Practical tips to transform your daily work routine
Improving your English or learning Spanish is something you would love to do. But you lack time. At work, you feel overwhelmed. There are only so many hours in the day, and your good intentions quickly fall by the wayside. Yet there are a few habits you can adopt to become more efficient and productive. Here are our best tricks for boosting your productivity every day.
Focus on the essentials
1. Where are you going?
You want to be more productive, okay, but for what reason(s)? Clearly define your current aspirations: what do you want to achieve? Leaving without knowing your destination is a concept, but you risk taking the longest path, or even going in circles! Determine your monthly and weekly goals and then organize your week accordingly.
2. Prioritize
Distraction is probably one of the most obvious causes of professional inefficiency. Since you know your goals, identify the projects that will help you achieve them. Apply the Pareto principle, which states that 20% of actions lead to 80% of results. These are the ones you will place at the top of your to-do list!
3. Hunt down time thieves
This refers to everything that takes you away from your goal:
- Distractions (social media, emails, etc.): turn off notifications and silence your phone when you are working on a substantive topic;
- Off-topic requests: learn to say no!
- False urgencies: if necessary, set a specific time during the day to address them as quickly as possible.
4. Optimize your actions
Get rid of what doesn’t require your full concentration:
- Automate repetitive tasks. There are many applications and software available for all professional fields;
- Establish processes that allow you to save time on similar projects;
- Delegate tasks for which you do not provide real added value, especially if you don’t enjoy them!
Slowly but surely…
Now that the path is marked and clear, you can move forward!
5. Divide to conquer
You arrive at the office, grab a coffee and… you need to tackle that big file that has been waiting for you on top of the pile for a week. It can be discouraging even before you start. To avoid such overwhelm, break your project into several phases, and the phases into as many elementary tasks as necessary. Identify the very first "small action" to take: you now know where to start.
6. Plan
Every evening, review your to-do list and decide on the next tasks to accomplish. The next day, you will know what you have to do and won’t waste your time dreaming or hesitating between two files. Don’t deprive yourself of the pleasure of checking off each completed action!
7. Set deadlines
Think this time of Parkinson's Law: a task tends to consume the entire time you allocate to it. In other words, if you don't assign it a deadline, you risk never finishing it! Plan generously and reserve time for the unexpected.
8. Forget the myth of multitasking!
No, you will not increase your productivity by starting everything at the same time! On the contrary, you risk drowning and doing everything halfway.
You are not a machine
9. Breathe!
He who wants to travel far takes care of his mount. So plan regular breaks to recharge your energy. Are you dozing off in the early afternoon? This is the right time to take a micro-nap or stretch your legs. It will wake you up and oxygenate your brain.
10. Make your life easier
For better concentration, prevent yourself from ruminating on what you have left to do. Use a task manager to better free your mind. Whether it's a fun app or the famous bullet journal by Ryder Carroll, choose the tool that suits your activities. Experiment and don't hesitate to change it to find what works best for you.
And there you go! You have no more excuses for not reviewing our Dutch! What will you put in place starting today to save time and boost your productivity?
