In a digitally advanced fast-paced economy, ensuring employees are productive during work days is a challenge for most team leaders and business managers. The disruptive forces at work to include constant stream of emails and posts on social media channels, continue to divert the focus and reduce the attention span of employees. Hence, maximized employee productivity is hardest to achieve for most organisations.
However, if you do manage to stay off the disruptions and achieve productivity goals faster, chances are you will get promoted soon.
So here are nine quintessential tips for employees to maximise productivity at work:
Senior leaders and HR managers should encourage employees to take short 10 to 15 minutes of break, at least two to three times a day as this helps revive your energy levels, increases your attention span when you get away from desk for a few and then come back. Coffee or tea breaks, some deep breath and exercises that can be done right at your desk, helps calm your mind and take better control of situations at work.
Before retiring for the day, you can perhaps make a to-do list for the day next, and schedule meetings. Also clear out your emails for the day, set deadlines and try accomplishing them within the timeframe. Stay off procrastination and do not give yourself an excuse to not perform. Keep high-efficiency mornings to work on most important tasks for the day. Turn off pop-up messages and email notifications when you are focused on an important task.
Not all can multitask, so do not try to give half attention span to five tasks you have on hand, rather focus on one at a time and try completing the list. Some studies do prove that multitasking reduces people’s productivity, thus increasing chances of mistakes, silly errors, reduces creativity to create confusion on minds. Further, it ends up wasting a lot of time and makes it difficult to remember important tasks that need your immediate attention.
Even mild-levels of dehydration can lower your energy levels at work, so drink lots of water, juices and stay hydrated to maintain energy levels and oxygen supply in the body. Dehydration tends to impact your moods, creates stress, and reduces working capacity and productivity to make you experience burnout soon. Drinking water at regular intervals on the other hand, pumps in enough oxygen supply to keep your brains working more efficiently, and achieve better productive results.
See: How Sleep Affects Productivity of Business Leaders?
As important is food and water to feel energised, so is the power of good sleep. To maximise productivity and meet deadlines, it is never advisable for employees to compromise on sleeping hours as deprivation can reduce attention spans at work to result in mistakes and errors, lack of focus, low job satisfaction, moody behaviours, less creativity and zest to perform. Adequate sleep boosts your brain to perform much faster, sharpens memory, and improves attention and decision-making abilities.
A proper workout regimen is important to flex your muscles and get the blood circulation right, this further impact on positivity and moods. Regular exercise routine can help sharpen your memory, reduce stress, improve concentration and enhance creativity. Many companies hence provide fitness facilities such as gym and yoga to employees at their workplace.
The colours of walls, cluttered workspaces and messy desks do reflect on employee performance and productivity at work. A right environment is important for the employee to breathe and grow. Add a pop of colours and plants, particular colours such as blue and green calm senses to influence creativity, increase attention and accuracy. Allow natural light to come into your workplace to inspire positivity and use ergonomically designed chairs and desks.
It is always advisable to clean your desks, before you retire for the day such that the next morning you arrive at a welcoming clean desk, to start off your day on a positive note. It becomes easier to get things done and produce better results, when your workspace is clean and clutter-free.
It is important to eliminate distractions to be more productive at work. These distractions could be social media, phone calls, online videos, emails that consume a lot of your time. Your colleagues and co-workers could also be a distraction at work, so when you are doing something important put a note or status saying you are busy and would come back later.
Also read: How Hygienic Workplaces Influence Workforce Productivity?
Feature image credit: freedigitalphotos.net
