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8 Habits To Transform Your Productivity

The people who can tackle a massive to-do list without breaking a sweat aren’t superheroes and they don’t have an extra hour in the day. They’ve just mastered a few simple habits and so can you.

Here’s how to make yourself more productive, every day.

1. Tidy your desk

You’ve heard the saying about cluttered desks and cluttered minds, right? Well the reason is that your mind will be drawn to whatever is new, meaning that you’ll be easily distracted. Even if you don’t notice the distraction-it’s still happening.

Biggest Desk Distractions:

  • Other work
  • Mobile phone
  • Diary

Those with neat offices are able to stick to the task at hand for 1.5 times longer.

2. Get some exercise

Not only will 20 minutes of exercise a day improve your health, it will also increase your work output.

3. Protect one-fifth

It doesn’t matter how hectic your days are, you need to carve out and ruthlessly protect just 20 percent of every day (90 minutes out of the average 8-hour workday) for your most important tasks. That way- even if the other six and a half hours go down the drain- you’ll still have made significant progress on your goals.

4. Get project planning software

Project planning software, like that offered by Timewax, will help you to organise your time better and keep on top of your work projects including tasks, resources, and deadlines.

One of the key things that this software will do is remove ambiguity, define milestones and objectives, and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

5. Seek out sunshine

Many people associate office windows with distracted employees (birds are always doing weird stuff on building ledges) but sunshine can actually boost productivity. A study by the California Energy Commission revealed that workers who sat near a window performed between 10 and 25 percent better on mental function tests because of natural light.

6. Sleep at work

It may sound counterintuitive but taking a midday nap can actually help you be more productive by counteracting impulsive behaviour (not hosting a Taylor Swift dance party to wake you up) and increases tolerance (not glaring down the co-worker playing Taylor Swift).

7. Prioritise and procrastinate

No one can work on full power all day long. When you aren’t feeling 100%, focus on more mindless tasks (answering routine emails) but when you are feeling on top, put menial tasks to the bottom of the pile. Just figure out your peak working hours and work accordingly.

8. Delegate where possible

Not all tasks are created equal. There are some tasks that will take minutes and create incredible results and others that will take hours and do very little to achieve your goals.

See if you can delegate some of these lower-value tasks to a fellow employee (like delegating costings to a co-worker who is better at math). They may even want to pass on their lower-value tasks to you, which will build inter-team relationships.

So those are some of our best tips for increasing productivity at work. What did you think? Do you have any more to share? Let us know in the comments.