9 Tips To Nailing Office Productivity
Are you as productive in your office as you could be? In this guest post the guys from Storage Vault give you 9 simple tips that you can use to make your productivity soar in the office.
Are you swimming in a sea of unread emails, unfinished tasks and disturbing push- notifications? Always being a step behind can be a nightmare. What if we told you that there are ways to get through your seemingly endless to-do list?
At Storage Vaults’ coworking spaces and in our own offices, productivity is always a hot topic and we’re constantly working to decrease stress, improve productivity, and find new ways to get from A-B with gold stars.
We’ve gathered some of our top advice for nailing office productivity and getting things done.
1. Start your day in a nice way.
What you do in the first two hours of the day sets your mood for the remaining. Be sure you do something that makes you happy. If that means getting up 30 minutes earlier to watch an episode of Modern Family, go for a run or have a proper breakfast – then so be it! A good mood to a long day is what WD40 is to an old bike-chain: game changing!
2. (10+2)*5
Let’s get one thing straight. Working 9-5 ‘voll gas’ doesn’t necessarily mean being super productive. Merlin Mann proposed the (10+2)*5 methodology suggesting that you should work highly focused for 10 minutes, break for 2, and repeat five times. No one is saying you should be hung up on numbers – but working in small bursts of intense focus followed by a short break can prove extremely productive as you’re getting stuff done, and rewarding yourself throughout the process.
3. Write that thought down
Think you’ll remember tomorrow? No. Write it down and clear some space in that busy head of yours.
4. Block push and pop- up notifications
‘Susan liked your status’, ‘@theamazingbob retweeted you’, ‘you have 79 unread emails’, ‘remember to pick up milk and dinner’. ENOUGH! Push and pop- up notifications are ridiculously disturbing. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it! Accept it, embrace it and take a few minutes to change your settings so you can focus on the tasks of the day.
5. Food is fuel
Make sure your diet is varied, and make sure to get those 5 a day! Can a car run without fuel? No, and neither can you!
6. Prioritise your tasks
There are always some tasks that are more important than others, prioritise your work and work your way through making sure you get the most important things done first!
7. Schedule and track your time
To make sure you’re on time and on track, schedule and time your work. When are you most likely to complete a task: when it’s ‘sometime this week’ or Wednesday 9-9:30? Go figure.
8. ‘No’ is a full sentence
This lesson applies for life as well as at work. Sometimes it’s important to know your limits. If you only have time to do A B and C, say no to D. If you don’t want to go for brunch with Bruce, say no!
9. Stress can be a tool
All this said, a little stress can be good. Most people work better under a bit of pressure, and having one too many task will often keep you on top of your game. Jon Westenberg, an entrepreneur and writer for Creatomic, said “Stress is a tool can make you get s* done, it can make you focus, and it can make you get up off your ass” in his article ‘I Never Try To Avoid Stress’
For some more top dollar productivity advice see our blogs 8 Experts Reveal Their Top Productivity Tips and 7 Proven Productivity Tips For Getting Stuff Done