Productivity is an average measure of the efficiency of production. It can be expressed as the ratio of output to inputs used in the production process, that is output per unit. When all outputs and inputs are included in the productivity measure, it is called total productivity.
One should know the difference between being busy and being productive. For every task that you are doing at work, it’s a good idea to start to practice a habit of asking yourself ‘Is this activity moving me forward in relevance to your career goals or is it moving me backward?’. Surveys have proved that 80-90% of the people spend less than 50% of their working time on their top goals.
“When you have wasted a moment, you have killed it in a sense, squandering an irreplaceable opportunity. But when you use the moment properly, filling it with purpose and productivity, it lives on forever” – Menachem Mendel Scheerson.
Productivity creates value in an employee’s world and value creates value which means whether you are working for somebody else or whether you are in a business for yourself. You create value by creating more value on the front end. It’s a beautiful cycle of giving value and receiving value, whether you are working for someone else and getting a paycheck or your clients are paying you directly.
So here are top 10 skills to boost productivity in an office environment-
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Scheduling
Scheduling is a massive tool to use on a regular basis. Scheduling is something that is going to increase your productivity because your brain loves to work in bite-sized chunks.
If you know that today you need to contact a client, or if you know that today you have a certain task or goal to accomplish, if you know today you have a deadline. Put it on your schedule, make sure that your schedule that time out deliberately for whatever task or responsibilities that you are a part of.
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Prioritize
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You need to learn to prioritize because keeping a priority list of tasks actually helps in a big way. If you are someone who ends up doing a lot of things at the same time or tries to complete their tasks, it’s always a race against time. What you need to do is to make a to do list and priorities your tasks according to their urgency or according to their importance.
The crucial thing to do is to stick to this to-do list. Do not digress and start at the top and finish at the bottom. When you keep finishing your tasks, keep ticking them off your list because this will give you a lot of confidence and positivity and it will encourage you to work faster.
In an office environment, it’s always possible that you have your To-do list, but there are a lot of people who have their to-do list and they might expect you to work on their tasks first. Make sure that as far as possible, you stick to your to-do list because ultimately when you finish your tasks, that’s when you are gonna be coming out as highly productive.
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Goal Setting.
Are you working on the right things? A lot of the time people don’t. They are just working on things that are keeping them busy or because someone just dumped it on them. But not necessarily a priority, so you really need to understand what it is that you are supposed to do.
Focus on your goals and make sure that you link those two together so that what you are working on is of high priority. So that every step you take is moving you forward towards a goal.
For an average, you should have no more than six things on your to-do list. You must be wondering who can pare down all of the things they need to do an entire day to just six things? But trust me it does work wonders.
If you start your day with only six things on it, imagine the psychological shift that happens, that I only have to do six things today before my time is totally opened up for intuition. When you have only 6 things in your to-do list then you can think that you can complete them in however long or short time you need. This will leave no room for procrastination and roll over to the next day.
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Set Reminders.
If you are someone who has got their phone in their back pocket that says ‘Oh I need to be reminded to do this’. You need to set reminders for deadlines, for phone calls and for anything that you need to have done on any specific day or by any specific deadline.
It’s like giving a gift to your past self for your future self. If you go into your phone and see that at 2 PM on Thursday, you have to remind yourself to call your colleague because you need to follow up with her. When 2 o’clock rolls around, guess what’s going to happen?
You will get an alarm on your phone and you are gonna say thank you for your past self for reminding you to do this.
Give yourself reminders on your phone especially for important events, for deadlines with work. Use the time and device on your phone, the technology that you have in your back pocket is absolutely astounding.
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Excitement Boost.
Put something on your calendar at your work desk that you can get excited about. Now that usually means something that’s outside of what you normally would call a job. Maybe it’s about going for Kayaking next Thursday or your next trip to Costa Rica which is exciting for you.
You should always have something in your life that you are looking forward to because oftentimes will provide the exact motivation that you need in that moment. Let’s face it, we all have down times, we all have sometimes days and sometimes moments where we are feeling off, when we are not in our jam. We need that little extra boost of motivation.
If you always have something in your world that you can be excited about, that you can be thrilled about, that will instantly get your heart racing. Put it on your time frame, put it on your calendar at your desk. Keep it in the back of your mind constantly running so that you can check back in with it as often as you want.
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Eliminate Distraction.
We all have an amazing amount of pressure at work. We are constantly chatting and through those chats, discussions, meetings and all that other stuff. We have a lot to do but then we have distractions going on all around us.
Turn off all notifications for your text and your email because those little bings and dings and particularly the ones that pop up in the corner of your screen will suck up your time.
Another one that you can do, is really helpful is only check your email twice. I know it’s like I’m telling you to do something that you probably want to be constantly doing which is checking email. But have you ever sent an email in less than really a minute? You probably had to think about it, write it out and it takes up and takes up more time than you realise.
The most important thing you could do with eliminating distractions is to give yourself a block of time. You will be amazed what you can get done.
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Plan Tomorrow Today.
Do you know what really slows you down? When you wake up in the morning and you have no idea what is on your to-do list or even what your meetings are and you walk in and then sit down and you try to figure it all out.
An hour can go by just like that because you are trying to see what to look forward to. What I recommend highly is you do it at the end of your day. You only need a good 15 minutes for that. You are already in the groove of work, check out what your meetings are, plan accordingly and do your to-do list .
At the end of the day, just tidy up your desk. It’s really amazing when you walk in with your cup of coffee, drink a little bit and you are sitting down at a clean desk and you can start your day.
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Time to Delegate.
There will be a point in your career when the workload just gets to be too much and enter delegation. This is where you take a look at delegation and it can really improve productivity not only for yourself but for your organisation.
So how do you look at delegation? Well, you got to take a look at everything that’s on your task list and what you were asked to accomplish and then you got to see, are some things easy to do? Not easy to do? Are there around that can do it for you internally or do you have to outsource it.
But you really need to think about it, you can’t get everything done. If you think you can get everything done and your workload is huge then you are not going to get it at good quality and really having poor quality does not help productivity. So take a look at delegation.
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Shield from Negativity.
It is highly important in order to boost productivity in an office environment that you shield yourself from negativity. Workplaces have many people, different people have different natures, different perspectives, which is why sometimes workplaces can be breeding grounds for negativity, gossip and some sort of interpersonal differences.
If you have a workplace that suffers from all these things then what you have to do is, you have to shield yourself from this negativity and focus on your work. But how do you shield yourself from this negativity?
Do not indulge in gossip sessions, do not indulge in small talk during work hours. Probably only when you are taking a break. Also, don’t take what you hear or what people speak about to heart. Focus on your work 100 percent and make your work your highest priority.
In fact people say that when you are working, it should be like a sort of meditation, that’s how focused you need to be. Don’t let anybody’s words or opinion affect you and trust me, if you master this, you will be the king of productivity.
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Approve of Yourself.
When you are working in an organisation, it is very normal that you always look for approval or acknowledgement from the people around you, your colleagues, your bosses. But if you want to be highly productive, approve of yourself.
Each time you do something fantastic at work, do not keep looking for approval outside of yourself from other people or from your seniors because if you don’t get the approval you are looking for, you will end up feeling very discouraged and unmotivated.
So, if you want to keep your motivation levels high then always compete with yourself and always keep appreciating and approving of yourself and your work. That way you will be focused on your work and you will be highly productive at your workplace.
