Are you bogged down with meetings? Is your work station in-box overflowing with papers? Do you feel overwhelmed with tasks each day? Chances are you could use an evaluation — as in a productivity evaluation. Most of us could use some encouragement and guidance on how to get through our days more efficiently. The following nine tips can help you increase your productivity, by removing key stressors and time wasters too.

Multitasking or disorganized?
(Photo credit: ksscils598s08)

1. Concentrate on one thing. Multitasking may work with busy moms managing their children, but for the rest of us multitasking makes it appear that we have Attention Deficit Disorder. Chances are you are doing too many things at once. Instead, tackle a task, complete it and move on to the next thing on your list. Multitasking is more a theory than a good business practice.

2. Build in some boundaries. Most of us have too much on our plates. At least at the same time. Instead, evaluate what you do and eliminate those things that do not need to be done. Make sure that no more than 85 to 90 percent of your time is filled up, with that 10 to 15 percent time used to handle emergencies or simply to give you some much needed down time.

3. Save it to the cloud. As much as it lies within you, refuse to save most of your paperwork. Instead, when documents arrive, ask that they be sent to you via email. Use a service such as Google’s GMail to save your documents, retrieving these items when you need them. Another advantage here is that you can retrieve important documents from any computer.

4. Skip the meetings. If a business meeting is an option, skip it. If it can be avoided, don’t go to it. Most meetings are time wasters and will suck the productivity life out of you. If you are the boss, keep meetings to a minimum — too much hand-holding kills worker initiative.

5. Assign and delegate freely. You cannot possibly do it all, therefore assign tasks to your team to handle accordingly. Keep those tasks that you absolutely must accomplish yourself, while allowing your team to handle other responsibilities. Remember that you are the executive and you are best suited to overseeing, not doing. Trust your employees to help you get the job done.

6. Hire contractors first. Clearly, you can hire employees to handle some tasks. But, for many businesses making use of contractors first can help overall productivity. An experienced contractor needs very little hand-holding, an individual that may come to you with experience on how to manage the company’s books, handle travel arrangements, make appointments or close sales. Another advantage here is that a contractor can give you an automatic “look-see” enabling you to evaluate the individual for a possible permanent position.

7. Work remotely. Do you have to be at the office every day? For some employees, working remotely at least part of the time can help them become more efficient. No long commutes. Flexibility in the work schedule. Able to handle tasks that need to be completed nearer to the home. You may find that you can get a lot more done with the least amount of interruptions by working away from the office for one or two days each week.

8. Prioritize smartly. Yes, “to-do lists” are still very important. You do not need to be tethered to one, but such lists can help you prioritize what you need to get done each day. Write down every single one of your responsibilities and then grade each one in order of importance. Chances are some of the non-essentials you can stop doing or delegate to another employee. You can also use such a list in conjunction with a planner, enabling you to map out what is important and how best to accomplish these tasks.

9. Take care of yourself. What good is being productive if you are not taking care of yourself? Rarely are productive people unhealthy. Instead, they make time for exercising, they eat right and they have a good work-personal life balance. Chances are you need to take a vacation that you’ve been putting off, what can help you recharge your life and enable you to gain perspective on what you do and where you are going.

Productivity Analysis

There are additional ways you can be productive, including using software to train your staff, holding teleconferences instead of in-person meetings, outsourcing or delegating some responsibilities and using the right apps for your cell phone. Increasing productivity is a never ending quest with a myriad number of ways available to help you reach your goals.

Author Information

Sameer Bhatia is the founder of ProProfs.com, a provider of training management software www.proprofs.com/training/, designed to help businesses and educators manage training online. Through ProProfs training management software, trainers and educators can easily create training programs without downloading or learning expensive training software.