FIVE TIME-BUSTING TECHNIQUES TO INCREASE YOUR DAILY PRODUCTIVITY

Are you running your own business? Well if you are, you have a lot of different things on your plate that you must handle. Even if you aren’t a business owner, like most people, you have to handle a really large workload. But, how do you handle this huge workload? Many of us, myself not secluded, get overworked by tons of expected deliverables due at one point in time. Here are five time-saving practices that might help you get better organized and work quicker.

Create a to-do list for each new day and star at least three important items that you expect to get done that day. This is a sort of benchmark you can use to measure each day’s productivity. This is a sort of informal way of planning your day. The to-do list can be on scrap pieces of paper or you can input it onto your phone as a list of reminders for the day so that you receive a reminder when a starred item is due.

Set a weekly goal for yourself and consider practical ways in which you can accomplish the goal. If the goal is to finish up a project by the end of the week, for example, break down the processes involved in completing the project into daily deliverables. If the project is meant for a team of people, break it down and assign roles to smaller divisions of the team with a deadline for deliverables. Taking the project step by step makes it easier to handle for everyone and it no longer seems as overwhelming as compared to when it was tackled as the whole picture.

Avoid multi-tasking. No matter how great you may be at multi-tasking (I consider myself a bit of a master personally), doing several things at the same time means that every one of those things is done partially well. It is ultimately more efficient to concentrate on getting one thing done excellently at a time as opposed to getting three or four things completed.

Put all your appointments in a digital calendar such as a Google Calendar or a Microsoft Outlook Calendar. These kinds of calendars can be shared with other people like your secretary for example, so that you receive consistent and timely reminders of important events and meetings. When you’re very busy, it isn’t difficult to allow one event to slip through the cracks and miss out on something important. This is the reason why having a calendar that will notify you to say via email or an alert on your phone is helpful.

Finally, it is important that each week, you review the week and consider the things you did well, the things that did not go so well and why each of these circumstances occurred the way they did. Going over your week is not a time for you to look for others to blame, but a time for you to assess both yourself and your business. Jot down the things you can improve upon. During this period set aside for reflection, also go through all the notifications and the emails on your phone, (try not to get distracted by the news feed) and get to a point of having zero pending notifications.

These are but a few, simple, time-saving tips you can easily implement to improve your productivity. In your business, requiring these simple things from all your employees could easily improve general productivity as well. It is always important, in addition, that you allow there to be some balance between working, taking a break and getting enough sleep as well.