With more and more people working in the office, learning to adapt to the fast pace work environment can prove difficult for some people. There are many distractions and with more responsibilities, comes larger workloads that impact productivity.
Learning how to manage these workloads is going to be the difference between moving up or ultimately being let go. Today, we are going to learn more about 10 office hacks you can do to help explode your productivity.
1. Write Down Your Most Important Tasks In The Morning
The morning is a time where most people tend to fall behind. After all, one in 5 Americans come in late at least once a week. What you are going to want to do is write down your most important tasks of the day each morning. This gives you a 20/20 look at what you need to accomplish for that day. With this list, you can decide what you need to tackle before these tasks, or whether or not you need to go ahead and knock them out ahead of time.
2. Schedule Email Check Times
The organization is key to any productive day and productivity at all. If you are not organizing your day, you run the risk of becoming distracted, which could throw off your whole day. One of the biggest distractions in the workplace is email. Emails can come in a wide range of information, some important, some not. To help keep you less distracted, it is suggested to set aside certain times of the day to check emails. This will keep you focused on your tasks instead of checking your email every 5 minutes.
To help cut down on the time it takes to check your email, you can get Edison Mail, a multi-email app that will categorize your emails for you based on bills and receipts, travel, incoming packages, etc.
3. Learn How To Effectively Tell Someone No
If you are like many people, it may be hard to tell others no. While this may seem like a friendly thing to do, it could be silently killing your productivity at work. For example, if coworkers walk into your office with a request for a quick task, it can pull you away from your more important tasks. It is very important that you learn how to say no in situations without causing any harm to your coworker. Simply saying something like “that sounds like a great idea, I can check it out later today once I finish up this task that I am working on” can go a long way.
4. Establish a 2 Minute Rule
Establishing a two-minute rule is a great way to knock easy tasks out without disrupting your flow. The two-minute rule states that if a task can be done in less than two minutes, go ahead and get it done. This allows you to complete your smaller tasks at that time to keep a project rolling or even close it out instead of waiting all day to complete a minuscule task. Your coworkers will thank you, and most importantly, you will thank you.
Related: How To Track Your Projects And Increase Your Productivity
5. Block Certain Time Sucking Sites
Another one of the biggest distractions at work is navigating to sites that are non-work-related. While this may seem like an easy to manage the task, some people struggle with staying focused with Facebook, ESPN, and YouTube at their fingertips. During sports seasons and big current events, it may be tempting to check out the latest scores or updates. To combat this from the start, set up a site blocker to keep you from being able to access these sites while you are at work.
6. Put On Some Tunes
To keep you focused and to help drown out loud office talk, you can play some music to help relax and get you through the day. The right type of music can help to stay entrenched in your work and even help lighten up your mood when you are feeling down. It is best to know which type of music helps you focus and which can tend to distract you to make sure that you are keeping a good balance when dealing with larger projects.
7. Create Templates To Save Time
If you have worked in an office before, you know how monotonous certain tasks can be after doing them over and over again. One of the easiest ways to help get some time back into your day is to create templates for your most common tasks to help prevent doing the same work over and over each day. This can range from spreadsheets, word documents, and even emails. This will allow you to focus on the content more than typing out the same structured reports.
8. Find Out How You Work Best – Hardest To Easiest Or Easiest To Hardest
Going back to the hack of writing down your most important tasks of the day, this next task can help double-hack your day. Once you have your workload set for the day, decide if you want to work on the tasks from a hardest to easiest workflow, or easiest to hardest. This will mainly rely on how you work in the morning. If you are a morning person, getting your hardest work done first may be your best bet. If you struggle with mornings, get a few easy tasks knocked out early to steamroll into larger tasks.
9. Always Keep A Pen & A Pad
If you are one that walks around often or goes to meetings, it is highly recommended to always keep a pad and pen on you to write down any tasks or requests that some asks about. These can easily be forgotten if you are questioned a few times on your trip to the break room if you try to memorize them, so make sure that you have some way of writing them down to make sure that you get them done.
10. Get Some Natural Light
Last but not least, one of the easiest ways to boost your productivity is to get some natural light. While some may be lucky enough to have a window in their office, simply stepping outside on your break can help to give you some much-needed energy to get yours through the day. Taking your lunch break outdoors can also do wonders for your natural energy levels.
