Productivity improvement

Have you ever thought about how much time you spend on work? How quickly do you complete assigned tasks? Do you always meet deadlines? If you find yourself constantly busy throughout the day but still unable to accomplish much, it’s worth considering ways to increase productivity.

To achieve success in business, it’s not enough to manage your personal and work time effectively. You need to be able to focus on tasks, manage your potential and energy. Productivity is not an accidental achievement. It is the result of constant self-improvement, development, and purposeful allocation of efforts.

This term originated in economics from agriculture, where it meant fertility or the ability to select the best specimens of animals or plants for subsequent breeding. Later, the concept of productivity began to be used to describe creative professions. In this case, it denoted the ability to create material goods or perform certain actions within a limited time.

How will increased productivity make life more successful and efficient? Let’s try to understand these questions through practical examples.

Tips for increasing productivity

According to Chris Bailey, the author of the bestseller “The Productivity Project” and an expert in time management, productivity consists of three main components: energy, attention, and time. If you have a lot of energy but spend it on secondary tasks, dispersing your attention on minor details, you won’t be able to accomplish the most important things. Without the ability to concentrate and focus on essential tasks, you won’t be able to realize your potential and energy in your work. And without effective energy allocation, you’ll simply run out of the energy needed to complete all your planned tasks.

15 Ways to Increase Productivity

We have gathered effective methods to increase productivity that will help you wisely manage your time, capabilities, and energy. We invite you to explore them in more detail in the following compilation

1. Set goals correctly

To achieve a goal, it needs to be formulated correctly. Every minute spent on planning can save up to 10 minutes of your time. Learning to plan properly will make you more focused, help you concentrate better, and enable you to reach your desired results faster.

When setting goals, remember that they should be realistic and achievable, with specific deadlines.

2. Focus on the Main Things

To organize your work time, use the GTD system. It involves recording all tasks and constantly updating them. This way, all your tasks will always be in front of you, and you can control their execution.

To focus on the main things, it’s convenient to use the MIT (Most Important Task) strategy. It works as follows:

• When creating your daily to-do list, write down the most important goal at the top.
• Next, in the list, assign numbers from 1 to 5 and add current tasks that will contribute to achieving the main goal.
• Complete the tasks in order of their importance.

To properly prioritize your daily tasks, you can use the Eisenhower Matrix. According to this method, all tasks are divided into four groups:

1. Important and urgent tasks.
2. Important but not urgent tasks.
3. Not important but urgent tasks.
4. Not important and not urgent tasks.

IMPORTANT	1. Do: We do it without delay, execute it immediately.	2. Plan: We find a suitable time for execution.
NOT IMPORTANT	3. Delegate: We delegate the task to employees.	4. Decline: We refuse to execute it, not wasting time on meaningless tasks.
	URGENT	NOT URGENT

Filling out the matrix will allow you to visually see what to do first and what to completely avoid.

3. Use the “Rule of Three”

You don’t need to fill your day with complex and serious tasks. With such a hectic pace, you risk burning out quickly. During the day, identify the three most important tasks that need to be completed by its end. Alternate between challenging tasks and simpler ones. This way, you protect yourself and your brain from overload and complete your work more efficiently. You can plan your tasks for each week using the same principle.

4. Filter Out the Excess

When starting secondary tasks, ask yourself how important they are to the final result and the team’s success. Does their completion fall within your competence? Only then proceed to solve the assigned task. This procedure is effective for employees who are used to shifting their tasks and responsibilities onto others.

5. Set Deadlines for Yourself

If you have a habit of postponing assignments “for later,” which forces you to rush to complete everything by the end of the day, set deadlines for their completion in advance. For example, you need to submit several reports by Friday. To avoid missing the deadline, set the deadline for one of them on Wednesday. However, it’s essential not to overdo it with deadlines. Monitoring notifications about impending work deadlines daily can turn you into a nervy individual who feels like they can’t keep up. In other words, this “urge to work” can be a source of additional stress. To avoid overstrain and nervous exhaustion, set deadlines considering the complexity of the task at hand and your capabilities.

6. Allocate time for relaxation.

When discussing productivity enhancement methods, one cannot ignore the topic of rest. Even in the busiest schedule, it is worth allocating time for personal activities. Don’t wait for a day to become freer someday. If you want to read an interesting book, find time for this enjoyable activity. If you are passionate about painting, allocate a couple of hours to your favorite hobby every day. Changing activities, as well as taking breaks, will help you relax and gather strength to tackle serious and important tasks.

7. Do not clutter your mind with household problems.

Unresolved household problems can greatly distract from the work process, preventing you from focusing on your goals. To avoid thinking in the morning about what to wear to the office, prepare your outfits in advance. Allocate time in your schedule for household chores and cleaning. Plan a trip to the store by making a shopping list in advance, and plan the family’s menu for the week. By handling domestic tasks in advance, you will be able to concentrate better on your work.

8. Do not procrastinate the completion of unpleasant tasks “until the last minute”.

You have an important call to make to a client or need to approach your supervisor for clarification on a task, but you hesitate to do so? Don’t delay it. Psychologically challenging tasks should be done quickly, without hesitation. This will help save energy and nerves that would otherwise be spent on worrying about an unresolved problem.

The sooner you deal with unpleasant tasks, the sooner you will feel calm and return to your main work.

9. Use your own ‘biological rhythms.’

Each person operates on their own biological rhythms. By intelligently using your ‘biological clock,’ you can become more productive and successful in life. Listen to your body. When planning your work time, schedule the most important tasks during your peak hours when you are more active. If you are more energetic in the first half of the day, dedicate that time to activities that require intense mental effort.

To accurately determine your ‘active hours,’ it is necessary to keep a diary of observations for several weeks, noting your level of concentration. Or you can use a specialized productivity calculator.

10.Work with a suitable time management system.

No matter how organized and goal-oriented a person may be, they cannot work continuously without weekends and breaks. Therefore, it is necessary to plan your work time in advance so that you can take periodic breaks during the workday. There are many methods for organizing work time. You can base it on an academic hour, which lasts for 45 minutes, followed by a 15-minute break. Or you can use the popular Pomodoro technique. Using this method, you should take a 5-minute break every 25 minutes of work.

11. Don’t be afraid of mistakes in your work.

One of the main obstacles to becoming more effective in work or life is the fear of making mistakes. Often, doubting their abilities, people get stuck and do nothing at all.

Mistakes are a natural part of any work. Therefore, you should approach them as a kind of push for development. Failures should be evaluated, analyzed, and studied to make the right conclusions for the future. With the right approach, over time, you will realize that you can “turn” any mistakes to your advantage by addressing gaps in your knowledge or professional skills.

12. Choose your circle of acquaintances wisely.

If you want to become successful, surround yourself with successful people. Your development largely depends on who you associate with. Spend time with interesting, educated individuals. You will learn something new from them, and you will be motivated to strive for their level. Join professional communities, attend conferences, seminars, and other educational events. This way, you will expand your network with intelligent and successful people.

Avoid communication with pessimists who constantly complain about life’s problems and difficulties. Depressive and panic states are contagious to those around them. Do not hesitate to break off communication with “toxic” colleagues. Maintain a positive attitude and self-confidence in any circumstances.

13. Downtime can also be productive.

You can benefit from idleness and your own indecisiveness. It’s true. According to Austin Kleon, the author of the popular book “Steal Like an Artist,” everyone should have a few tasks on hand to work on when they “lack inspiration for work.” You can even prepare a list of such tasks in advance. But do not get distracted by them at the expense of your main work.

14. Don’t overdo it with messaging apps and social media.

According to research by scientists at the University of London, constant phone calls, sending text messages, and emails throughout the day can reduce a person’s IQ by 10%. The same effect is achieved with extreme fatigue if you don’t get a full night’s sleep.

Communication can be a significant distraction from work. Therefore, when tackling a serious task, it’s essential to establish specific rules for handling email. Limit visits to social media to three sessions: in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the evening. You should also restrict the duration of communication with colleagues on minor issues. In conversations, prioritize genuinely important and serious matters.

15. Use the LeaderTask electronic assistant.

“While exploring various ways to increase productivity, it’s essential to highlight the importance of process automation. Monitoring employee efficiency is convenient with the help of a specialized scheduling software.

The LeaderTask electronic application helps assess the performance of each employee, track their productivity, and competence. With the task manager, it’s easy to set goals for subordinates and keep information about clients.

You can track the progress of tasks on a visual graph. Points are assigned for completed tasks, which are displayed in the ‘Productivity’ section. If you meet deadlines, you receive an additional point for each completed assignment. If a task deadline is at risk, you can discuss a deadline extension within the built-in chat without leaving the task.

You can track productivity in the application based on various parameters:

• For all tasks being executed.
• For personal tasks assigned to you or assigned by you.

You can obtain information for specific periods:

• For the last 10 days.
• For the last 10 weeks.
• For the last 10 months.

The efficiency of each team member is displayed on a productivity scale, showing your average performance compared to other employees. The formula used for calculating productivity in the LeaderTask application is:

(Completed tasks on time / All completed tasks) * 100

The LeaderTask application includes a productivity chart, which is a diagram displaying three main indicators:

• The total number of completed tasks.
• The number of tasks completed on time.
• The total number of overdue tasks with negative marks.

The program synchronizes with all digital platforms, works in both online and offline modes, and integrates with most popular services and applications. It offers a free trial period and convenient pricing with expanded functionality.”

Conclusion

To become more productive and successful, you need to start by organizing your work and life. By eliminating chaos and disorder, you will relieve yourself of unnecessary burdens and direct your energy toward solving important and serious tasks.

By learning to plan your time effectively, you will be able to accomplish everything and work less, completing assigned tasks promptly and with quality. Automate your workflow with the help of an electronic task manager. This assistant program will remind you of important events in a timely manner and free you from the need to keep a lot of information in your head. You will be able to easily monitor your achievements and delegate tasks to subordinates while always being aware of their progress.

And most importantly, to become successful and productive, you need to engage in what you love. This will recharge you with positive energy, which will help you reach new heights in both work and life.