Maintaining a productive state can be tricky, especially in an office setup. This is because several factors can hinder your productivity. Thankfully, there are solutions.
Whether you’re at home, in a shared office, or you’re a digital nomad who’s constantly changing your workspace, zoning in on your productivity can be a challenge. Each environment can bring its own distractions.
If you’re a one-man team, the pressure to deliver can be a lot. You need to arrange meetings, deliver reports to clients on time, communicate with and track suppliers, and generate revenue. Thus, there’s no time to fall behind.
In this article, we’ll provide the tips needed to help you maintain productivity in any office or work setup.
Personalise Your Work Station
Your workspace affects how you think. Studies reveal that aspects such as natural light can improve your well-being and productivity. Additionally, adding plants can introduce a calming environment in the workplace.
This is why you will see many office spaces prioritise greenery. If you fall into the category of ‘working remotely’, you have the benefit of being able to control what your space looks like. If you’re in a shared space, all you have is a desk. You can personalise it by adding a small desk plant, pictures, and small artworks that will keep you motivated to work. An inspirational quote or message can also be a good idea.
Comfort is Key
Productivity is not only about having an aesthetically pleasing space. You need to ensure you are comfortable enough, as this directly impacts whether you work to the best of your ability or not.
Light shining in your eyes, a chair that makes your back ache, or a mouse that causes you more frustration than functionality are all small ways in which your productivity is broken down.
You should ensure that you prioritise ergonomics. Poor posture can negatively affect your productivity. Invest in a decent chair that provides good back support and allows you to adjust your screen to eye level. If you cannot afford new equipment, improvise. Stack books under your laptop. Use a cushion for lumbar support. Sometimes, placing a bench under your feet can also help you improve your posture and comfort.
Don’t forget little options like setting your screen to ‘eye comfort mode’
Maintain a Clean Space
Have a look at your visual triggers. What do you see when you look up from your screen? Is it a messy pile of papers with unfinished tasks? When you have an unclean space, it can create mental clutter, which inhibits productivity.
A clean space can also support faster execution of processes. Some SMEs struggle with digital clutter where teams use e-mail, messaging apps, and project boards at the same time. Thus, there is no clear structure.
A Clean Digital Environment
If you want to improve productivity in the workplace, start with digital discipline. To ensure a clean digital environment. Ensure that you do the following:
- Digitise your processes: If your company is still heavy on manual processes. Ensure you convert manual, paper-based tasks into digital workflows to streamline operations. There is a wide range of tech tools to help you digitise. This reduces clutter and speeds up access to information.
- Set fixed times to check e-mails: Avoid having messy and distracting e-mails. If you constantly have e-mail notifications, then there is hardly any time to focus on other tasks. If you allocate set times for e-mails during your work day, you’re able to focus on your other tasks, but also not miss out on your e-mails.
- Close tabs you do not need: Some browsers, like Google Chrome, tend to lag when there are too many open tabs. To speed up your system’s processing and clear digital clutter, you should close the tabs that you don’t use. A clean browser window minimises your load and helps you focus on the task at hand.
- Archive messages that are complete: Move finished projects and resolved conversations out of your main inbox to keep your focus on active tasks. This declutters your digital workspace, making it easier to find ongoing correspondence.
- Remove duplicate files: Regularly check and delete redundant files that take up unnecessary storage. This simplifies file searches and ensures you are always working with the most current version.
- Organise folders by project: Create a logical, consistent folder structure based on your current projects or clients. This makes file retrieval fast and intuitive, saving time wasted on searching for documents.
Implement Good Time Management Practices
Having a clear structure for time management allows you to maximise your productivity. There is a wide range of time management strategies you can implement to maximise your productivity.
1. The Pomodoro Method: Work on a task with full focus for 25 minutes. Then take a 5-minute break. After four sessions, take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. This method keeps your focus steady, stops burnout, and makes big tasks feel easier by breaking them into small, doable pieces.
2. Time Blocks: Set specific times in your calendar for each task or type of work. Instead of a general list of things to do, your schedule shows exactly when you will work on a report. This can be attending a meeting or checking e-mails. This makes your calendar a tool for action, making sure important tasks get your full attention.
3. Task Priority with the Eisenhower Matrix: Sort tasks by how urgent and how important they are:
- Urgent and Important: These are the tasks you need to do first.
- Important but Not Urgent: These are tasks you can plan for later.
- Urgent but Not Important: These tasks are urgent but can be delegated to others.
- Neither Urgent nor Important: These tasks can be removed if possible, as they are not urgent or important.
This grid helps you focus on what really matters, not just the loudest tasks.
4. Group Similar Tasks: Do similar small tasks together. For example, answer all e-mails at one time, make calls at another, and do admin in a separate block. This keeps your mind from constantly switching. You save mental energy for work that needs deep focus.
Increasing your productivity is attainable. In your business, you can also encourage your staff to use some of these techniques. In the short term, it may feel like nothing has changed, but in the long run, you will see the difference.
