You have the same amount of time with everyone else per day. So, making the most of it is crucial. That doesn’t mean working more hours, it means working smarter. It’s important to understand how to manage your time, so that you can achieve optimal productivity at work. This only require some effective tips and tricks to make sure you get the most out of your day and feel a sense of accomplishment.

So, here are some tips to increase your productivity at work.

Stop multitasking

It can be tempting to want to take care of a few tasks at once, especially if they seem small or easy. But it simply doesn’t work. We’re deceiving ourselves when we say we can easily juggle between tasks. Focus on one task at a time, and you’ll actually end up completing it faster.

Plan your week ahead

If you have no clarity regarding what you need to get done in a given day, you’ll probably feel busy, but you won’t be productive. However, if you were to plan your week ahead, you’d feel more in control of your day-to-day life. Planning ahead has lots of benefits as you’ll spend less time worrying about what will happen and more time in the moment, not to mention how missed meetings and forgetting to send emails will become a thing of the past. This is because when you create an effective plan you’ll be able to stay accountable.

So, start planning your weeks in advance, and you’ll see how you’ll not only get more done in less time, you’ll also experience an easier flow to life full of useful work that adds value to your life.

Take regular breaks

Studies show taking regular breaks helps concentration and boosts your mood. Take a five-minute walk around the office. Lunch breaks also help.

Minimize all distractions

To optimize your productivity levels, you need to get rid of all the things that steal your time. For a lot of us, this may be emails, phone notifications or social media. We’ve all become so addicted to constantly being online, phones in hand and looking at something that we get lost in whatever it is we’re looking at and don’t realize we waste hours upon hours of productive time. Also, while you’re at work, it’s easy to be distracted by colleagues. All these interruptions produce a change in work pattern and a lag in productivity.

To minimize these distractions, do these.

• Set ‘office hours’ so that people know when you are and aren’t available
• Silence phone notifications while at work
• Set times to check social media and emails so that you don’t do it while working on something.
• Block websites that steal your focus and therefore reduce your productivity.

By minimizing distractions, you’ll notice how quickly your productivity will increase and there is no better feeling than that sense of accomplishment at the end of a long working day knowing you finished your tasks.

Break down your goals

Sometimes, looking at our goals can be overwhelming. Seeing a handful of big projects on our calendar can be stressful, but if you break it up into smaller tasks, you’ll feel more in control and will be much more productive.

Be proactive. Don’t be reactive

Being reactive means that you don’t use, or have initiative. You let others in the workplace tell you what to do and make the decisions, while you’re the ‘doer’ who gets things done.

In contrast, being proactive implies that you anticipate things, find new ways to work and new ideas to bring to the table on your own accord. Nobody needs to tell you what to do because you’re usually a few steps ahead.

To become more proactive, do these:

• Ask yourself what is likely to happen and make sure you have a way to deal with it before it happens.
• See the big picture and implement the necessary steps to take ahead of time.
• Be on top of your game and make sure your energy is too. Doing something you love helps with being proactive as you will genuinely want to be the best at what you do.

Take care of the biggest tasks when you’re most alert

We all sometimes push aside big goals because we’re not confident we’ll accomplish them. And by the time we get to them, we’re too burned out from our day to give it the attention it needs. That’s how projects end up going into additional days, and making it feel like productivity has disappeared. Know when you are most alert. There’s no set schedule that works for everyone… if you’re a morning person, tackle the big tasks first thing in your day.

Implement the “two-minute rule”

Finding and immediately completing tasks that take two minutes or less actually saves you time. So, if it takes less than two minutes, do it now.

In conclusion, don’t forget to get enough sleep. We’re all aware by now that not getting enough sleep has negative effects on our performance in all areas of our lives. However, in the workplace it has an even greater impact as the prefrontal cortex which helps us with tasks that require logical reasoning and complex thought is impacted by lack of sleep and will impair us when trying to complete such tasks. Therefore, it is very important that we all get enough sleep every night to ensure that our productivity stays on top form.

read also

Chigozie

My name is Chigozie Japhet. I am a content writer, and a brand strategist. I like  writing, reading, researching and watching football, especially my team, Man United. i believe in working hard, and also in relaxation as all work without play, makes Chigozie a dull boy.