Listen To Your Body
Your health and energy is a key component to how much work you get done and how productive you are. Everyone’s body works differently and will have peak energy spikes at different times. By taking the time to understand your internal body clock and when you work best will allow you to hone in and maximise your work based on when you are most productive. Not only will this ensure you are getting the most from yourself within the day, but it will also allow you to plan around when your energy is most depleted and set tasks that realistically can be achieved well and won’t cause mental strain or your work to suffer.
Ensure You Are Taking Regular Breaks
Your brain gets tired without breaks and it can result in you becoming more easily distracted and work taking longer. To work smarter, you need to understand this and try to make sure you are taking breaks between your tasks. This will allow your brain to rest, reset and then approach this task with maximum brain power and allow you to benefit from maximum results. If you find it challenging to set this time aside, a suggestion would be to plan it into your day. Even making five minutes away from your desk or place of work can allow your brain that time to reset and re-energize for the next task you are about to start.
Chunk Similar Task Together To Be Completed
By putting all similar tasks together and completing them at the same time, makes you more productive as you are no longer switching being one type of work to another. Your focus and mindset are already set on this particular task so maximise it and focus it to get numerous tasks complete, and if they are relatively small tasks you will be able to get huge qualities done. Not only are you focusing on one task but you have set aside this time to complete it and ensured that this is being done without distractions and managing your time wisely. It could even be simple tasks such as responding to emails in a break between meetings.
Plan Your Week
When planning ahead and deciding on the actions and tasks that need completing the best tip is to plan the harder and more pressing tasks to the start of the week. This way you are able to tick them off your to-do list quickly, relax more and start your week on a positive footing. By front-loading your week you are completing the more important jobs and making the most impact on your week early on and maximising your energy to ensure they are completed promptly.
Shorten Your To-Do List
By reducing your to-do list to a shorter and more achievable list enables you to ensure that you are not getting bogged down with the mental strain that an unachievable list presents. Remember there is nothing wrong with knowing your limits and capabilities. By setting realistic expectations you are setting yourself up to succeed and focus well on the tasks at hand. When writing this list, ensure that you are prioritizing your work and set the most important tasks at the top. Another top tip is to try to limit these to no more than 5 items a day. Although the strong likelihood is you will manage more, it ensures that you are keeping your mental health in check and seeing all the ‘extras’ that you accomplish as a bonus.
Consider Where You Work
To maximise your productivity to need to focus and be motivated to get your workload completed. If where you are working is distracting and not supporting your ability to focus all of your energy upon the task at hand, it is worth considering your options. You may find remote unmoderated usability testing guide suits your needs to be more productive than working in a lab. This logic can be applied to any work situation. You may find relocating to remote working allows you to focus more, or alternatively moving to an office without homely distractions more beneficial. If your location is the problem be proactive and address the change and speak to your boss if needed.
Don’t Multitask
What’s your rush exactly? When you think about it, multitasking does not actually result in you being more productive. It results in your spreading your attention, and by default, your brainpower, across numerous tasks and thoughts. This can not only result in individual tasks taking longer to complete but can also impact on your mental health by overloading your mental workload. Although you may feel as though you have a handle on all tasks and you are successfully managing to multitask well, by constantly switching from being on one job to another, it can make it harder to actually finish a task or complete it to the highest quality.