How to be More Productive at Work?

Daily office grind getting too much for you? Working hard but still not meeting deadlines? Feel like jumping straight into bed by the end of the day?

Well, we feel your burden. Not all of us can attain same level of productivity at work and still have energy left to pursue our hobbies at night. But, let us tell you that there are some daily habits that you can acquire to get the most out of your 24 hours. And working smarter and managing your time are the simplest hacks to improve productivity.
Follow these elementary but effective ways mentioned below to maintain your efficiency at work.

Create a routine

Not just your personal life, but also your work life deserves a routine. Set time aside for mundane tasks like checking email and notifications. We know it’s hard to resist replying to texts, but you’ll regret it when you compound the time wasted on this trivial activity.
To increase productivity at work, you need to be smart. Know how your body clock works. Align the most strenuous and crucial tasks for when your brain is most actively performing. In fact, our brain is cleverly wired to execute patterns. Leverage this information to form more productive at work habits and routine at workplace.

Exercise at work

No, we’re not telling you to perform deadlifts in your cubicle. However, getting your blood pumping is what you need to deal with your oft-lost focus. One study from Stockholm University shows, “that it is possible to use work time for exercise or other health-promoting measures and still attain the same or higher production levels. The same production levels with fewer work hours means you are more productive at work, while at the same time individuals benefit from better health as a result of the physical activity.”

Stop multitasking to be more productive at work

Contrary to popular belief, our brains are not designed for intense multitasking. Doing more than one complex task simultaneously reduces our productivity significantly. This mental-juggling ensures no task gets full attention and the switching cost is too high to ignore. Instead, focus on completing the task at hand. Switch to another complex task only after wrapping up the previous one.
Alternatively, you can also club together similar unchallenging tasks. This automates your tasks while ensuring no critical work function is in jeopardy.

Delete distractions

Although it’s almost impossible to erase all distractions from your workplace, try minimizing them as much as possible. For example, set clear boundaries for your work time and communicate it to nosy colleagues. If you have a door, keep it shut. If not, try utilizing the power of blocking everyone out with earphones; gives you an additional benefit of soothing music while you work. Be polite enough to accommodate people who genuinely need you, but stern enough to communicate your priorities.
In addition to increasing your productivity at work, it will project you as a time-valuing professional.

Set deadlines

You don’t need a boss to decide the time-frame for completion of a task. Nonetheless, you have always felt more more productive at work when you were working under a boss with a strict deadline to keep.
By setting deadlines for yourself, you’re proactively taking charge of your responsibilities. It doesn’t matter if you performed the task to utmost perfection, just make sure you complete it under the scheduled deadline. It takes one more thing off the list and provides you with a sense of satisfaction. Use of productivity enhancing techniques, like pomodoro technique, can also help you abide by the deadline while giving you a room for short breaks.

Additional Tip(s) to be More Productive at Work

Take regular breaks.

Taking scheduled breaks can actually help improve concentration. A research has shown that taking brief breaks during prolonged tasks helps you maintain a constant level of performance; while on the other hand working on the same task without any breaks usually leads in an invariable decline in performance.
So, It is clear that if we don’t give our mind scheduled and timely breaks, exhaustion and apathy set in gradually, leading to more errors and hence lower productivity.
Maintaining a constant level of performance for an 8-hour workday is tiring to say the least. Try some of the tips above if you want to work smarter, not harder.
Moreover, why don’t you try increasing your productivity from the moment you wake up? Here are 5 ways how more productive at work people spend their mornings.