3 Easy Ideas to Boost Your Productivity at Work
3 Easy Ideas to Boost Your Productivity at Work
Co-workers often ask how I get so much done between meetings, emails and phone calls. Here are three easy ideas you can implement today to increase your productivity!
1. Pick your three MITs.
“Most important things” are areas to focus on and make progress on today. Productive people know they will be overwhelmed if they plan too much. Post the list in a prominent place, and make a habit of checking progress and refocusing. Leo Babauta, Zen Habits, sets three MITs each morning to move himself forward. I protect the last 15 minutes of the day to review my task list and remind myself of upcoming deadlines and meetings so I can prioritize tomorrow’s MITs.
2. Take care of your body.
I walk or stretch every hour. Schedule a walking meeting with a colleague while you brainstorm a solution. Stand up while making phone calls. When you sit down you’ll think more clearly about something you were just stuck on.
A great way to be prepared to attack the rest of your day is to step away from your desk for your entire lunch break. You’ll always be “too busy,” and what this really means is recharging is not a priority. Your mind needs cleared and your body needs nourishment. Lisa Evans, health and lifestyle writer, says the mid-day meal recharges our resources.
3. Batch your items.
Batching is a form of time management allowing you to decrease distraction and maximize concentration. Batch processing is grouping similar tasks requiring similar resources to streamline their completion. Working in a perpetual state of shifting tasks and refocusing attention creates fatigue, stress and decreased productivity. Michael Hyatt, Your Virtual Mentor, offers a deeper look into how to use batching to be more productive. It not only protects us from the distractions of others, but also from our self-inflicted distractions (i.e. Facebook). My most productive thinking happens in the first three hours of the day so I dedicate this timeframe for critical thinking.
Add one of these ideas to your workflow and tell me how your productivity increased.
Our team has participated in walking meetings and it has sparked innovation and wellness. Additionally, I have two team members who receive alerts to move hourly. They report they're feeling better and more focused when they return to their work.
After you cross a task off of your to-do list, write down how that task benefitted your business and its overall strategic goals. Take time to reflect on your business’ current and future goals, and how you just helped to accomplish them – and how you can continue to accomplish goals like that in the future.