Maximize Your Productivity: Work Smarter Not Harder
Ever feel like the day is slipping away?
You start with good intentions and a long list of tasks, but several hours later you feel frustrated with your progress. You’ve worked hard, yet the long list you started with hasn’t decreased much.
If this is happening on a regular basis you may want to adjust your working style to maximize your productivity. ‘Work smarter not harder’ is a familiar phrase, but it almost sounds too good to be true. How do you practically do more work in less hours?
Here are some tips for maximizing your productivity:
Prioritize your tasks
It’s easy to begin the day responding to emails. Then realize five hours later that you haven’t actually done any tasks on your list. Organize your tasks into an order of priority. Start with the most important ones.
Track how much time you are spending on tasks
For most of us, our perception of time is a little hazy. Just think of waiting in a queue at the DMV versus an amazing evening on holiday. Time can trudge onwards at an exasperatingly slow pace or evaporate, depending on the activity.
According to Parkinson’s law, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” What does this mean? That if you have 5 hours to complete a task, which could be done in 2 hours, you’ll end up procrastinating or making the task more complicated than necessary. Just think of the times when you’ve left a project or assignment to the last minute.
Split your day into 90-minute chunks. Once you have categorized your tasks into low and high-value, give yourself a timeframe for each of them. Now, you’ve created a blueprint for your day and it’s time to put it into action.
Take micro-breaks
Researchers found that taking micro-breaks, even for a few seconds, boosted concentration. Divide your day into periods of concentration followed by microbreaks.
Avoid multitasking
It might seem tempting to do twelve tasks at once but don’t do it. Susan Weinschenk Ph.D., Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W Inc, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, says:
“It takes more time to get tasks completed if you switch between them than if you do them one at a time. Each task switch might waste only 1/10th of a second, but if you do a lot of switching in a day it can add up to a loss of 40% of your productivity.”
Instead, focus on one task for a designated period of time.
Reflect on your progress
At the end of your working day allow time to reflect on your progress. Were your time estimates accurate? Were there any distractions that you could minimize going forwards? How close were you to achieving your goals from the morning?
Commit a couple minutes of reflection at the end of the day as an opportunity to refine your process, so that tomorrow you can work even smarter.
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