Increasing productivity levels, or becoming more productive in any area, is one of today’s biggest challenges. For most of us, the day flies by, and not getting through our planned tasks can be frustrating.
For this reason, interest in this topic has grown enormously in recent times. As I mentioned, it’s a real challenge, because it’s far from easy. In fact, if you asked a random group of people, many probably wouldn’t know how to organize their time to be more efficient and productive.
Working toward this goal can be very advantageous, but certain precautions need to be taken too. In other words, you need to be aware of how many hours there are in a day, as well as the health consequences of overexertion.
With that said, in this article I want to give you some tips on how to be more productive. And to help with that, we’ll also look at some really useful tools.
How to Be More Productive, and Why
One of the first questions that comes up around this topic is why we make the effort to be more productive at work. Productivity is essentially the relationship between the number of tasks we’re able to complete and the time it takes (and, as you know, time is money).
Besides that, being productive means feeling better, more satisfied with ourselves, gaining focus, making better use of our time, being more creative, improving our habits, and even taking on new challenges.
Even though we tend to look at “productivity” from an individual point of view, it also helps us become more productive within our job, company, or organization.
To gain hours at work, we first need to focus on ourselves and look at how we can improve in this area. If you manage to increase your own performance levels as an individual, you can bring huge benefits to a business as a whole!
The Importance of Being More Productive for Companies
As I mentioned, if you manage to be more productive on an individual level, you’ll pass those benefits directly on to your business or company. And this brings certain advantages for the results of any type of organization:
● Greater responsiveness. When the people who work at a company are more productive, its capacity to serve a larger number of customers increases. As a result, it’s possible to grow the client base.
● Time and money savings. Anyone who becomes more productive gains time, which means significant time savings for companies that can then be invested in other tasks. Likewise, productivity also means savings in human resources, which translates into financial resources.
● Increased profits. As a result of the above, the company will be able to generate a bigger profit margin. This has an impact across many areas of the business (for example, it can be invested in innovation, improving processes, training employees, getting more resources, and so on).
● A better work environment. We can’t leave out the more human side of things. In other words, the mood and motivation of the people who make up business organizations. Productivity is also reflected in the happiness of each of the professionals who make up a business.
● Overall growth. In the end, what a company experiences alongside the increase in productivity is precisely overall growth.
High productivity in companies can drive their growth. Not just because of completing a larger number of tasks, but because of the time freed up that can be invested in development and innovation.
If you’re an entrepreneur and own your own business, productivity can have just as much of an impact as it does in a larger company. In that case, however, your individual progress will have a much bigger impact.
How to Be More Efficient and Productive at Work
If you want to know how to be more efficient and productive, you’ll be interested in the following tips. To start with, the secret lies in swapping your routines and habits for others that support or encourage your productivity.
For example, if you’re used to keeping your phone close by at all times, it’s very easy to get pulled into distractions. But if you put it aside while you work, or only check it during your breaks, you’ll be able to get through a greater volume of tasks and reach better levels of productivity.
In the following lines, I’ll share a few other recommendations that could also help you achieve this:
● Get up early:
Early in the morning, we enjoy higher levels of concentration than the rest of the day. These are hours when we have more energy, since there are hardly any interruptions.
Making the most of this time to tackle some of your pending tasks can be a great idea. That said, only as long as you’ve gotten enough sleep. So, you know what to do: try going to bed earlier so you can get up early and be more productive.
● Work with lists and/or organizational tools:
Regardless of whether it’s better to work with lists, calendars, or more sophisticated organizational tools, what I mean by this point is that it’s essential to keep your pending tasks well organized.
It’s essential to have a full overview of everything ahead of you. This way, you won’t forget any of them either (or, at least, it will be much harder to).
● Take breaks between tasks:
When we talk about how to be more productive at work, you should know that it’s not all about being in front of the computer screen. Productivity also needs to include breaks.
Without a few minutes to recharge, it will be very hard to get through the day having met your daily goals. The mind needs to refresh itself so it can get back to work with a clearer head.
● Set a priority order for your tasks:
Besides having an overview of your pending tasks, it’s vital to know how to organize them by priority. These are the most important and urgent ones. Do a thorough analysis of which tasks these are and put them at the top of your list.
● Work in a tidy space:
It’s impossible to explain how to organize your time to be more productive without mentioning tidiness. Having a space that inspires calm is much better for our performance than, on the other hand, chaotic spaces.
The reason is that this kind of visual clutter causes stress, which reduces our concentration. A workspace should be comfortable and completely tidy.
● Avoid multitasking:
The only way to become more productive, and learn to manage your time better, is to understand that we’re not built for multitasking. This reduces performance either way.
The best approach is to focus on a single task and avoid doing two or more at the same time. The mind should be fully focused on what it’s doing (without distractions). Otherwise, the results you’re expecting could be delayed.
● Automate tasks:
Luckily, nowadays there are technological solutions that make everyday life easier. And, above all, they save us an unimaginable amount of time.
Getting to know these tools and starting to automate tasks will free up much of the time you spend doing them manually.
Mailrelay is a good example of this, since it’s an email marketing tool that lets you automate sending mailings, newsletters, and other campaigns.
Productivity is closely tied to a person’s habits and behaviors. So, to increase it, you need to get to the root of the problem and change anything that’s holding you back from progressing.
How to Manage Your Time Better and Be More Productive
From a more practical point of view, I’d like to point out that there are tools that greatly support our organization and productivity.
Getting to know them will help you make improvements in your daily life, making it easier to prioritize as we discussed earlier.
Before describing them, it’s worth mentioning that there are tools of different types and natures. So, the ideal approach is to try out the ones that appeal to you most and choose the ones that make your everyday life easier.
Google Calendar
It’s a free tool that’s extremely popular all over the world. It lets us schedule any kind of event or task, and it also gives us a complete overview of what our day will look like.
If you use it as a planner, it will help you become really aware of the time you have available, or whether you can take on more work.
It’s also worth adding that, if you work in a team, you can share calendars to take everyone’s availability into account before even scheduling a meeting or a deadline.
On top of that, it lets you easily send invitations to share events, and the app is available both as a desktop version and for mobile devices. You can take it with you wherever you go!
I personally like to make the most of it, both personally and professionally. In fact, you can create as many calendars as you need. At first, having one personal and one professional calendar is enough, but as you get more familiar with the tool you can adapt it to your needs.
To wrap up with Google Calendar, I’ll just add that you can turn on notifications to get reminders about your commitments, and you can also attach documents. So, if you schedule a meeting, you can send the relevant documentation to everyone involved without having to send an extra email.
Toggl
If you really want to know how to be more productive and manage your time better, tools like this will help you discover the actual time you spend on each task. Something that will help you map out a strategy for improvement.
You can track your time overall or by project. This can help you calculate productivity for each one. And, if you want to take it further, this information will let you calculate the associated profitability.
This tool has a fairly generous free version, so if you decide to use it, you won’t need to spend any extra money.
PomodoroTomatoTimer
This tool is designed to help you apply the Pomodoro Technique during your workday. It’s one of the most widely used methods for improving time management, since it’s highly effective for staying focused on a task and avoiding multitasking. As a result, it keeps distractions away and delivers outstanding results.
In this sense, the tool works with alternating work intervals and breaks so your mind can constantly refresh itself. Its operation is very simple: every 25 minutes an alarm will go off, encouraging you to enjoy a 5 to 10 minute break.
Trello
Trello is made up of different boards that let you organize your work in a comfortable and practical way. Each board is made up of lists, and each list, of cards.
These cards correspond to the tasks that come out of a project. Within them, you can set a due date, assign people responsible, attach documents, and leave comments, among other features.
It’s very useful for organizing all the tasks that come up in projects, and also for working collaboratively across the whole team. Once again, this tool has a very complete free version you can use to get started.
New technologies support productivity. They allow us to manage our time better and, at the same time, make decisions to optimize tasks.
Conclusions on Productivity and Efficiency
As you can see, productivity is something you can put into practice and improve significantly. On one hand, it involves a change of habits that can be sustained over time, and on the other, it has a direct impact on the company.
Whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur, the business will benefit significantly if you manage to be more productive. Better performance from the people who are part of it translates into sustained growth.
For all these reasons, I encourage you to start making changes now. With tools like the ones we’ve covered here, it will be easier for you. So make the most of your days and, above all, don’t spend more time than necessary on pointless tasks!
Methodologies like Kanban or Scrum can help you organize your daily tasks better and boost your productivity.
