Since it’s a new year, now is a good time to evaluate how well your team is performing. If you noticed decreased productivity last year, it will be important to help employees avoid the mistakes and habits that led to unproductive workdays.
You can help your employees restore their performance and maintain an attitude of productivity with these 18 tasks for 2018:
1. Determine what needs to be done. Make sure your team is fully aware of what they need to accomplish.
2. Make sure everyone has created a personal to-do list to keep track of every task he or she is responsible for.
3. Time block tasks. This means that your team can have set times of the day specifically dedicated to specific tasks.
4. Complete the least favorable task first. This will prevent procrastination that may occur when your team puts off the tasks they are not interested in doing right away.
5. Make sure tasks are delegated evenly and fairly among employees so your team can focus only on tasks they can handle.
6. Outsource jobs where necessary to make sure you have the right people for handling tasks in major areas of your company (ex. IT, Legal, HR, etc.).
7. Clean your office and workspace. A cluttered work environment can decrease productivity.
8. Avoid multi-tasking. A team will not be as productive if multiple tasks are being handled at one time.
9. Prioritize meetings for topics that cannot be discussed over email. Also, don’t spend more time than necessary conducting meetings.
10. Learn when to say no. Don’t allow yourself and your team to take on more projects and tasks than you can handle at a given time.
11. Take time to exercise briefly. This can be as simple as walking around or outside of the office and doing quick exercises right at your desk that don’t require you to leave the office.
12. Get rid of distractions. Turn off emails, social media, and anything else preventing work from being finished.
13. Make time for breaks. Productivity won’t be as high if people are attempting to work through an entire day without a break. This is grounds for an error to be made.
14. Prepare for the workday the night before.
15. Use the technology that will help you save time and be more productive. You may consider a task tracking site such as Asana, or a calendar reminder to help you keep up with important dates.
16. Focus on boosting your energy. You will not be productive if you don’t have any energy for the tasks at hand.
17. Follow the 2-minute rule. If a task can be done in under two minutes, you should focus on completing that task first.
18. Don’t stress about perfection. Do the best that you can truly do and try not to be too hard on yourself.
At The Orsus Group, we hope you and your team will have a productive year. We know these 18 productivity tips will help you and your team to stay engaged throughout 2018.