You check the time and it is two o’ clock. Apparently the time must have stopped moving because you checked thirty minutes ago and it was two o’ clock then.
There does not seem to be any motivation to keep working because there are so are many things you had to sort at the home front that are yet unattended.
Lest I forget, it is your cousin’s wedding this weekend and your tailor has still not gotten that outfit right, even after several fittings. The list gets longer the more you think about it and you drift farther from executing your task.
Take a pause, let’s backtrack to how today began. You woke right before dawn and were at work just as the sun started smiling shyly.
The first cup of coffee gave you a kick start and you set to work on your first task of the day. How the hours dragged on and on till it got stuck at two pm is what you are quite unsure about.
This scenario is not far from workplace reality and where it occurs too frequently, your performance levels will likely dwindle.
In the simplest terms, workplace productivity is achieving expected results from completing all of your daily work to dos and sometimes more, in record time. This is quite important and of great benefit to your organization, its customers, prospective/current investors and even you, its valuable member of staff.
As it is with us all, some days are better than others. On some evenings, you get off work feeling high on victory because you conquered every task and on others you wonder why you got this job in the first place. In fairness, certain factors like micro managing, organizational culture, hostile work environment, loss of focus, executing mundane tasks, etc., also contribute to less efficiency and productivity at work.
Decreased productivity levels culminate in reduced outputs which does have an adverse effect on an organization. This can be managed right to ensure that we do not lose sight of what is important; actual productivity.
There are some basic steps that can be taken to ensure that we remain focused, efficient and productive at work.
Prioritizing is a must. Try listing out all tasks on the eve of the next work day and arrange them in order of importance. Considering the peculiar nature of each person’s job, executing tasks in order of importance helps in staying focused and maximally utilizing ones energy.
You could also employ the Pareto’s principle (80/20 rule) in this process. Determine and focus on the most important 20 percent of your work while putting the much less productive 80 percent at the bottom rung. Beware of giving undue importance to mundane tasks.
List out your distractions. Make a list of things that easily make you stray off the productive path. You can write each one down as they are about to happen and mentally say to yourself ‘not today!’ A lot of times, that personal text can wait till lunch break.
It also will not hurt if you are the last to find out after work about the Instagram celeb in huge debt, from the much talked about exclusive party that had all the uninvited reeling with jealousy. Nor will you lose your sense of hearing if you do not listen to your colleague nag about her overbearing supervisor. Also remember to keep ‘home drama’ for when you are off work. You can deal with that tailor over the phone, after work.
Take breaks. Give your mind short breaks and charge up in the process. You can leave your desk to a private place for a few minutes, shut your eyes for some seconds and take deep breaths or try other quick exercises that help you recharge. This is quite helpful, especially when you seem stuck on a particular activity.
Steer clear of the time thief called Procrastination. That ‘deep task’ might be boring but do it as scheduled. It is not always the best decision to push it to another time because it is akin to postponing the evil day and that gives room to filling your work days with empty activities that do not quite count at the end.
Break tasks into bits. Many a time, tasks seem daunting and unachievable. This is generally solvable when we break such tasks into manageable bits and attend to each at a time.
Avoid the temptation to multitask. This tends to lead to several unfinished tasks, which is quite counterproductive.
Monitor your daily progress and improve upon your weakness. A good way to track daily productivity would be to match achieved against unachieved on your to do list. Ponder on the reasons why those tasks were unachieved and develop practical and realistic ways to combat those reasons.
Each day at work does not have to be a drag, especially when you consider the added perk that the more productive you are at work, the better you meet up with your key performance indicators, which invariably means moving up ranks at work and an increase in earnings.
Starting now, begin to achieve more at work by being productive and when you seem stuck, remember to apply the tips above so that you can get more out of life, today and every day!