Be More Productive

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Written by: Melissa Dylan 194 views

If you’ve ever spent a 10-hour day at work, but were left feeling like you didn’t get a thing accomplished, you’re not alone. Most workers haven’t reached their potential productivity level.

1. Stop checking your e-mail. Studies show that some workers check their e-mail up to three times per hour. Unless you’re waiting on something time-sensitive, stop clicking on that in-box. It just ads unnecessary distractions from the task at hand.

2. Don’t answer the phone. Being so connected with cellphones and BlackBerries is actually hampering your productivity, because you’re wasting time on unimportant details. If you’re mid-project, let the phone go to voice-mail for awhile. Then return important calls when you’re finished. You’ll be surprised—a number of them won’t even require a return call. Most calls are just relaying information that can just as easily (and more quickly) be done over voice-mail.

3. Stop putting out fires: Start preventing them. If your day feels like an endless parade of must-do emergency items, then it’s time stand back and assess, then solve the bigger problem. Are the contract mechanics never where they say they’re going to be? Fire them and find better mechanics. Do the processing machines always go kaput at the wrong time? Proper maintenance can prevent this. Even small details like keeping supplies on stock can free up huge amounts of time in the long run.

4. Eliminate meetings. In most cases, meetings take up large quantities of time and very little gets accomplished. Things that are decided on rarely see follow-through. And because they’re largely a bore, they don’t boost morale the way management intends. The time is better spent by each worker tackling their own tasks. There are lots of ways to avoid meetings and still convey information and get feedback.

5. Do one thing at a time. See each task through to completion and you’ll be surprised how many things get stricken from the To Do list by the end of the day. You’ll feel (and look) much more productive than if you’re halfway through everything on your list. Because you don’t need to re-focus and re-familiarize yourself with each project when you approach it repeatedly, you save yourself lots of time as well.

Do these things and you’ll find that not only are you getting more done throughout the day, but you’ll have a little time leftover. Not only that, but management will notice and reward someone who can get things accomplished. It just requires focus, dedication, and concentration.