When you’re as productive as you can be at work you, have a higher morale, feel more accomplished, and enjoy your well-deserved free time much better. Decreased and poor productivity on the other hand could lead you to feel stressed, anxious, and guilty. That being said, one may not be able to switch to a higher state of productivity instantly. As rewarding as it is, it requires effort and discipline. Listed below are some tips that may help you out with the process.
1. Make Sure You Get Quality Sleep (Not While At Work!)
Feeling sleepy and tired can drastically affect your productivity at work and coffee isn’t always the best solution. According to the American Psychological Association, “Sleep is so crucial that even slight sleep deprivation or poor sleep can affect memory, judgment and mood.” An average adult requires about 8 hours of sleep every day. When we begin to cut out time from this or change our patterns of sleep, it begins to interfere with our daily living and causes numerous health problems. Setting a fixed sleeping schedule, physical activity before bed, not using electronic gadgets before sleeping are some of the things you can do to improve quality of sleep.
2. Ensure You Have A Calm And Peaceful Morning
If your usual morning routine involves waking up late, scrambling all over the place to pack your bag and pick out your clothes, eating an excuse of a breakfast, and running out the door worried about how late you are, your productivity at work is also bound to get affected. A stressful and chaotic morning can negatively influence the quality of your work and increase stress levels. Having a peaceful morning routine on the other hand leaves you feeling calm and energized throughout the day. In order to achieve this, you would have to habituate your morning routine.
3. Prepare A Daily Checklist
Checklists are awesome. It’s normal to forget things or be overburdened by all that we have to retain in our memory. This is why having checklists for both work and personal life can prove to be tremendously advantageous. Checklists not only help us visualize the tasks we have to complete but they also make you feel great when we get things done. Apart from this, we can also use a checklist to break down a complex task into simpler and smaller parts so that we don’t get overwhelmed by it.
4. Eliminate The Distractions Around You
If you find yourself checking your Instagram feed every few minutes, you are probably distracted from performing the task at hand. Although eliminating every single work distraction may not be possible, trying your best to do so can help you focus better and increase your overall productivity. Decluttering and organizing your work station also helps make your environment conducive to productive working.
5. Minimize Multitasking
Don’t try to execute everything at once. Some studies have found that performing a large number of tasks at the same time may negatively impact the quality of your work. It also leaves the person feeling less focused and more easily distracted. Prioritize and execute your tasks based on their importance and their deadline.
6. Challenge Yourself With Self-Imposed Deadlines
Challenging yourself to complete tasks within a time-frame that you have set for yourself helps get things done faster and can even be fun at the same time. You can also reward yourself with some Facebook or Instagram time after completing a difficult task.
7. Never Take On More Than You Can Handle
In order to maintain consistent and optimum productivity at the workplace, it is essential that you never take on more than you can handle. Spend some time in quiet reflection so that you may better understand yourself and your limitations. Once you know where you should draw your boundaries, learn to say no when you have to. Pushing yourself far beyond your capacity is going to be detrimental to your health and well-being.
