ideas are exciting and it’s easy to get carried away spending time on new avenues. Instead be disciplined and start small. Start small and grow steadily.
- Keep habit tracking simple!
Author: Vannessa Loder
Length: 28 mins divided into 12 lessons
Reviews: 19 – Rated as Best Suited for All Levels
About This Class
“This class is perfect for high performing leaders, executives, creatives and anyone who wants to get more done in less time, without feeling exhausted or depleted in the process.”
It does this by working through Vanessa’s designed and tested weekly planning guide.
“This Weekly Planning Guide (provided in lesson resources) is based on the neuroscience behind behavior change and incorporates techniques to harness the power of visualization and connecting with your soul’s desires as you map out your ideal week.”
Don’t decide what works and doesn’t work without giving it a try.
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- Take things off your plate when you begin to feel overwhelmed. Do this by delegating tasks you don’t enjoy or by saying no thank you when friends or colleagues ask a favour.
- View failure as a positive experience. What do you now know because of a failure, that you didn’t know last week? Failure is feedback, something so valuable that businesses are willing to pay for.
- Limit your to-do list to only 3 things. Think of it as a ‘to-day’ list by only committing to an achievable about of work each day.
Author: Filipa Cancelas
Length: 29 mins divided into 12 lessons
Reviews: 80 – Rated as Best Suited for Beginners
About This Class
“Most successful entrepreneurs have a specific morning ritual, that sets their mind to success. Their routine, is the key to everything they accomplished in the past!
Learn how you can create your own morning ritual to increase your productivity and become a successful entrepreneur!”
This a step-by-step plan tutorial backed by expert sources enables you to create and follow a morning ritual, with some of the activities suggested including:
- Exercise
- Reading
- Meditating
- 10 different ideas
- Coldwater shower
- Journaling
- Setting intentions
- Gratitude exercise”
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- Think of willpower as a full battery at the start of each day. The more we use it the less strong our willpower will be. Prevent wasting willpower on unnecessary actions such as debating with yourself over what to have for lunch.
- Adapting mindfulness or meditation into your morning ritual, through using a guided app such as Headspace helps you refine focus for the rest of the day.
- Eliminate minor decisions as far as is possible. Automate as many of your repeating tasks as possible to allow full focus to be given on what is important.
Author: Rich Armstrong
Length: 22 mins divided into 8 lessons
Reviews: 99 – Rated as Best Suited for All Levels
About This Class
Using the analogy of the tortoise and the hare, teacher Rich advocates taking the pressure off fast business and instead forming good solid working habits.
By consistently taking small steps you can do your best work.
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- Clearly and simply define your goals. Don’t get caught up in the trap of committing things to memory, or writing new long term goals on a daily basis. Grab a clean and clear writing surface and help yourself understand the overriding priorities.
- Brain dump all busy thoughts to free up your mind to allow it to be at its most creative.
- When writing a ‘to-do’ lists use wording like ‘rough’, ‘experiment’ or ‘draft’ in your daily goals to take the pressure off yourself getting it perfect first time.
Author: Thomas Frank
Length: 62 mins divided into 10 lessons
Reviews: 602 – Rated as Best Suited for All Levels
About This Class
“Building habits isn’t just about discipline; there are real-world steps you can take to set yourself up for success and keep yourself on track!
Through research, experience, and his own trial-and-error, Thomas Frank has laid out the groundwork for lasting habits, and is here to share his experience with you.
In this highly entertaining step-by-step class, you’ll learn:
- How to set reasonable and realistic goals
- What to do to reach them
- How to handle failure without giving up
- Thomas’ favorite habit tracking and reflection systems
- A better understanding of habit formation, and how to take ownership of yours”
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- The concept of an impossible list. This is an iterative bucket list that aims to evolve goals as you progress.
- Don’t expect to be productive immediately as you begin each task. Be it writing or studying, allow yourself a period of ‘warm up’ time and don’t be too hard on yourself.
- A habitat tracker on grid paper format (provided in lesson resources) is a good way to form and maintain good habits.
Author: David Tuminski
Length: 17 mins divided into 6 lessons
Reviews: 302 – Rated as Best Suited for Beginners
About This Class
“Being productive has become an essential skill, but trying to do everything we are expected to can be real stressful and cause procrastination.”
This course from Dawid explores how understanding psychology can help you to boost your productivity and stop procrastinating once and for all.
Evidence based examples are provided to help you…
- be productive and not overtired so you don’t feel exhausted, even if the work day has just begun
- focus on one thing only to maximize your productivity and escape the trap of multitasking
- stop procrastinating once and for all
3 Tips We Found Most Useful
- Plan timed intervals of 90 mins work followed by 15 – 30 mins break into your work routine.
- Listen to sounds of nature such as running water during work to reduce tension.
- Avoid jumping between tasks, or multi-tasking to be at your most productive.
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