When working or studying, all of us suffer from laziness, low self-esteem, and low productivity. As humans, it’s natural for us to get tired and feel emotionally and physically over-burdened. But we also know that lack of productivity often gets the best of us and we can suffer tremendously because of it.
Therefore, how does one boost their work performance exponentially? If you’re an ambitious yet lazy student, an overworked tired working parent, or a lazy employee, you must read this post and apply the hacks in your daily routine, and you will notice increased productivity in no time.
1) Do NOT Multitask
As people, we often make the mistake that we can do multiple things simultaneously. From a scientific point of view, multitasking is a myth. Our brains are not built to multitask; instead they are programmed to perform one task at a specific time. Therefore, if you think you can multitask, you are mistaken.
Why? You may wonder. Our brains process information when we give it some input; in this case, the input is given by our five senses. Let’s suppose, we switch from one activity to another, our brain will get information in bits and pieces which it won’t be able to process efficiently. In doing so, it will make mistakes, therefore, you will have to make changes time and again, which will make the process more tedious.
Thus, to increase your productivity and efficiency, you must concentrate on a single activity at a given time, get done with it, and THEN jump onto the second one.
2) Take Break from Social Media
In today’s digital age, all of us are well-connected in the digital world. While there is nothing wrong with being connected to your friends and family, it can be a real time bogger and stressful.
Research proves that social media negatively impacts our mental health and is also wasteful of our time. We tend to scroll endlessly and aimlessly into a well of envy and anxiety, therefore, it’s best if you use social media apps to a minimum and set a time for yourself to browse through your social media accounts.
Also, its best if you check your email twice a day. To cause yourself less anxiety attacks and enhance your productivity, you must check your email once in the morning and once after having lunch. It is also recommended that you keep your morning check no more than 15-30 minutes and respond to urgent emails or look out for any meetings and time changes. Your afternoon check-up can be more in-depth but keep it no more than an hour.
Also, when working, turn-off all notifications from your email and social media apps. When our phone rings, we are tempted to look away, which disrupts our work schedule and affects our productivity.
The lesser you spend your time online, the more productive you will be.
3) Take Breaks at Regular Intervals
All work no play makes Jack a dull boy, same is the case with working people. All work, no break, makes us unproductive and inefficient.
Back in the day, when norms were not backed by scientific research, employees were required to take a break after four hours of work, with an hour-long lunch break.
However, recent studies suggest that sitting in front of the desk for too long can cause eye damage, muscle fatigue, and joint pain and that you should take a seventeen minute break after fifty minutes of consistent sitting.
During the break, you should, however, not sit in front of the screen, instead, pour down some water in your eyes and go out for a small walk. Stretch your muscles to decrease the soreness in your muscles. Have light snacks in lesser amounts, but do not eat too much, otherwise, you’ll feel sleepy and droopy for the rest of the evening.
4) Have An Organized Routine
When we have too much on our plates, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and feel flustered. It is only natural to feel that way; however, if you organize yourself a tad bit, your life will become easier.
To collect yourself, start-off with an organized morning routine. Most of us, especially since we’re all working from home, tend to make the mistake of getting up right before our morning meetings. But that shouldn’t be the case.
Instead, you must have a morning routine, which you should follow religiously, even if you can’t try to abide by it as much as possible.
Establish a work routine for yourself. How, you may wonder, try the following:
Get to know yourself. Experiment and see about what sort of routine suits you and works for you. Ask yourself whether you are a morning or an evening person? Most organizations work in the day so you might have to work during the day, thus, to keep yourself active, and establish a morning routine for yourself.
When you get up, do not check your phone, instead, get out from the bed, meditate, have breakfast, log onto your laptop and then browse through your email and avoid using social media apps during your work time.
To organize yourself, you could try the following:
- Make an office work desk for yourself, which has all the work essentials. Also, put small pot plants on it, green unleashes our creativity.
- Keep a water bottle on your desk.
- Keep tissue papers at bay.
- Have a comfortable and adjustable chair
5) Snack Healthily
While working, it is extremely important that you recharge your batteries and not work on an empty stomach. However, some people make the mistake of eating unhealthy foods. You must know that snacking unhealthily affects your work productivity.
While we understand that it is important for you to eat while working, but it’s extremely important that you look after your diet and start consuming healthy foods. So, we recommend that you keep yourself hydrated and consume a high protein and low carb diet.
If you have to work in the morning, we will recommend that you eat foods that are not rich in high fats and high sugar. Instead, you must consume a protein diet, such as boiled eggs, light chicken, and nuts.
We will also recommend that you keep dry fruits at your table and eat when you feel hungry.
Also, keep yourself hydrated and not consume too much sugary and energy drinks, because, once their effect wears off, you will come crashing down. So, it’s best if you drink water as much as possible to keep yourself hydrated and fresh. Additionally, according to this dentist in Virginia Beach, energy drinks can be detrimental to your dental health due to their high sugar content.
6) Set Daily Targets
With so much on our plate and very little time, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed and go astray with your intended project. Therefore, to organize yourself and keep yourself at bay with the most important tasks, it’s imperative that you set achievable targets on a daily basis.
If you do not have a clear vision about what you should accomplish in a day, your mind will reboot itself and distract you from the issue at hand. It will most likely ask you to focus on the easy and unimportant stuff. While the unimportant stuff may be easy to carry out, it won’t be fruitful for you. Also, you will think that your work is easy, so you’re likely to procrastinate.
Therefore, to keep up with your work schedule, you should always set 1–5 daily goals and write them down in an online productivity planner (Google Sheets or Calendar) or your physical journal. Be sure you create the clarity of knowing exactly what it is that you should be doing today. In the end, you will have to ensure that your goals are not over the top and can be accomplished by you easily.
If you follow this hack religiously, you’ll notice a sharp rise in your daily productivity.
7) Organize Your Workspace
Whether you work in an office or your home, the place where you sit as well as your workstation has a huge impact on your productivity. Very often, what happens is that we get lost or distracted by the stuff that’s lying around on our tables.
We either ‘busy’ ourselves in browsing through an old calendar or spend too much time in finding a pen that gets lost too often in the mess that exists on our desks.
Therefore, to optimize your time and increase your productivity, set aside an hour or thirty minutes every week to clean and declutter your workspace.
When we say declutter, we also mean that you clean the drawers, dust and sanitize, and organize your workstation in such a manner that you don’t have to do the same process again and again.
A clean and organized workspace, you will notice will increase your work performance exponentially.
Another problem is that many people don’t have access to a sophisticated workspace. A solution for this is to get into a high end coworking space in your city. Working along with many other productive people around you will boost your enthusiasm.
Conclusion
It’s normal to have some bad days, but if your bad days are consistent and your productivity is rock-bottom for consistent days, you should be worried, but with the hacks that we have told you, it should be easy to get yourself on track.
Also, a last tip if you lack motivation, always have a diary of motivational quotes with you at all times.
