Increasing your productivity

PCs, laptops, smartphones all take up a lot of your time. Huge chunks of your day are devoted to checking your emails, getting side tracked by a text message or reading articles about time management online. The first drastic change you can make to improve your productivity is to turn off your pop ups and reminders. This should save you some distraction and allow you to focus on performing your daily tasks. For many people this will have a huge impact on their time management.

The second step towards productivity would be to undergo management training. Reading about the topic is already a form of training however being prepared to make drastic changes to improve the quality of your work is another. Management training is the process by wish you train yourself to develop the necessary skills to be efficient.

To do so you could attend a course, or you could establish a new habit to improve your control over time. Be creative to find and try out new and different ways of doing things. Challenge and question your own habits, routines, and the way you spend your time.

Think about how you spend your time, but don’t waste too much time thinking about it. Sometimes the best thing is to just get on with and cut out anything that will just waste your time (unless it will save time in the long run). Keep an activity log or a time log to organise your day. This form of self-management is an excellent training for your productivity levels. It will also increase your energy levels as less time will get wasted away.

Think about why you are doing things, and whether there is a better way. You can download a free time management tool online, which will help you judge your schedule. This tool is also an excellent preparation for management training or coaching.

Review your goals on a short and long term, prioritise your activities. Prepare and think about faster ways of doing things. Consider team work, devote some time to helping someone else, it will never be time wasted. Use a diary, and an activity planner to schedule when to do things, publish or display it, and try to stick to it. If you are undergoing management training consider using a weekly schedule with time slots for everything that you do. This will help others organise their schedule with and around yours.