7 Tips to Increase Productivity at Work

Get out of bed and start your day early. One of the best books and practices I have ever learnt and do everyday is the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. If you are serious about being more productive then this book is fantastic and has a great process! It may be hard at first, but once you get into the habit, you will soon realize that you are completing tasks even before mid-day. The great thing about this is that you can dedicate your afternoons to other creative engagements and find time for your personal life. It’s also a good practice to sleep early at night to get a good night’s sleep and this will help you overcome the feeling of being tired in the mornings. One thing that could also help you is to know if you are a morning or a night person. This way, you can do the complicated tasks during your best time of day and do the secondary priority during the rest of the day.

List your to-do’s and prioritize them for the day. Learn how to sort your tasks and know the difference between important versus urgent. Time management and task management are two different animals. You must manage your time because you only have a limited time of the day to complete your infinite tasks. Although, it is still important to know how to effectively distribute your time to each of your tasks. When you feel tired, take a break, walk a bit, sip a cup of coffee, or get some fresh air while sipping your coffee so when you get back to your desk, you are feeling fresh and can refocus. Set Schedules to keep your mind feeling fresh so you can do 90 minutes of work and a 10 minute break make sure you get up and have a walk and stretch so you can avoid having those back pains from sitting all day. If you stare at a computer the whole day, remember to do the 20-20-20 exercise to lessen the strain on your eyes and allow them to relax for a bit. You do the 20-20-20 exercise by looking at something 20 feet away from you for 20 seconds after every 20 minutes if you work on a computer for long periods during the day.

Errands and personal chores can be time-consuming as well. Outsource these tasks. Do a cost-benefit analysis to see whether it is practical to hire an assistant who can do these mundane things for you. Productive leaders are particularly selective on how they use their energy. Don’t waste your energy and time to do things that others are capable of doing so you can focus on your business. Delegation starts from trust. It is important that you give your full trust to your assistant when you delegate a task because if you are not, you’ll end up checking your assistant’s work and will consume your time more than before. Be careful with proper delegation because if you aren’t, it will cause you more harm than good.

One thing many successful leaders have in common is the ability to pay attention to the things that matter most. You can obtain significant amounts of power from focusing on your top business priorities. Set chunks of time (90 minute) each task for a focus. Before you can focus on that one big thing, it is important that you have to pre-set your priorities for the day. Plan and do your best to strictly follow it. Get everything you need before starting and then start and finish the task with no distractions Do not forget about the small tasks while tackling the more important ones, since they pile up and fast.

Block out anything that can cause you to be distracted. There are many tools you can use such as a time tracking software to help you track how much time you are spending for work. If it’s not productive, don’t log in to social media when working to avoid being disrupted and losing focus. Some entrepreneurs can’t resist attending to multiple things at a time. They tend to want to do more because they know they can do it. But it is advisable to just focus on one job at a time, anyways, one job done at a time is better than starting several jobs and ending up with nothing at all. Though there are times that you might be compelled to do a number of things at the same time because of how fresh the idea still is or how inspired you are at the moment, try to finish them without as fast as you can, though it may leave room for errors, you just need to review it once the adrenaline dies down.

When you set a tight time limit during meetings, you and your staff will be forced to be brief and on-point regarding your agenda. You will be able to tackle several items quickly and move on to the next task. Meetings can be total time wasters when implemented incorrectly and can affect the rest of your day. Aside from setting your time limit, it’s also recommended that you set the agenda prior to your meetings and do your very best to stick to it. Anything small dot them down straight after the meeting and get them done and then set priority!

Ask your staff to come to you at a specific time of the day and deal with questions, inquiries, requests, and other non-urgent matters in just one go. If you allow anyone to come into your office at any time of the day, you will end up getting interrupted. This delays you from completing your tasks. Dedicate a time of day or day of week for forums, Q&A, or consultation. This way, you can set your mind to focus on that particular hour and be equally effective in all your other tasks for the day. Increasing your productivity also means business growth. The more things you accomplish in a day, the greater is your chance of growing your business.

Also, set 2 times a day for emails and phone calls and a chunk of time for small tasks, what doesn’t get done, make it happen the next day