How to Work More Effectively and Efficiently | 10 Ways to Be More Productive

People are returning to physical workspaces as the pandemic restrictions have started to fade out. And your case is the same. After a few days in the office with very little work done, you understand that the pandemic has taken away your time and precious productivity. So you just sit on your desk, looking at the ceiling and wondering how to increase productivity. 

Studies show that employee productivity has dramatically decreased during and after the pandemic, which is a big concern for management officials. In this article, you’ll get to know everything about how to work more efficiently. 

The secrets to How to Work More Efficiently and Effectively are simply planning your day before starting it, using numbers instead of vague goals, allocating specific time frames for each task, and taking bad times positively. 

What Is Being Productive Like? 

Being productive isn’t about doing each and everything in your life. It even isn’t about being energetic for 365 days each year. The definition of productivity is doing things at appropriate times. Even watching a movie can be regarded as being productive if you’re watching it in your leisure time.  

You have to work during office hours, spend time with your friends and family after work and enjoy the holidays by partying. Don’t give in to the hustle culture around you that tells you to work like a robot throughout the year and never take spare time to rest. It’s unhealthy in the short term and unsustainable in the long term. But we can follow a few ways to improve work performance. 

Efficiency vs Productivity

Productivity refers to the work you get done in a specified time frame. Efficiency refers to doing the same amount of work using fewer resources. Although productivity and efficiency are different in definition, we should know they’re not completely different. To achieve efficiency, you have to make yourself productive firsthand. 

When you’re using your available time and resources appropriately, only then can you focus on doing it more efficiently. That means you can only achieve efficiency by being productive in the first place. 

How To Work More Efficiently and Effectively 

You have to first understand the ‘efficiently vs. effectively’ part. By definition, effectively means doing the work most accurately, while efficiently means using the least possible resources while completing the work. Efficiently and Effectively together means getting the work done with the least resources. 

We can follow some simple rules to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your work. 

Plan It Out 

Take 10 minutes before sleeping to plan everything that you’ll be doing in the next 24 hours. No, you don’t have to make your day robotic by planning every single detail of the day. We all agree that life can be very unpredictable and not all things go according to plan. 

So, only include the work you look forward to completing the next day. It can be the chapter you couldn’t finish last week, the project with only 15% left, or the dashboard you need to make. 

But remember to make the to-do list brief. Keeping it as feasible as possible is essential so you feel energized before starting the day. 

Use Specific Numbers 

While planning the day, try to make the tasks as specific as possible. Studies have shown that making the task very specific makes it look more achievable. Some examples can be – 

• Work on the project. 
• Extract and Clean the dataset from the marketing project.  

• Work on the presentation. 
• Complete the presentation slides and practice twice. 

Allocate Timeframes 

No matter how many tasks you decide to take on, remember to allocate specific and sufficient timeframes for them. Use ‘by 10 a.m, by 12 p.m’ at the end of the tasks to bind them into specific times. This will create a sense of urgency in yourself, and the probability of you finishing the work will be increased. 

Stay Positive About Setbacks 

You have to be reasonable and understand that there will be times when no matter how much you try to be effective and efficient, it won’t work. Downtimes are essential for our well-being, and we must stay positive about them. Take effect normally and allow yourself to get some break. You can also take some days off from work to refresh your mind. 

We now hope that you understand that it’s not actually ‘efficiency vs productivity’ but a lot more about ‘efficiently and effectively’. You just have to know the right ways to improve work performance. 

10 Ways To Be More Productive At Work

Were you too wondering about how to be more productive at work? Let’s be honest here, staying productive during the period with the highest levels of distraction in human history is tough. But thankfully, there are still some things to do to be productive. 

It’s just that modern problems require modern solutions. That’s why we’re indexing the ten strategies on how to work more efficiently that you can follow to make your productivity bulletproof. You can thank us later. 

1. Don’t Do Everything!

You can have tons of things in your to-do list. You can keep doing many things throughout the year, but trust me; the list won’t get shorter or end soon. Moreover, newer things will keep coming up, and you can find no way to hide them. 

So, what do we do? It’s simple, don’t do everything. You don’t need or have to do everything. Our time and energy is limited. If we can’t have lesser things coming up, what we can do is prioritize lesser things. 

List the things that you’ll be doing during the month and set priorities. Prioritize the things first that can cause you trouble if you don’t complete them. After you prioritize everything, you will find some things that still need priority. It means you don’t have to do them; cut them off. 

2. Start Saying ‘No,’ Now!

You’ve finally started working on the project that you’ve been procrastinating about for a long time. About half an hour passes and a colleague calls you for coffee. Certainly, coffee becomes your most valuable thing, and you jump off your desk. Before you know it, the coffee with the colleague costs you about an hour, and when you return to the desk, you forget your amazing ideas about the project. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I agree that socializing and having short breaks during work is necessary. But if you planned to work for 2 hours straight on the project, you must do it. No matter what gets in between you and your project during these non-stop 2 hours, you have to reject them all. 

3. Multitasking Is A Corporate Gimmick

Humans are not computers on whom you can work on five tabs simultaneously and don’t lose track. We’re meant to focus on one thing at a time. And we’re meant to lose track of things when focusing on more than one thing. 

Studies have shown mixed results regarding this. Some people work more effectively when multitasking. But those numbers are low, and most people lose effectiveness and efficiency when doing more than one thing at a time. You will keep searching on the internet for how to be more productive at work to be able to multitask and no solution will work for you. 

So, don’t multitask if it doesn’t work for you. Focus on one thing at a time. What you shouldn’t do and should do – 

• Clean the marketing dataset and make the sales dashboard from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 
• Clean the marketing dataset from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. 
• Make the sales dashboard between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. 

4. Health Is Wealth

So, you’re working hard to get the ‘Salesman Of The Month’ award this time. You wake up in the morning, set the target for the day, and start selling from the very beginning of the day. You don’t eat breakfast as it can save half an hour of your precious time, have a sub-sandwich for lunch, and do not have the time to decide what you should eat at dinner. So, you end up having more junk food at midnight. At night. 

This is the case for most employees in the corporate sector nowadays. We get so busy keeping the organization and managers happy that we forget that our body is an organization too. It needs to be healthy to be functioning properly. 

Don’t do this. Allocate appropriate times for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in your to-do list for the day, and no matter how busy you are, take advantage of them. If you can, do some exercise as well. Believe me; you won’t lose any productivity. Follow this for some time, and you’ll see a clear increase in your productivity within a month. 

5. Mornings Are The Best Times

You just sat at your desk in the morning and saw the hardest thing on that day’s to-do list. You think it’s not worth it to mess up your mental happiness in the morning and decide you’ll complete it later in the day. Trust me; it’s a trap! 

What you just did is called procrastinating (I believe you’re already familiar with this). Once you start postponing the tough tasks, there’s no going back. You will continue doing it repeatedly and eventually feel miserable about it. 

Humans are most energetic and productive during the early hours of the day. So, it’s better to complete the tough tasks first, as you won’t have much energy to do it later in the day. Besides, once you complete the hard job, the rest of the day will feel easy and smooth, and you can leave the office without feeling miserable. 

6. Control Your Social Media Presence

It’s common advice that you can find in almost every place. But trust me; this is advice too good to be left out. People used to be glued to Facebook and Instagram some time ago, but now they stay glued to TikTok. I’m not asking you to delete your account and uninstall the app from your smartphone. 

Just allocate specific time to browse social media and ensure you stay within that line. If you log in to social media at that specific time, you will find that you’re not just scrolling aimlessly but doing some tasks that need to be done. 

7. Automate and Outsource

If you have a task that needs to be done frequently, you better automate that. Just search on the internet for how to automate that thing, and you will find an answer. There are few frequent tasks left in the world that can not be automated, thanks to the emergence of AI. 

If you have two things you must do, do the one with the higher priority and outsource the other. If you have people working under you, this should be easy. If that’s not the case, you will have to find someone willing to help you with this. 

8. Change The Environment

Sometimes your workplace can be noisy, hot, or too cold to focus on anything. Now, I’m not encouraging you to complain about anything. It’s a fact that your productivity will be seriously affected by an unfavorable workplace. So, find a corner with less noise or fix the air conditioner of your room and see if your productivity increases. 

9. Organize Your Desk

It is an important one. You have to build a habit of organizing your desk at the end of each day. It’s like how we organize our bed after waking up each morning so we don’t have to do it late at night when there’s almost no energy left. You have to organize your desk before leaving the office so that you can find an organized desk the next morning. It will surely inspire you to get more things done. 

10. Celebrate Small Achievements. 

Last, but not least, celebrate after you complete each task. No, you’re not supposed to throw a party just because you completed a dashboard or something. But it would be best if you celebrated on a micro-scale, with the guest being only you. The celebration can be of any type – a coffee, a 10-minute break from work, or maybe your favorite ice cream! 

You have to start rewarding yourself for being productive. In this way, dopamine will be released in your brain every time you complete a task, and slowly, your brain will start pushing itself to complete more tasks and get more productive.  

Determined and Ready to start utilizing your time at work more effectively and efficiently? Take the first step towards improving your productivity by implementing these 10 strategies today!

Conclusion 

Being productive at work is vital for both mental happiness and professional growth. But we have to draw a fine line between productivity and toxic productivity. Remember to take breaks occasionally and celebrate small achievements to recharge the tank. Always follow these things to be productive.

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