Workplace productivity is highly desirable. Yet, for most of us it’s elusive.
The ongoing goal of most business men and women is to achieve a high degree of productivity, but many find the road to productivity frustratingly tractionless.
Fortunately, there are many changes you can make to your lifestyle and business strategy to help you be more productive. Many of these changes require significant alterations to your schedule or lifestyle. But don’t let that frighten you! Because many changes come with very simple steps that are easy to carry out.
Want to reach your goal of increased productivity? Keep reading...
How to Increase Productivity and Grow Your Business with 10 Simple Hacks
1. Silence Your Phone
Turning off your alerts is the single best thing you can do to increase your productivity. Distractions come in many shapes and sizes, but most come through your smartphone. Shutting off that noise and focusing solely on the job at hand is the first step in increasing productivity.
2. Take a Break
Putting one’s nose to the grindstone for too long invariably leads to getting burned out. Work for 90 minutes, then take short breaks.
"If we work at high intensity for more than 90 minutes, we begin to draw on these emergency reserves to keep us going. Effectively, that means we move from parasympathetic to sympathetic arousal — a physiological state more commonly known as “fight or flight.”
Tony Schwartz for Huffington Post
3. Do Your Worst!
That pile of work sitting on your desk is even more daunting when you have one particular task you are really dreading. Begin by doing your least favorite task first. Get it out of the way early so it’s not looming over your workday. You'll also have the added benefit of not being drained by the time you get to it. Once it’s done, your other work will seem a breeze in comparison.
4. Follow the “Two Minute Rule”
If a task takes less than 2 minutes to complete, do it immediately. Don’t let these easy tasks clog up your desk and weigh you down. Besides, knocking out a task quickly gives you a great boost to push you through the rest of your duties!
5. Deter Yourself from taking rabbit trails
Make the urge to slack off easier to ignore. Hide the remote somewhere you’ll have to work to get it: upstairs, under the dirty clothes, behind the couch. If you don’t need the internet for the work you’re doing, you can even unplug the wifi or turn off your phone if the urge to wile away an hour or two on social media or Netflix is too strong.
6. Exercise in the Morning
Start your day off right! Rather than making you feel tired, exercising in the morning actually energizes you for your day. Plus, beginning your workday with a workout already under your belt will help you feel productive.
7. Drink Water
If you exercise in the morning, you’ll need to hydrate. Also, drinking a lot of water throughout the day gives you more energy and keeps you healthy. Besides, bathroom breaks are a great excuse to get up and walk around!
8. Quiet Your Perfectionist
Be reasonable. Do what you can do based on your skillset and the time allotted, then stop.
9. Declutter
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A cluttered and messy workspace is a stressful environment to work in.
Clean those coffee cups and pieces of scratch paper off your desk and see how it affects your mindset and motivation.
It's bound to increase your productivity.
10. Stay Positive!
Being negative is unconducive to getting work done. Keeping a good outlook spurs your productivity, and will keep you mentally healthy and happy. Even when things aren’t going as well as you’d wish, seek out those silver linings.
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CONCLUSION
Get the most out of the above productivity hacks by taking on one new behavior change at a time. Once you master one, move to the next.
Save Time with an Inbox Management System
Download our free guide for creating an inbox management system that dramatically reduces the amount of time you spend on email and prevents important messages from slipping through the cracks. In it you'll learn:
- How to choose a sorting approach
- Best practices for creating clear sorting rules
- Tips for implementing your inbox management system + productivity hacks
- [Pro Tip] How to delegate your inbox management to an assistant
