9 ways to increase your Productivity
1.Schedule Everything – Personal Time & Professional Time
It is an Art to balance your professional and personal time. Time management is one of the most part of being productive as it allows you set priorities and also makes an estimate how long a task will take to be done. It also allows you to create a productive morning routine. Scheduling your time and focusing what is important not only makes a leader productive but also more focused towards goal.
2.Identify your most productive time of day and work accordingly
“Understand how your brain works and when you are most productive. For me, I’ve gotten rid of lunch meetings to keep my productive time going as long as I can.” – Ryan Smith, CEO and co-founder of Qualtrics
Every leader has a particular time of the day when they tend to get more focused and creative. For some it might be morning, for some it might be afternoon and for some it can be even during night. Prioritizing your work and getting it done during your most productive time helps you schedule the work which requires more time and attention. Recognizing your productive time can not only help you get your work done with maximum capacity but also allows a leader to reach his goal sooner.
3.Learn to Say No
Words of a Leader have power and once a Leader says no it means no. A negative response from a Leader has its own benefit and has proven to be more productive than ever. Allowing yourself to be more focused one task is more productive than taking in different tasks at the same time, learn to say no to a task that is not important as and when required. Learn to say no to your employees is when there is a bad idea and give good reason for it, it offers opportunity and clarify objectives for your company.
Leaders should ask a question, give reason to say no, say no with an encouragement and be clear on your objectives. Learning to say no as and when required as it creates different objectives for the company and proven to be productive for both the company and the leader.
4.Involve your team in the decision-making process and delegate
Leaders know how to balance emotion with reason and make decisions that have a positive impact on themselves as well as their employees. Instead of making all the decisions on their own, they tend involve their team in decision making process and delegate the work. This not only saves time but also a productive method for both the company and the leader.
5.Take Time to Think and reflect
Leadership is all about thinking Leaders have many responsibilities requiring them to perform diverse tasks and to monitor progress on a multitude of goals. In addition to managing their own performance, leaders are also accountable for their followers’ performance. They need time to reflect and think to come up with new ideas or any solutions for better performance. Leaders need to carve out time for themselves for self-reflection which in turn can improve their leadership skills, be more productive and more importantly enables you to have better understanding of others.
6.Finish one task at a time with focus
Well there are a lot of tasks and steps for a leader to reach its goal , and to give the same amount of time and attention to each every task is also important. Leaders for being more productive try to focus and give their attention to one task at a time and finish that task so that they can focus on the next task. Rather than doing a lot of multi-tasking focusing on one at a time has proven to be productive and efficient.
7.Maintain To-Do Lists everyday
Well planning for tomorrow, making a todo list is a task in itself but for productivity and efficiency making a list everyday is important for a leader.To start your day with a list can help you recognize important tasks or the ones that take more time and which one needs more attention. Like imagine how productive it would be if you don’t have to go through each and every mail just the important ones in your todo list can save so much of your time and energy.
Also imagine starting your day without a list or a plan , don’t know where to start or how to start can consume so much of your unnecessary energy and time that can lead to procrastination. Every leader has their todo list for to be more productive.
8.Schedule daily breaks. It is completely OK to take a break when you are not feeling productive anymore.
.“When we take time to sleep, recharge we are more effective as entrepreneurs, as leaders,” Huffington says. “Our cognitive performance improves. We make better decisions. We are less reactive. We get less upset when bad things happen.” –Ariana Huffington, CEO and founder of Thrive Global, former co-founder of The Huffington Post
Working without breaks can be stressful and exhaustive, Leaders even tend to feel not being productive sometimes and at that point taking a break and recharging yourself is completely ok. Taking breaks may actually help your brain recharge and rejuvenate that in turn can improve your work efficiency.Infact scheduling daily breaks to boost up yourself is the best way of being productive for a leader,as overworking cannot only hinder your performance but can also affect your health.
9.Utilize apps and use technology wisely to improve efficiency and productivity, and to organize your schedule
Doing everything manually can just lead you to consume so much of unnecessary time and energy. Leaders need to use the right technology that could help them organize their schedules, incorporate automation tools, use apps wisely that could help them increase their productivity and efficiency which could be beneficial for themselves and the organization.
