How to Improve Productivity

It's very easy to improve your productivity, sometimes its as simple as gaining a bit of perspective. By taking the advice listed in this article, you can take some steps to manage the tasks being juggled around, and improve your productivity getting more work done.

1).Create a to-do list:

Writing a to-do list helps you visualise all of your tasks, and give you scope of how much work there is to do. 

Organising your chores into a list can help you prioritise, and see which tasks need immediate attention, so nothing slips through the cracks. 

There are loads of apps available for smart devices, which can help sync to a calendar and contact list. 

2). Destroy distractions:

Is the TV on? Friends sat nearby talking about a film? Remove everything that can distract you, and create (or go to) an environment which promotes work. 

For many, it is impossible to use a computer without wandering onto another site they shouldn’t, like Facebook, or Twitter or YouTube. Social media sites are big culprits for unnecssarily consuming time. 

There are apps (like citrus for Google Chrome), which can block a website, for the user’s desired length of time. This can be useful for it allows you to manage when to take breaks. 

3). Take breaks:

Get up and walk around, it does no good for you, or your work if you don’t take a break every now and then. Take the break away from work to reduce stress, and gain some clarity. 

Using these breaks to think about the tasks at hand, and put everything into perspective, can lead to new ideas and inspiration to better your work. 

4). Indulge in some caffeine: 

Caffeine can provide energy to help you surge through your tasks, or perk you up on the way to work. You can get caffeine from cups of tea and coffee, but there are also tablets and pills available which administer natural sources of caffeine too. 

Nootropics are supplements taken to enhance cognitive function, memory, creativity and motivation. The effects depend on which nootropic is used, but there are some which are designed to keep users energised and in tune for work. 

WAYK is a chewable tablet, that contains minerals like Zinc, which help improve cognitive function and guaarana, a natural source of caffeine. 

5). Drink water:

Dehydration can also reduce concentration, as well as cause pain and discomfort. Test if you are dehydrated, by examining the colour of your urine. If it is pungent, and looks dark yellow, then it is a sign that you are dehydrated.

Having a bottle of water to hand at all times obviously helps fight this, but it also gives you an indication of exactly how much water you are drinking throughout the day. It is recommended to drink 2 litres of water a day.

6). Set reminders:

2pm can come by quicker than you thought. If you’re swamped with tasks with equal importance, remember to make sure they receive equal attention; it can be all too easy to let one task suffer in quality due to being forgotten about. 

Most (if not all) smart phones, tablets & computers have reminder apps either preinstalled, or available for download off app stores. 

Using these can help improve your time management, but should you not have access to digital reminders, writing a cue on a post it note, and sticking it somewhere in plain view will make it hard to ignore. 

7). Keep a notebook:

Keep your thoughts, permanently. This way you can’t lose any USPs to an idea, and can track it’s progression. 

8). Ask for help:

There’s no shame in asking for help if you’re juggling more than you’d like to. Remove some of the pressure, by asking your colleagues to manage some of the smaller tasks on your list, so that you can focus on the tasks require your absolute attention. 

This requires good relationships with your coworkers, and you need to be able to reciprocate when they ask for your help. The more you scratch someone’s back, the more likely they’ll keep returning to scratch yours. 

Ask a second set of eyes to go over your work before it receives critical examination. Simple grammatical mistakes can hinder the efforts of a lot of hard workers, and it can be easy to overlook your own mistakes.

9). Remind yourself why you’re doing this:

Keep a visual of your goals in your head, and think about what you want to achieve. Without a goal, there wouldn’t even be a race to run in. 

While you remember your goals, reward yourself for achieving milestones on the way.

10). Don’t feel guilty for relaxing:

You can’t work for every hour of the day. Dedicate some time of the day to you, to remind yourself that the task at hand does not own you.