Whether you run your own business or you work for a large corporate company, productivity can make a big difference in what you achieve both financially and from a career perspective. Being productive isn’t a trait that you are either born with or you just don’t have, it is an art that can be developed through techniques and perseverance.
You probably don’t need a rundown of why productivity is so valuable; you already know that it means that you can get more work done in a shorter amount of time. But perhaps you haven’t quite mastered it yourself, or you often find your mind drifting away from the task at hand. You find social media distracting or you like to have a quick chat with your colleagues throughout the day. Whatever it is that is stopping you from being more productive, you want to get it resolved as soon as possible.
Here are some tried and tested methods of boosting productivity:
Exercise – Going to the gym before you go to work or even having a bit of a power walk on your lunch break can give you an energy boost. What happens when you exercise is that you increase the blood flow to your brain, making you more alert. Some people cannot function in the morning without a strong coffee but exercise can give you that same buzz but a natural one, so it is much better!
Timing tasks – If you are doing a particular task on a regular basis, time how long it takes you to do that task. Don’t let the quality get compromised if you need to make sure it is top quality work. Take the right amount of time but fully concentrate on the task. The next time you perform that same piece of work you should be aiming to hit that same amount of time, so time yourself doing it again. What this does is it makes you concentrate harder and push distractions aside because you have a time target.
Pomodoro Technique – A bit of a variation on the timing element but along the same lines, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that people have been using for nearly 40 years. It is based around segmenting your work into 25-minute slots, where you do the work for 25 minutes and then you get up and have a short break from your work. Only a minute or two, just enough to think about something else for a minute. Then you start on the next 25-minute slot of work and repeat.
Rewards – Reward management is an important part of engaging employees and engaged employees are proven to be more productive. If you work in HR then you will probably know a lot about this already and the proven results of providing rewards through pay modelling. You can find out more about that if you visit this website.
Pay isn’t the only way that you can use rewards to improve productivity. Many businesses have sales targets and prizes for those who perform well. Or you can have an employee recognition scheme where productivity is rewarded with a certificate or even just an email that shows recognition to the employee.
Sometimes a simple ‘thank you’ is enough to show someone how much you appreciate their work and that in turn often inspires them to be even more productive afterwards. Always make sure that saying thank you is genuine and personal, i.e. you have noticed how good a job they have done and why, not just a general thanks at the same time every week/day.