Improve Your Daily Productivity with These 6 Tips
3 min read
Whether you’re in school, working from home, or pursuing independent projects, you’ll like hit a productivity block sooner or later. Facing these obstacles is natural; even while doing work that you love, you need motivation. The next time you find yourself distracted or in a slump, give one of these productivity tips a try.
1.Try This Tomato-inspired Timer
If you easily get distracted or feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work you have to complete in a single day, the Pomodoro technique can help you budget your time, stay on task, and take a healthy amount of breaks for a long day of labor.
This tool breaks your workload into manageable tasks you can achieve in 25 minutes. For every task you achieve, you reward yourself with a five-minute break. And for every four Pomodoro periods you work through, you reward yourself with a longer 15 to 30-minute break.
There are also cognitive benefits of taking strategic breaks. A little downtime can refresh your mind and increase your creativity, as taking a break allows the prefrontal cortex—that part of your brain that does the heavy thinking—to recharge.
- Get SMART
Many companies have embraced the concepts of Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals to boost staff productivity. Setting SMART goals requires you to make well-defined goals out of your key responsibilities.
To get started, identify the goals and objectives you can achieve within a well-defined timeframe. Next, develop benchmarks by which you can measure your success in achieving them.
- Rest Up
In some parts of the world, people view sleep as an indicator of laziness or wasted time. But the truth is, sleep is an essential process that should be valued and prioritized. As you sleep, your brain recharges, giving you energy and motivation for the next day. During this time, your body’s tissues and muscles heal themselves from microtears you suffered during the day.
Both the quantity and the quality of sleep you get matters to your health and productivity. Many factors can affect the amount of sleep you get, and the good news is that they are mostly in your power to change. One of the more overlooked of these is the place you lay down to sleep.
How comfortable you are in your bed, and more specifically, your mattress, can determine whether you can enjoy your recommended seven to eight hours of rest every night. If you feel that you could use a more comfortable mattress, switching to an air foam mattress may be the solution. Before buying, go online and read air foam mattress reviews, so you know you’re making the right investment based on your body type and sleep position preference.
- Meet Standing Up
As more organizations cautiously return to working in the office, many will be keen to ensure staff maximize their hours, including the time spent in meetings. Standing up during these meetings is a great way to ensure they don’t drag on and that they contribute to you and your colleagues’ productivity.
- Ditch the Notifications
Many students and employees struggle to get into a productive workflow because of push notifications on their computers and smartphones. You probably don’t need any stats to acknowledge the power of a ringing or buzzing alert from one app or the other to derail your workflow. But constantly checking those notifications can reduce your productivity by up to 40 percent. Simply turning off notifications or putting your smartphone in do-not-disturb mode can work wonders.
- Optimize Your Workspace
Your surroundings at work have an impact on your productivity levels. Open, well-lit spaces tend to auger better for productivity than dark, cramped quarters. You don’t have to relocate your office to achieve this; cleaning up and cleverly reorganizing your current space can do the trick. If you work from home, a touch of paint in a vibrant hue and a well-positioned potted plant can go a long way.
Prioritizing Productivity
The directive to “work harder, not smarter” is an often-used adage for a reason—it’s effective. Your lack of productivity may not have anything to do with your workload or abilities. You just need to manage your time wisely, create a work-conducive environment, and get in touch with your intrinsic motivation to see your productivity skyrocket.
