Productivity improves as time management improves. It seems like a simple concept, but if you’re not intentionally managing your time, there’s not much positive movement in the productivity meter. This month, we thought we’d help you out by giving you some strategies that will work to improve your employees’ productivity.
Before I start the list, there should be a disclaimer. The more you focus on productivity, the more you will have to part with the humanity of your staff. Be assured that when managing corporate culture, the greater the productivity gains, the less engaged many of your employees may become. It’s essential to your business success that you find a balance between prioritizing productivity and promoting staff-oriented initiatives to keep your production staff happy and turnover low.
Keep track of time and limit the time for completing tasks
You may think you’re good at measuring how much time you spend on your routine tasks, but only a small percentage actually do. By tracking how much time you spend on your daily tasks, you may find that you spend too much time on your email. Knowing how you can save time is a big first step to actually saving some.
Take regular breaks
You might think that taking breaks is counterintuitive to being more productive, but taking scheduled breaks can help improve focus and concentration. This is especially true if you’re working on large, time-consuming problems.
Set achievable deadlines
The old mantra, “I work better on a deadline,” is probably true. For this reason, it is recommended that you set deadlines that are outside of your organization’s deadlines. A manageable amount of stress is usually helpful in keeping you ahead of your workload.
Limit your exposure to meetings
If there’s a time waster out there, it’s the meeting. A normal meeting will resolve the issue in the first ten minutes or not at all. In fact, according to one study, the average office worker spends about 31 hours a month in meetings. It’s too long.
Stop multitasking
The more the concept is studied, the more psychologists believe that multitasking is detrimental to overall productivity when compared to focusing specifically on one task at a time.
Perfection is not attainable
One of the biggest barriers to productivity is the idea that a task can be done perfectly. Sure, you can be comprehensive, but when your business lags because you can’t stand alone well enough, you only have yourself to blame.
Be proactive
If you really want to be productive, go into any day knowing what needs to be done. Business is full of natural distractions. you’ll want to schedule time for all of them. By being proactive, you can eliminate many less natural distractions.
Turn off notifications
How is anyone supposed to work when new notifications pop up every few minutes? Business is full of situations where limiting notifications can help you avoid distractions. Turn them off and see how much better you can complete tasks without all the noise from the internet intruding.
Try to reduce interruptions
Most of the time, staying productive comes down to focus. There are a million and six different types of potential interruptions, but if you can mitigate them, you can be your most productive self.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can improve your productivity, call us today at 800-706-7666.