If you were asked to rate your productivity levels in your business, what would you give yourself? The thing is, not as many people are as productive as they could be.
Many people tend to fall short of productivity goals because of poor work habits that affect our progress. This can result in what is called fighting fires in or preventing them.
But with a few changes to your work and your habits, you can overhaul your working day, and instead of leaving work dreading your workload for the next day, you can leave relaxed so that everything is under control.
Delegate
If you have a large team or just a couple of people working for you, delegating effectively is key to managing your workload and getting the most done. Effective delegating is a skill great leaders have developed. Get to know your employees and find out where they excel. Use their particular skill set to benefit you by assigning workloads based on their expertise.
Outsource
You cannot do everything all of the time. When your attention is pulled in a different direction, you may find that your productivity is affected. Outsourcing allows you to remove the need to complete specific tasks personally or within your company and allows a third party to take over handling them. Practical areas to outsource to improve productivity are;
● IT Support – remove any downtime and streamline your infrastructure to allow employees to collaborate and access required information easily.
● Accounting – keeping on top of your finances can become complicated, especially during times of rapid growth. An accountant can assist you with various financial obligations, including payroll and filing tax returns.
● Marketing – Marketing your company can be a valuable but time-consuming job, and if you are busy keeping the business running, you can’t dedicate too much time to marketing. Outsource to a marketing company that can assist you in getting your company in front of the people who need to know about you.
Don’t Multitask
There is no benefit to trying to do everything at the same time. instead, give your complete concentration to a single task at a time. It might help to block your workday into sections to allow you to focus on one task at a time, for example, 30 minutes replying to emails, an hour chasing up leads or payments or replying to missed calls and voicemails after lunch and so on. A research study found that when task-switching causes mental blocks, productivity might be reduced by up to 40 per cent.
Eliminate Distractions
If you know you are prone to getting your phone out for a quick social media break, or you get easily distracted by a conversation in the office, look at ways to remove all distractions.
Set yourself goals and ‘dangle the carrot’ to get the work done. Whatever it takes for you, be it locking your phone away for a couple of hours, turning on your voicemail to take calls or using noise-cancelling headphones or white noise to eliminate vocal distractions from others around you.