Most of us are insanely busy, and our schedules are packed with work and personal responsibilities. Unless we’re able to identify and tackle our priorities, as well as delegate secondary tasks to those who can best accomplish them, our days will always be busy but not necessarily productive.
To help you tick off more checkboxes in your to-do lists, improve the quality of your work, as well as enhance your work-life balance, consider adopting life-changing productivity hacks.
In this blog post, we’ve listed down eight actionable work productivity tips that will help you beat tight deadlines while enhancing the quality of your work.
8 Productivity Tips to Accomplish More this Year
Cooking lunch while handling a Zoom meeting and tracking a delivery parcel on your phone? While you might be tempted to tackle several tasks at once during particularly busy days, multitasking actually reduces your overall efficiency and productivity, according to numerous academic studies.
Multitasking in a world brimming with technology is particularly insidious. According to a study released by Stanford researchers, people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic info have poorer focus, have difficulty switching tasks, commit more errors, and generally have poorer memory.
Social scientists say the human mind simply wasn’t designed to process more than one string of info at a time and neuroscientists believe multitasking drains the energy reserves of the brain.
“When we think we’re multitasking, most often we aren’t really doing two things at once, but instead, we’re doing individual actions in rapid succession or task-switching,” notes neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu in an article published in the Cleveland Clinic.
To boost efficiency and productivity, as well as improve the quality of your output, it’s far better to focus your full attention on one task at a time rather than trying to juggle several at once, especially if it involves multiple screens.
There are multiple tasks, projects, and people competing for our attention on any given day. To boost productivity, consider listing down your priorities for the day. A great tool that you can use to distinguish your priorities from your secondary tasks is the Eisenhower Matrix.
Also known as the Important-Urgent Matrix, the Eisenhower Matrix helps you prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance.
The matrix will help you identify the following:
The tasks will then be divided into four quadrants, and each quadrant will be governed by different work strategies.
To optimize productivity and ensure that the most important tasks are resolved in a timely manner, it’s recommended that no more than eight tasks are added to each quadrant. Before adding a ninth task to a quadrant, complete one task first to free up more space in that quadrant. Moreover, a separate list is recommended for private and work-related tasks.
Following the Eisenhower Matrix will help you accomplish more each day, as well as reduce stress and burnout.
Now that you’ve gotten your daily priorities sorted out, you’ll need to focus on minimizing distractions and producing the best work possible during each workday.
Sadly, much of our workday is spent doing “shallow work”. These clerical tasks include answering emails, attending pointless meetings, and responding to memos from HR. While they’re an important part of our jobs, shallow work takes our attention away from vital and cognitively demanding tasks.
To counter these challenges, consider practicing “Deep Work”. First coined by author and computer science professor Cal Newport, Deep Work allows practitioners to tackle cognitively demanding activities and produce remarkable results.
Whether you’re trying to draft a new business plan, formulate a new strategy, or solve a problem by crunching analytics, the Deep Work methodology leads to greater breakthroughs and better outcomes.
A prerequisite for a successful Deep Work session is a distraction-free environment. Another is to implement a Deep Work strategy that works for you.
There are currently four Deep Work strategies:
You’ll need to select the Deep Work strategy that best suits your work, priorities, and lifestyle.
Before you start a session, determine how much time you’ll need to set aside to complete the task at hand. Then, divide your session into work and rest periods. A great approach would be to work straight for 90-minute blocks and then rest for 10 to 20 minutes in between sessions.
Just as importantly, keep all distractions at bay during Deep Work sessions. This could mean switching off your smartphone and temporarily disabling email and social media notifications so that you can focus 100% of your mental faculties on the task at hand. Also consider informing colleagues, personal assistants, and family members about your Deep Work sessions to avoid jarring interruptions.
Don’t forget to supply yourself with the add-ons you’ll need to realize a fruitful Deep Work session. This could mean a cup of coffee, a glass of filtered water, or your favorite Spotify playlist.
As previously mentioned, you should take breaks in between your Deep Work sessions. Instead of using these breaks to catch up with secondary tasks (like checking emails or social media), use these intervals to relax your mind and body. This will help reinvigorate you for the next Deep Work session, as well as keep you “in the zone”.
Let’s say you’ve scheduled your Deep Work session into two 45-minute blocks, separated by two 20-minute breaks. Use these intervals to relax your mind in preparation for the next session. This could include some light physical or breathing exercises or meditation. You could also use this time to take toilet breaks, hydrate, or eat a snack. As much as possible, you’ll need to avoid engaging in secondary activities that will remove you from the flow state your mind has settled into.
A comfortable dedicated workspace is vital to the success of your Deep Work sessions. This workspace should also be distraction-free and utterly conducive to mentally challenging work sessions.
If space permits, consider setting up your workspace in a separate room with a door that can be shut. To increase your focus, consider using noise-cancelling headphones or a white noise machine.
Aside from your computer, tablet, and other gadgets, consider investing in the following:
Developed by business consultants to help companies execute their most important agendas, the Four Disciplines of Execution (also known as the 4DX Framework) was adapted by Newport to complement the Deep Work methodology. It also complements the Eisenhower Matrix.
The 4DX Framework can be broken down into four components:
Aside from prioritization, execution, and measurement, you’ll also need tools and software to help you navigate each touchpoint and enhance productivity.
The right personal productivity tools will help you execute your work efficiently and systematically. You can also use these tools to delegate tasks to colleagues and report progress to superiors, clients, and stakeholders.
Useful project planning and task management tools include Asana, Monday.com, Trello, and Basecamp. Check out Sigrid.AI’s complete list of Best Task Management & Project Management Software for Remote Workers for more information.
If you want to boost your productivity and stay focused on your top priorities, you’ll need to delegate recurring and secondary tasks to the people who can best solve them.
The MySigrid Assistant app is a revolutionary new to-do list app, personal productivity tool, and reminder app. Unlike other to-do list apps, the MySigrid Assistant app doesn’t just capture and organize your tasks - the team behind the app but resolves them for you.
The app connects you with our team of highly-trained and professionally managed shared Virtual Assistants and Specialists at an affordable monthly fee.
You can use the MySigrid Assistant to accomplish the following:
Some of the tasks you can delegate to our team include:
These features and benefits are available through flexible subscription pricing. You can delegate anywhere from five to 25 tasks starting at US$24.95 each month. You get a 14-day free trial before committing to a subscription plan, and you can upgrade to one of our Dedicated VA Plans anytime.
The MySigrid Assistant app will help you save up to 120 hours per month. This time can be reinvested into accomplishing your most important projects or enjoying a better work-life balance. To see the app’s benefits first-hand, sign up for the free trial today.
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