4 key ways to increase your productivity at work

Knowing that you have been productive, and accomplished everything you wanted to get done that day can have a rather positive effect on your overall mental health.

Seeing that our work life can often affect the quality of our personal lives it is of utmost importance to create a balance between the two. In order to get all the necessary work done, we must substitute our bad habits with better working strategies. With that being said, it is not about working harder or longer, it’s about working clever.

The following tips should be used as a general guideline but it is important to note that we should find what works best for our personal needs;

1. Start your day by waking up early, waking up early allows you to do all the things that need to be done without rushing through the door last minute in fear of being late. This will make sure that you have enough time to mentally prepare yourself for the day making you feel motivated about being productive.

2. Plan each day ahead by creating an attainable to-do list and prioritizing the important tasks. By doing this you are able to maintain focus on what needs to be done and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

3. A mistake that is often commonly done is taking one long 30-minute break in a shift of 8 hours. It is more ideal to split your 30-minute break into 3 breaks to allow your mind to refresh between tasks, this also prevents you from feeling tired throughout the day especially when working in an office environment.

4. Don’t underestimate the power of having an organised de-cluttered desk! Having a clean and clear space to work in results in thinking more clearly as well as helping you to avoid any distractions. You may also save time by not having to search for a misplaced document on a cluttered desk.

Despite the fact that we will always try our best to be as productive as we possibly can be, it goes without saying that there will always be a day when we slack off but we shouldn’t let that get to us. It is during those days that we should forgive ourselves and use that as motivation to reboot our productivity.

As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi once said in his bestselling book (Flow) “The more a job resembles a game – with variety, appropriate and flexible challenges, clear goals and immediate feedback — the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker’s level of development.”