5 Secrets To Maximizing Your Work Productivity
1. Find Your “Crunch Time”
I’m putting this first because it’s the most important — if you can figure this out, the rest is fluff. We all have times during the day when we’re most productive, and it’s very individual, which means I can’t tell you when your time is. I know that I’m most creative from 7–10am, so I always make sure I get to work early to smash out some creative work.
It’s going to be completely different for you, and it’s up to you to find when it happens; I figured it out by mapping my work output in iCal over the course of a week, and then analysing the results. You might actually be surprised to find when you’re doing your best work — prior to thinking about it I thought I was a night person, and you couldn’t catch me in the office before noon. It’s amazing how much it can change your productivity and improve your quality of work.
2. Get the News Out of the Way Early
It’s temping to spend the first half hour of work grabbing a coffee and catching up with the world, but it cuts into valuable time and fills your mind with questions. Questions lead to you reading more news and you also put yourself dangerously at risk of falling into a dreaded Wikipedia loop.
Instead of checking the herald when you get to work, listen to the radio on your commute or wake up a little bit earlier and read on your tablet. By the time you get to the office you’ll be updated and ready to face the day without that nagging curiosity of what happened on My Kitchen Rules last night.
3. Get Some Exercise
You’ve heard this a million times before, but hear me out. Getting exercise is a fantastic way to burn off nervous energy, which will allow you to be more focussed and creative. It also gives you somewhere away from the screen to gather your thoughts, and might prompt you to think in a different way.
Being active in the morning is also the perfect way to wake up your mind, preparing you for the day of work ahead. If you don’t have time for the gym you could think about riding a bike to work or going for a walk during your lunch break.
4. Sit Down and Think About It
So now that you’re not reading the news at work, you have this big gaping 15–30 minutes that you don’t know how to fill. Perfect! I think that this piece of advice is so obvious that most people don’t even bother with it.
Sit down at your desk with a piece of paper/ technological equivalent and write down everything that you need to get done, even if you know you won’t have time for all of it. Then, think about what’s going to be most important, and construct your day around your deadlines and priorities.
If a task ends up popping up last minute, you’ve at least already visualised your day and can quickly determine how it’s going to fit in. When you’re done with something, cross it off your list. Trello is a fantastic piece of software for this.
5. Get a Change of Scene
I suppose this is in the same vein as “work out regularly”. A change of scene during the work day can do some serious good for your psych. It’s as simple as picking something slightly further away for lunch and then going on a walk by yourself to get there. Listen to some music or radio, chill out, and reboot your brain. When you’re not in front of the computer you give your mind a bit of time to decompress, which is when you might come up with some fantastic ideas or find inspiration to keep working.
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