Improve your productivity at work with a few simple changes

For most of us, improving our productivity at work seems like an eternal work in progress. We sign up for seminars, attend workshops and read thousands of articles on productivity in hopes to create some extra time in our busy, busy days.

Everyone’s process will be different, but there always seems to be a better way, a more efficient way to get things done. Implement a few of these simple changes and you may be surprised with the extra time you find in your workday.

• Write everything down. Don’t keep your to-do list bottled up in your mind, write it down and post it in a highly visible place on your desk. Writing everything down will help free your mind, allowing more creativity to flow.


• Prioritize. Put your to-do list in order, with the most important tasks at the top of the list. Knowing your priorities will help you focus more on what matters and less on what could wait until later.


• Be aware. Do your best to focus on one task at a time and be fully conscious in whatever you’re working on. The less distracted you are, the more you will be able to accomplish.


• Find your best time to work. Everyone has a part of the day where they get the most done in the least amount of time. Work on the most important tasks during the time of the day when you are most productive. You’ll produce better work, faster.


• Take a break. Give yourself a break from time to time. When you start feeling stressed or tired, get up and take a walk. Whether it’s to the break room or around the building, a quick walk will help clear your mind and improve your personal productivity back at your desk.


• Quality not quantity. It may be possible to speed through your to-do list and check off every task by the end of the day, but will you come out of it with quality work? Focus on each task as it comes and congratulate yourself for completing each one.

Do not disturb: Daydreamers hard at work

The next time you walk by Bob’s desk and see him staring into space, daydreaming about his summer plans, you may want to think twice about telling him to snap out of it and get back to work.

What looks like lazy daydreaming on the outside may actually be a sign that Bob’s brain is busy finding the solution to a difficult problem.

New research out of the University of British Columbia suggests that our brains are still hard at work while we daydream. The study found that activity in numerous areas of the brain increases when our minds wander. Researchers also discovered that the problem-solving areas of our brains, once thought to stay dormant while daydreaming, are actually highly active during such episodes.

"Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks." (Science Daily)

“One of the things that I hope might come out of our study is that people realize that their brains are definitely not getting shut down when they mind-wander,” she said. “They’re very active….You have this unique brain state where instead of having one or the other shut down, both networks are available to be used. It’s a mental state that’s really not lazy, from the point of view of the brain.”

That may be why it seems as if many people’s best ideas come from inadvertent straying of the mind.” (Ubyssey Online)

So, the next time you have to solve a difficult problem or come up with a creative idea, sitting down and aggressively thinking about it could be the least effective way to find a solution.

As the research suggests, it might be best to let yourself work on a simple task that gives your mind room to wander. You may be surprised with the creative ideas your mind comes up with while you were daydreaming.

We’ll leave you with a quick clip from a commercial you’ve probably seen before. But this time, the practice of “ideating” may not look like such a bad idea. Take a look:

Harnessing the power of group productivity

Does the number of people in a group improve the group’s productivity or does it just enable more in the group to slack off?

The authors at PsyBlog explained the answer in a post about the psychological effects group dynamics can have on productivity. It turns out that many workers will use the cover of group work to slack off.

Psychologists call the workplace phenomenon social loafing. And it’s the reason why you may want to think twice the next time you start adding more employees to a group when you want them to complete more work.

Since the idea was introduced in the 1890s, researchers have fount that social loafing can affect people in a wide range of group settings. From pulling ropes to yelling and even clapping, when people were in groups of six or larger their output was only one-third of what it was on their own.

The author does note that the findings don’t necessarily translate to groups focused on knowledge-based production:

For example a group problem-solving session relies on the brains of the best people in the group - social loafing wouldn't necessarily reduce productivity in this group as markedly.

However, it may be easy to find examples of social loafing in our own group work or in the actions of a former group member.


Why do people slack off in groups?

Standard explanations for the social loafing effect involve three main factors:

• Expectations - That person is probably slacking off, so I can slack off too.
• Anonymity - When the work is spread out, so is the blame.
• Standards - Most groups fail to establish clear standards, so some will be confused about how much they need to do.

Understanding the reasons behind social loafing can help us reduce it. Here’s how the author suggests deterring it:

• Task importance. If workers think the task is important enough, they’ll work harder and slack off less.
• Group importance. When workers can identify with the group or feel a better sense of belonging, they’re less likely to partake in social loafing.
• Understanding workloads. Or as the author explains it, the “sucker effect” is when you feel misled when you think others in the group are slacking off. Understanding that everyone has a responsibility can eliminate such feelings.

Unfortunately, most of us have either been guilty of slacking off in a group setting or have had to deal with a social loafer at one time or another. Knowing how to deal with those slackers can make a big difference in the group’s productivity.

How do you deter employees from “social loafing” in group work settings? What have you found that worked or failed to keep employees contributing equally?

Top 10 learning tools for training pros

For the past few years, Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has been asking learning professionals, from education and training, to chime in on what productivity tools would make their personal top 10 list.

Right now, Jane is in the process of compiling the Top 100 Tools for Learning in 2009 and it’s looking like a tough race. As the rankings stand today, here are the Top 10 Tools for Learning:

1. Twitter - Microblogging tool
2. Delicious - Social bookmarking tool
3. Google Reader - RSS/Feed reader
4. Wordpress - Blogging tool
5. Google Docs - Web-based documents
6. Skype - Instant messaging/VoIP
   
7. Slideshare - Hosting presentations
8. Google Search - Web search tool
9. PowerPoint - Presentation software
10. Firefox - Web browser and extensions

It’s interesting to see what other professionals out there are using, but even more interesting to see how the trends have changed over the past few years. Last year it was Delicious, Firefox and Google Reader at the top and Twitter ranked down at number 11.

Almost 100 learning professionals have shared their top 10 learning tools so far this year. Visit Jane's site and suggest what tools you think should be at the top.

How to feel happier at work ... instantly

What’s one way to start feeling happier at work almost instantly?

Play an online game. But, not just any game.

The Matrix brainteaser at MindHabits.com is an award-winning program developed by a McGill University psychology researcher that has been proven to improve your mood.

The game, which asks you to find smiling faces in a sea of frowning ones, has been shown to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, making you feel happier. It’s free to play for an hour, but after that you’ll have to pay a one-time $20 fee for unlimited games.

Research suggests that playing video games at work may help employees reduce stress and increase productivity.

“More than 80 percent of online gamers who play on and off throughout the workday said they are able to better focus on work after playing. A reported 72 percent actually rely on game breaks to help them deal with job-related stress,” according to a WorldWinner survey released last year.

MindHabits offers three other games on their site, all aimed at reducing stress and improving self-confidence. Take a break and improve your mood by testing your gaming skills on the Matrix.

Does updating your Facebook status make you a better employee?

Surfing the Internet may no longer be seen as a warning sign that an employee is a lazy slacker, but actually a sign that you have a top performer on your hands, according to the latest research out of Australia.

Earlier this month, the University of Melbourne released a study showing how employees who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9% more productive than those who don’t.

The practice of “workplace Internet leisure browsing” or WILB, helped to sharpen workers’ concentration and improve productivity after taking a leisure break.

From the Reuters story:

"People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration," [said study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing] on the university's website (www.unimelb.edu.au/).

"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased productivity," he said.

According to the study of 300 workers, 70 percent of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB.

Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites, playing online games and watching videos on YouTube.

"Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online under the pretence that it costs millions in lost productivity," said Coker. "That's not always the case."

The study focused on workers who used the Internet in moderation (less than 20% of their workday). The authors also note that people “who behave with Internet addiction tendencies” will be less productive than those without a problem.

Surfing the Internet as a new idea to improve employee productivity ... Could this be a manager’s worst nightmare come true?

What do you think about the research? Do short “leisure browsing” breaks make for better, more productive employees?

Boost employee productivity by keeping score?

In the search for ideas on how to improve employee productivity, earlier today I ran across an article from Colorado’s Steamboat Pilot & Today about a local business owner’s creative approach to improving his teams’ productivity.

Steamboat Motors manager Jeff Steinke has improved his bottom line and is helping other small business owners boost their own by putting his motto, “If you measure it, you improve it,” into practice.

“Make sure your employees know how they are judged. Establishing criteria in the short term is important. Employees need to know what they need to accomplish that day,” Steinke recently told a group of business owners at a seminar.

His approach to employee productivity at his dealership is based on his assumption that everyone is competitive by nature. In his dealership’s service department, where diagnostic and repair tasks can be standardized, he’s turned work into a productivity competition.

Here’s a clip from the article:

“In our service department, we sell time,” Steinke said. He observed that if a service technician can accomplish a repair usually allotted one hour in eight-tenths of an hour, that technician has achieved 120 percent productivity.

Steinke makes certain everyone in the service department knows who is achieving by posting a productivity scorecard on a door for all to see.

Business owners who adopt a similar technique can be prepared for the veteran employees initially to rebel but gradually come around to the new regime, he said.

“They’ll go out there and tear (the scorecards) down,” Steinke said. “It takes about two weeks to purge.”

He backs up his productivity charts with three-ringed binders stuffed with detailed job descriptions and pay scales tied to productivity levels.

In addition to posting employee productivity scores, Steinke works to improve productivity by giving employees a voice in how their departments run. Following recognition, being involved in their department is most important to employees and is “one of the biggest things we can overlook,” according to Steinke.

After reading the article, I still have some questions:

Productivity may improve when employees finish job in “eight-tenths of an hour” that were originally allotted an hour to complete, but was the quality of their work affected? Is the owner more focused on productivity than in producing a quality service?

According to the article, businesses should “be prepared for the veteran employees initially to rebel” when putting Steinke’s system into practice. Could turning work into competition hurt morale and cause resentment among employees?


What do you think about this approach to employee productivity? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Twitter tips to help you stay productive at work

New online tools emerge everyday with the promise that they will improve our workdays, keeping us more productive than we’ve ever been before. While some of these tools do improve personal productivity, others can be a complete waste of time.

Twitter is one of those tools that has proponents on both sides of the productivity argument. One little bird with one simple question has taken the social media world by storm, presenting limitless possibilities both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

If you’ve started using Twitter at work, you may have found that all of the connections you make and information you find can be beneficial during the workday. However, you can easily get lost in the overload of information and find yourself wasting time.

Stop wasting your time and follow a few of these tips for using Twitter to improve your productivity:

• Disconnect. Not all the time, but turn Twitter off from time to time and completely focus on the task in front of you.


• Connect with coworkers. Instead of sending an email, or calling someone in the office to ask a simple question, ask them on Twitter. Sending a direct message on Twitter to a coworker can help you get the information you need in a non-distracting way.


• Use Twitter search tools. You can use the Twitter Search site or search directly from whatever Twitter platform you're using, to find out what people are saying about anything you're interested in.


• Remind yourself. Simple Twitter applications like Timer can help you manage daily tasks. Simply send a direct message to @timer and the program will tweet you back with a reminder at the time you set.


• Follow people who share valuable information. If you try to only follow people who share valuable information, there will be less nonsense to sort through.


• Subsribe to TwiTip. TwiTip is a blog dedicated to everything Twitter related. Darren Rowse delivers great information daily on the latest must have Twitter tools to help you get the most out of your tweeting experience.

Have you tried to use Twitter at work, does it help you to be more productive or is it a complete distraction?


Here are a few more posts on productivity and Twitter you should check out:

Productivity tips: How to become a ‘task ninja’

Top 8 ways trainers can use Twitter

How to use Twitter for training

Personal productivity training, six simple tips

Productivity tips: How to become a ‘task ninja’

Throughout the day many of us get stuck in periods of inaction. Whether you’re procrastinating, completing small tasks to avoid the important ones or too distracted to get started on anything, the fact is, we’ve all been there.

So, what's the best way to get yourself out of a state of inaction?

Well, you can start by training yourself to become a “task ninja.”

I recently came across the idea in a post by Leo Babauta at his blog, Zen Habits. He’s also the author of The Power of Less, an insightful new book on personal productivity.

Instead of focusing on our inaction, Leo suggests that you “get all Ninja on your actions” and start forming an “Action Habit” instead.

Here are Leo's five quick steps to help you get started:

1. Figure out your key actions. Focusing on the right actions is just as important as the doing. Don’t spend a lot of time in this step — just quickly decide your Top 3 actions for today.

2. Pick one key action, and visualize the outcome. How will it look when you’re done? Again, don’t spend a lot of time here — just form a quick picture in your mind.

3. Just start. Tell yourself, “Do it now!” Make it a mantra. Don’t mess around with tools, with distractions, with anything that will get in the way of doing this task. Strip away everything but the task, and get going!

4. Focus on the moment. Just be in this task, don’t worry about the future or what mistakes you might make or might have made before. Just focus on doing this task, as best you can. Immerse yourself in it.

5. Get to done. Complete the task. Feel good about it! Pat yourself on the back!

After you’ve gone through all of the steps, repeat the process with your next habit. Like any habit, it will get easier with practice.

Improve your success rate by eliminating some common barriers to the Action Habit:

• Perfection isn’t necessary. Just focus on completing the task now. You can go back and improve it later.
• Don’t worry about the unnecessary. If you’re writing for example, don’t worry about the font or format of your document, just write.
• Eliminate distractions. Turn off instant messaging, Twitter, and let your phone calls go to voice mail. If you can’t concentrate in the office, get up and move to another location such as a quite conference room or cafe down the street.
• Break it up. If you’re intimidated by the size of the task, break it up into manageable pieces.

Training yourself to get more done is possible, but only if you know where to start. Zen Habits is a great blog to read if you’re looking for ways to new ways to improve your personal productivity on a daily basis.

You can also check out a few of our past posts on training yourself to be more productive:

How to be productive when business is slow

Productivity: Rules for effective meetings

Productivity: How to get started and avoid pitfalls

Personal productivity training, six simple tips

How to deliver employee training like a ninja