What is one tip to staying productive at work?
To help you boost your productivity at work, we asked business professionals and leaders this question for their insights. From taking regular breaks to giving your day structure, there are several ways to stay productive with your daily tasks.
Here are 12 ways to improve your productivity:
- Head to a Coworking Space
- Establish Boundaries When Working From Home
- Create Templates to Save Time
- Clean and Organize Your Desk
- Take Advantage of Your Power Hour
- Break Up the Day With Timers
- Divide Large Tasks Into Smaller Parts
- Give Your Day Structure
- Turn Off Slack Notifications
- Use Anti-Distraction Tools
- Take Regular Breaks
- Mute Your Social Media
Head to a Coworking Space
Coworking spaces are a great way to maintain productivity in both your daily work tasks and overall success. Whether you are part of a small or large company, they provide a flexible environment for you to foster organizational growth in a way that works best for your business. Not to mention, it is a more budget-friendly option as well.
At a coworking space, you will interact with individuals outside of your specific line of work, which enhances networking and the ability to boost collaboration efforts. These spaces promote a sense of community, giving your work a higher meaning and taking the monotony out of otherwise repetitive tasks.
Kyle McIntosh, MAC6
Establish Boundaries When Working From Home
If you are working from home, it might mean you have to share space with others, like your family or roommate(s). It’s important to communicate with them to establish boundaries about your work hours and space.
Try to set up times when you know you’ll have meetings or calls so that everyone can keep noise to a minimum, so you’re not distracted or disturbed. Having clear rules and expectations will help everyone be more productive and avoid arguments.
Benjamin Smith, Disco
Create Templates to Save Time
To improve your productivity, spend a little downtime creating templates for all those repetitive messages and forms. Writing emails, creating documents, and formatting spreadsheets throughout your day can really eat up your time, causing you to get behind in your tasks.
Templates may seem like a bit of a cheat, but they’ll save you time writing and formatting the same communications over and over throughout your workday. Then, when it comes time to write those 50 emails in the morning, you’ll have more time to personalize them and make them more relevant to the topic, project, or client.
Shaunak Amin, SnackMagic
Clean and Organize Your Desk
If you find your desk, whether at the office or while working from home, is getting cluttered, take time to completely clear everything off of it. Take all of your papers, supplies, keyboard, and mouse off your desk and wipe it down thoroughly. Then as you begin to put things back on, you can organize everything and figure out what you really need in order to be productive.
This can help you eliminate clutter and unneeded distractions from your workspace. Plus, it will help get rid of dust, dirt, and germs! Don’t forget to wipe down your keyboard and mouse!
Eymel Daniel, ForChics
Take Advantage of Your Power Hour
Everyone has a different time of day where they are most productive. For some people, the quiet morning hours are the best time to focus. Others get the most work done around 5 p.m. when the office is starting to empty out. My personal power hour is late in the evening — I can get more done between 9:30-11:00 p.m. than almost any other time of the day.
Instead of just working the same way throughout the day, take advantage of your personal power hour. Protect it by blocking off your calendar. Prioritize your toughest projects for that time of day. Use that time to dream big. Leveraging your power hour is key to staying productive!
Logan Mallory, Motivosity
Break Up the Day With Timers
Setting yourself a timer for each task or project is a great way to stay productive at work. It helps you not get sucked into one particular project when you have a list of things to get done. Set one to two hours depending on the project timeline, then move on to the next project on your list. This strategy keeps you productive and makes good use of your time.
Michael Jankie, Natural Patch
Divide Large Tasks Into Smaller Parts
Large tasks can feel overwhelming. When people get overwhelmed, they tend to struggle at work. Breaking down large projects into smaller parts can alleviate some of the anxiety that comes with it. For example, if you need to write a lengthy report, break it down into smaller sections and work on those sections one at a time.
James Sun, Beauty Tap
Give Your Day Structure
Providing a clear structure to your day can help you stay on track and accomplish your tasks. Structuring your day in time blocks can give you a clear path to follow as your day progresses. Block off your calendar for each task you need to work on, and remember to leave time to take breaks so you can eat, drink water, use the bathroom, and walk around.
Rachel Roff, Urban Skin Rx
Turn Off Slack Notifications
One tip for staying productive at work is to manage your chat notifications effectively. Turning off temporarily or snoozing your notifications can help you focus on work that needs to get done without getting distracted by other concerns or coworkers. This is a great way to stay on track and get more done during your day.
John Wu, Gryphon Connect
Use Anti-Distraction Tools
Install anti-distraction tools to avoid getting sidetracked and get your productivity momentum back. Apps such as SelfControl and Think will block access to irrelevant websites for a given period of time to help you focus on completing the task at hand.
Jason White, All About Gardening
Take Regular Breaks
It is important that you take regular breaks and give your mind time to recharge. Every hour or so, take a few minutes to stand up, maybe even refill your water! Take more extended periods between distractions by talking to others on occasion. This will help keep things interesting, too, which makes it easier not to feel like all tasks require single-minded focus.
Amit Raj, The Links Guy
Mute Your Social Media
Set aside social media while you are doing your tasks as many use social media even during office hours. This habit decreases productivity for those who utilize it for reasons unrelated to work. Mute all your personal social media accounts when you are at the workplace to avoid distractions.
Johannes Larsson, Entrepreneur
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