Increase productivity might seem like a big challenge, and you’re right. It’s a hard aspect to achieve, but rewarding. You need to place your focus in the right direction and leave your comfort zone. After you master a few methods, you’ll see that all the effort will dimish and your routine will be smoother.

Improving productivity is not an exact science and all the aspects might not apply to everyone. So, the facts and tips presented in this article are just a guideline for improvement. Also, keep in mind that to achieve better results, you need to be ready for some changes. John F. Kennedy mentions that “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” With this idea in your mind, we’re going to explore some steps that typically improve productivity.

Set goals and objectives

Goals and objectives might sound like the same thing, but they have some differences. A goal bases itself on the last achievement, the primary target you want to reach. Meanwhile, objectives are the small steps you achieve while trying to reach your goal. They both are essential for your daily performance and focus. It’s important to analyse goals on a regular basis because without them you’ll be lost on the tasks you have to do. To be successful on a goal, you need, to be honest with you and your business. Honesty brings the best out of your performance and makes almost every objective achievable.

 

Plan a schedule

Keeping a life without chaos sounds like a dream to you? Even if we don’t control all the variables in the universe, it’s possible to prevent chaos. Just start to plan. You don’t need to plan every single aspect of your life but just focus on the main tasks and responsibilities. Build an agenda and a healthy routine, which we’ll speak on a topic ahead. Having a schedule keeps the focus, saves you time and smooths your days, preventing a feeling of insecurity. It also adds stability to your routine from the moment you wake up until you get home to relax.

 

Think big using small steps

Most authors disagree with this topic, but the reasons why we value it is due to the possibilities it offers. By thinking big, you’re opening the possibility to reach big targets. You’re creating a focus on something good in a long term. If you think small, you will only have small results. Even if it’s safer and attractive to reach easy goals, you need to consider how do you achieve big goals. Use small steps and objectives to achieve the long term goal.

Imagine if you’re thinking about travelling. It’s easier if you plan a short journey right next door, but if you intend to go to a place far away, you’re increasing your possibilities in many different aspects. Like meeting new people from different locations, trying new food and observe new cultures. For a big journey, you need to take small steps to get there, to thoroughly enjoy the whole experience. We can apply this example in life, a big trip/goal accomplished by small steps/objectives.

 

Create a healthy routine

Most topics can relate directly with a healthy routine. It’s essential to build a solid balance between work and life and understand how can you use your routine to boost your performance. Productivity doesn’t mean you need to work 24/7 to get better results. You need to balance your life and focus on restoring your energy. It’s hard to be productive if you work too much and get tired every single day. You should rest and take breaks. Most companies nowadays offer conditions to take breaks and even rest inside the workplace. They have structures built to help the employees relief their exhaustiveness. Like rooms with sofas, ping-pong tables, arcade machines, among other things. Those companies are showing better performances, and they rank excellent in production values. It’s crucial that you find time to treat yourself right. You’ll see your productivity levels increase in a short term duration.

Rest to restore your energy

Sometimes life gets busy, and your occasional/frequent heavy workload doesn’t let you rest properly. Like so, it’s tempting to discard a few hours of sleep in exchange to finish all the work and responsibilities. Even if it works, you’ll end up feeling sleepy and tired during all day. Avoid bringing work home. You’ll be more productive during work hours if you rest properly. You should avoid that restless cycle and create balance in your life. Quality is more important than quantity, so focus on improving quality instead of chasing all the work at the same time.

 

Prioritise Do over than Plan

Planning is an important aspect of business success, but it’s also a weakness when you relate it to productivity. Most of the failures in new projects are due to the extensive time people waste on the planning phase. It’s the base of all structures, but you can’t live only from the structure, you need to start building the content. Prioritise the action over the plan, focus on the best way to make it work. Sometimes you can be afraid to take action, but the more you delay it, the bigger the risks you take to succeed.

 

Invest in a long-term results

As mentioned above, you should think big to get better rewards in the future. There are many things you can achieve short-term, but it’s the long-term goals that create a sense of accomplishment. Investing in the future means you are preparing for what’s ahead and you are ready for most of the challenges you can’t predict. Remember to take small steps. It’s important to have some stability to invest in this type of goals. Remember, the long term results will impact your future, and they’re a key to guide you daily improving your productivity.

 

Environment and influences

“Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” Earl Nightingale mentions the environment as an image of ourselves. What we seek, who we are, everything impacts our surroundings. You should see every person as a micro universe, with thousands of differences between each. It’s important for us to seek a healthy environment with a strong impact in our daily life. Even if sometimes it’s hard to find and define good influences, never give up from searching them. A healthy environment and good influences are two of the fuels to get a better life and a better performance at work.

Evaluate consumption

Like the environment and influences, it’s important to choose the right items to consume. Not only food but all the products you use daily. We build our lives around consume, including our identity is attached to it. An example is that we use products to send a message that we share certain qualities. It’s important to analyse the impact we have on the others and ourselves, that insight prevents bad judging. It’s easy to judge someone according to consuming, but that negative attitude can affect your daily life. Even in your workplace, it’s a danger thing to do since you can misjudge someone and end up hurting them or yourself. So, to be productive, you should reflect about what you consume, and do not use that knowledge to hurt your colleagues or employer.

 

Avoid to compare

First of all, it’s natural to compare yourself with others, but you shouldn’t be obsessed with it. Obsession is the element to fight on this topic. When you compare with others, you can set higher goals and objectives and assists you with your productivity levels. But if you start to be obsessed with comparing, you’re putting your productivity and self-esteem at risk. Most of the times you will miss good things in life, and all your goals and objectives will be out of reach. At least, the healthy and balanced ones. The key here is to learn about yourself, change the view about you and set new goals. Slowly, you will stop focus so much on the others, and start concentrate on your perspective and dreams. By following this advice, you will trigger a better performance in life and at work.

 

Focus your energy and resources

Last but not least, why focus energy and resources are so critical to productivity? Essentially energy and resources are the conditions you need to increase productivity. If you guide them on the right path, they can boost your performance to a better level at work. By focus energy, it’s possible to complete more tasks and increase the quality. Same with the resources, if focus correctly you can prevent extra costs and enhance their impact and utility. Doing one task at a time increases the efficiency since you keep the energy only on one task.

Conclusion

Overall, the main way to improve starts with you! Get knowledge about who you are and how can you get better focus. Read and assimilate different articles and learn different methods until you find the one that improves you as an employee/employer/entrepreneur. Also, i am available to help you with any questions you might have regarding not only this article but on different business areas.