How To Improve Productivity in The Office

True productivity and motivation always come from within, but outside factors can affect the amount we achieve as well as making us feel more positive about our jobs. So how can we improve productivity in the office and get the most out of ourselves and those we work with?

Encourage Regular Breaks for All Teams

This might seem slightly counterintuitive, but studies have actually found that encouraging breaks can improve productivity over the day.

Instead of sitting at your desk and working with semi-focus for 8 hours, it’s much more sensible to work in 90-minute chunks punctuated by breaks. You will actually get more done over the day if you give yourself time to rest and recharge. One of the best things you can do with your break is get active, head outside, get some fresh air, go for a walk, do some stretching or even just take a lap of the office.

Getting your body moving on your blood pumping will help you to come back from your break focused and ready to do your best.

Check on Your Team’s Wellbeing

Although this is not explicitly related to the work your team may be conducting and projects they may be working on, the emotional, mental and physical wellbeing of your team and employees is paramount to their productivity and thus, the success of the business.

Simple things like checking whether teams and employees are getting enough exercise outside of work and checking in to just see how they are can make all the difference. You don’t necessarily have to buy every employee the finest goose down pillow out there (Source: Cuddledown), but making sure they are sleeping and relaxing well can go a very long way in improving their overall productivity.

Set Clear Yet Realistic Deadlines

Working with no end in sight can be demoralising and have a negative effect on productivity, so if you’re looking to improve productivity in your workplace, start setting some serious deadlines. Having a deadline to work towards will improve focus and help people to see what they’re working towards and when it needs to be achieved by. It’s important that everyone takes these deadlines seriously in order for them to have the best effect.

Avoid Unnecessary Meetings

We have all sat in at least one meeting we didn’t really need to be in. Meetings are often long and can be a huge drain on time and energy. Make sure that you are only having meetings when they are absolutely necessary.

Instead of a meeting could you achieve the same thing through an email? Would a video calling app or short remote call do the same job? Will a phone call suffice? 

If you do need to set up a meeting make sure you’re only inviting those who are absolutely necessary, you can always send the notes from the meeting to everyone afterwards if need be.

Work Sequentially and Logically

Multitasking is well known to be a good way to do a number of tasks very poorly. Studies have shown that doing one thing at a time is actually quicker in the long run because your brain is not having to switch from one task to another which takes time and energy. 

To avoid this task fatigue just do one thing until it’s finished. If the task seems massive and not achievable, break it down into smaller steps and just achieve one step at a time. You will find yourself more productive, focused and energized throughout your day.

Forget Perfection and Just Do It Well

Voltaire, a great philosopher is quoted as saying “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, and we couldn’t agree more. So often we are caught in the trap of perfectionism. 

We can often get the majority of a task done to a good standard fairly quickly, it’s those last few changes that tend to take such a long time, so don’t spend hours putting the final touches on a project, it is not a good use of your time. Much better to start another task and get it done well and sent off. Don’t worry about being perfect, worry about getting the job done well.