Work can become unproductive at times. You login hours of work just to find out that nothing significant was accomplished. You might blame circumstances around you but if you check well, you’ll see that there are things you can do to increase your productivity at work.
8 Tips To Stay Productive At Work
1. Set SMART Goals And Follow Through:
In order to be deemed productive, you need to set goals to be achieved. The best framework to set goals and achieve them is to use the SMART framework. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound.
When setting goals for the workplace, you need to make sure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound in order to achieve them.
2. Take Breaks In between Work:
Staying hard at work for long periods of time will not result in you increasing productivity instead, it will result in diminishing returns. When you do that, the harder you try to focus, the less you are able to.
The right way to work is to schedule breaks in between work. Each break will refresh your mind and reduce the stress you would normally experience at work. When you feel your creative juices drying up, it’s an indicator to check the last time you had a break.
3. Don’t Be A Meeting-Junkie:
Meetings are normal in the workplace but many teams engage in unnecessary meetings. They do this thinking that they are improving the productivity of the workplace not knowing that they are taking away precious time from the employees. Most importantly, frequent meetings disrupt and bring employees out of flow when they are working.
If you feel like there’s a need to have a meeting, ask yourself this; “Can I communicate this to the team with a message that it will be understood and carried out effectively? Does this issue require the attention and input of everyone in the team?”.
Learn to pass information to only the people who need it. Communicate much but don’t schedule unnecessary meetings.
4. Don’t Multi-Task:
You might feel that doing more than one thing at a time helps you achieve more but research and history has proven otherwise.
When you do more than one thing at a time, you are bound to make mistakes. These mistakes make spend more time and resources on the issue and even reduce the quality of your work.
At the end of the day, you’ll discover that you’ve done many things but none was completed as it should have.
The best thing to do is organise your work according to its importance. This will help you do the most important things first and complete them satisfactorily before moving to another task.
5. Delegate tasks
Don’t do everything yourself. Consider using delegation methods to split up tasks between your team members. For instance, if you have a variety of tasks on your to-do list, consider assigning some of these tasks to others if they can be completed without you working on them.
Delegating tasks can also allow you to work on other assignments that may be specifically assigned to you alone, while the rest of the team can dedicate their time to the tasks that would otherwise take time or resources away from other more important projects.
For example, if you have emails that need to be answered, but a coworker can provide the same attention to detail in their responses as you, consider giving them the task while you work on pertinent assignments that no one else can (or is permitted to) complete.
6. Limit interruptions
Avoid distraction and anything that interrupt your work. Interruptions can really sideline us throughout the day.
Even though you may enjoy your relationships with your co-workers, losing track of time due to conversations, informal and quick meetings or topic discussions can hinder your workflow and decrease your overall productivity.
Consider using some strategies to limit the number of interruptions during your day.
You may choose to work with your office door closed for a portion of your day, or if you work in an open-office environment, you might use noise-cancelling headphones to help limit the sounds of office chatter and interaction.
Headphones can also be a polite but silent way to let your colleagues know that you need to concentrate on the projects you are working on. When implementing strategies to help you increase your work productivity, it is important to be as consistent as you can.
Allow yourself to learn and develop your skills, and you can be certain that your productivity will continue to improve as well.
7. Use the Pomodoro strategy
This ties in with the second tip mentioned above. Being more productive at work can depend heavily on your time management, and the Pomodoro method is a strategy that you may find helpful for managing your time more efficiently.
Similar to scheduling breaks, the Pomodoro method applies the use of a timer, where you dedicate yourself to a task for 20 minutes (though you can increase this to 30 minutes), work on it until the timer goes off and then take a five-minute break.
This strategy can be effective because it provides more time for uninterrupted, focused work and then provides a way to step back from the task for a few minutes before going back to complete it.
8. Use Your Commuting Time Effectively
If you’re one of the many who have a lengthy commute to work by bus, train or subway, chances are you’re not using that time effectively to make your workday easier.
While many simply browse apps or check the news, it’s often the perfect time to answer that email you received after hours the previous day.
Itemizing your tasks and planning your workload for the day can be a great head start and make you much more productive later on.
The time you spend on your commute could be the missing piece to ending the day a bit further ahead than you’re used to.
In conclusion, your workday can be much more productive if you follow the tips above. One of the most common reasons people are fired is the unproductivity at the workplace. You can make use of these tips to secure your place at work and even get promotions.
