Nine Ways to Improve Productivity

Good time management leads to improved productivity. Simple in concept, but for many, the execution isn’t nearly so simple. We wanted to share a few ways that you can help encourage your team to be more productive by enacting certain policies.

Before we begin, however, we need to make something clear. While productivity is a great goal to have, you need to be sure it doesn’t come at the detriment of your employees. Generally speaking, increased productivity tends to lead to decreased employee engagement. It is therefore crucial that you find a healthy balance between keeping your productivity up and keeping your team engaged and happy.

Keep Track of Time

Did you know that you’re more than likely far worse at estimating how long it takes you to do various tasks than you think you are? This is why tracking how much time you take on daily tasks can be eye-opening. You may be surprised how much of your time is taken up by fastidiously reviewing your email or scrolling through social media. Identifying where time can be saved is an essential part of saving it.

Take Breaks

That’s right—a great way to get more work done is to stop working every now and then. Taking a break has been shown to improve focus and concentration, particularly where time-consuming, bigger tasks are involved.

Establish Strategic Deadlines

Deadlines can also help keep people productive, so in addition to the deadlines that your organization sets, encourage your team to give themselves an additional one—and try setting these kinds of deadlines for yourself as well. While too much stress certainly isn’t healthy, a manageable amount can help keep you on schedule.

Limit Your Meetings

Meetings are notorious for wasting time, with the issue at hand either solved in the first few minutes, or not actually being accomplished. One study found that the average worker spends 31 hours—almost four full working days—in meetings. Which, to use the scientific term, is a lot. Condensing your meetings (especially those that “could have been an email”) will help save a lot of time that everyone could put to better use.

Put the Kibosh on Multitasking

Multitasking has been completely debunked, with the scientific consensus being that your brain is actually just switching rapidly between tasks. Therefore, it stands to reason that it would become a detriment to your productivity, especially when compared to the impacts of focused efforts on a single task. Don’t do it.

Accept that Perfection is Unattainable

Perfect is the enemy of good, or in other words, only accepting perfection will prevent you from actually accomplishing things—even if you’ve produced something good enough. While striving for perfection is admirable, when your business begins to suffer you need to be able to take what you’ve got.

Act Proactively

In other words, be prepared. Productivity becomes far easier when you have the foresight as to what is coming. This is because looking ahead at your day gives you the opportunity to identify potential obstacles and distractions and plan for them effectively.

Disable Notifications

Ding… ding… ding. Incessant notifications will distract even the most diligent of employees, so take a few moments to deactivate any that aren’t essential to your work tasks. Cutting out these distractions will likely assist you in completing your tasks more efficiently.

Minimize Interruptions in General

On a related note, maintaining focus is really the key to maintaining productivity. With a billion and one potential interruptions potentially plaguing your team, cutting down on these numbers in any way you can will help your whole organization be more productive.

Washington Works can help you improve your productivity further by implementing the IT solutions that facilitate collaboration and efficiency. Find out more by calling 301-571-5040.