Are you an employee? Increased productivity can be the key
to promotion, or to more free time. Are you a business leader or an
entrepreneur? Increasing the productivity of your company can improve your
bottom line and help you to weather economic downturns. Either way, you should
be constantly seeking to increase productivity. To do so, both employees and
owners can take a look at their own work practices. In addition, business
leaders can take steps to create an environment that both motivates employees
and gives them the necessary tools to succeed, including technology that
increases worker flexibility and eliminates wasted time.
Start with yourself. If you want to increase the
productivity of your business, there is no better place to start than with your
own workday. Making yourself more productive will not only be a boost to your
company, it will also teach you techniques that you can pass on to your
employees.
Set deadlines and tell people about them.
With open-ended tasks or projects, setting a self-imposed deadline can provide
motivation to work harder. It works even better if you inform other people of
your self-imposed deadline, as this will make you more accountable for sticking
to it.
Work in 90 minute intervals.
Research shows that after 90 minutes, productivity begins to decline. To
maximize your productivity, work in four to five 90 minute sessions, with
breaks in between.
Take breaks regularly. Studies show that
taking short, regular breaks helps to maintain focus and to prevent a decline
in performance. Even briefly switching your attention to another task for a
minute or two a few times an hour can help to maintain focus over the long-term.
- Taking a break to exercise once a day – even if this only means a brisk walk or a couple of trips up and down the stairs – will boost your productivity even more.
Follow the 2-minute rule. If a task comes up
that you can complete in 2 minutes or less, do it immediately. It will take
less time than coming back to it later, and it will provide a brief break that
will make you more focused when you return to the task at hand.
Take advantage of your commute.
E-mail, to-do lists, brainstorming, and document review are great tasks to get
done whenever you find yourself with “bonus” time, whether it’s during your
commute or while in the waiting room at your doctor’s office.
Commit to multiple drafts of everything. All your
work product – not just writing – should be done in multiple “drafts” instead
of wasting time trying to make it perfect the first time around. Hammer out
something that works and have someone else look at it, or come back to it later
with a fresh mind. You’ll find you can complete projects much more quickly if
you do them in four or five “drafts” than if you try to get it just right the
first time.
Handle your email more efficiently.
The average worker spends 28% of his workday managing his email. That’s over 11
hours out of a 40 hour work week. To win back some of that time:
- Set times to check your email. Checking email seems like work, only it’s a lot easier than a lot of other work, so much so that many people check it 10 or more times an hour. That wastes time. Instead, try checking your email three times a day – when you arrive, after lunch, and before you leave. At most, check it once an hour.
- Don’t use folders. It may seem organized, but it turns out that filing your emails into folders is actually a much less efficient way to find them when you need them than simply leaving them in your inbox and remembering when you received them.
- Unsubscribe from mail lists. On average, 50% of the email workers receive is junk. It takes only a few seconds to delete that email, but over the course of the year, those seconds can add up to hours.
