It is important that your business, regardless of how big or small it is, runs as productively as possible. We know that it isn’t easy to be continually productive and it is even more difficult to ensure your workforce are always productive, especially if you aren’t there all the time. But you should try to increase productivity as much as possible because this will have a massive impact on the success of your business. Which is why we put together this handy guide to increasing productivity in the workplace.
Productivity and working alone
If you own your own small business and work alone running your own business means handling all of the responsibilities of the business yourself. You have to be the administrator, the customer service representative, the accountant, and any other role your business needs for it to thrive. Trying to juggle so much will naturally have a negative impact on your productivity.
If you work alone you can increase productivity by:
Creating a good routine for yourself will help you to better manage and utilise your time. Working for yourself means you can do things like sleep in late. But just because you can do these things, that doesn’t mean you should. Actually, getting up at a reasonable time and starting work at the same time helps you to get the most out of your day, every day.
Make a schedule and allocate certain time frames to specific tasks. This helps you to stop procrastination, ensures you tackle all the tasks you need to do, and it helps to break down complex tasks into smaller and more manageable chunks.
Prioritise the more important tasks over the less important. We understand you want to get everything done, but not at the expense of stressing yourself out. Focusing on the lesser important tasks is a typical procrastination trap you don’t want to fall into.
Time wasting activities
One of the biggest things any business can do to increase productivity is to reduce time wasting activities. Unless an activity is crucial, you shouldn’t waste any time on it. Some of the biggest time wasting activities include:
- Meetings. Yes, meetings are a crucial part of business. But too many meetings are a hindrance. Meetings should only be held when they are absolutely necessary and the number of attendees should be limited to only those who need to attend. All meetings should have a clear agenda and once everything has been covered, the meeting should end.
- Emails. They are an excellent way to communicate and share files, but when it comes to explanations or negotiations, communicating through email can take much longer. Sometimes it is better to pick up the phone and call, or chat instantly on a messenger service, than it is to email back and forth.
- Staff. Workers have a tendency to distract one another. Whether they are chatting, or going for a lunch that runs over, or congregated in the kitchen area, if they aren’t working, then your workforce isn’t being as productive as it could be. Provide opportunities for your workers to socialise on their breaks and/or outside of work hours.
- Social media. If you let your employees access social media then you are accepting that your workers aren’t as productive as they could be, because we all know how distracting social media is.
- Disorganisation. If your business is disorganised then any and every task will take much longer. If everything is organised then your staff won’t lose time searching for paperwork or anything else they need.
Techniques to increase productivity
Here are some techniques you can implement to increase productivity:
- Track how time is being used versus how time should be used, to see if your team are working productively.
- Give everyone regular breaks. The last thing you want is your staff to burn out and lose all motivation. Make sure everyone gets regular breaks.
- Make deadline and commit to seeing them through. When you set a deadline make sure your workers know what the deadline is and how they can achieve it.
- Avoid unnecessary meetings, consider whether the information you want to communicate could be done through a simple email instead.
- Avoid multitasking. Multitasking can lead to human errors and your staff feeling burnt out.
- Don’t try to be perfect, striving for perfection is exhausting and can lead to you feeling disappointed if you don’t achieve it.
- Be proactive, try to limit or remove future problems and vulnerabilities.
- Decorate your office, make it a pleasant place to work, it should be both physically and visually enjoyable.
There are lots of other ways you can increase productivity in your workplace, but implementing some of the above is a fantastic way to start.
