Want to be more productive at work? Putting in more hours isn’t the answer.

According to a study by John Pencavel of Stanford University, working more hours doesn’t lead to getting more things done. In fact, output sees a sharp drop after working 50 hours in a week, and it just gets worse from there.

Rather than devoting long hours, you can be more effective in what you do by working smarter. Here are a few suggestions on how you can get started,

Prioritise items in your to-do list

It’s not enough to make a to-do list to boost your productivity. If anything, a comprehensive task list might overwhelm you and hurt your output.

For a more effective to-do list, rank all your tasks by urgency and importance. To make the exercise easier and visually clearer, place all your to-dos on a table divided into four parts:

• The top left section is for urgent and important tasks
• The top right is not urgent and important tasks
• The bottom left is for urgent and not important tasks
• The bottom right is for not urgent and not important tasks

Note that “urgent” refers to tasks that demand immediate attention. If you don’t complete them, you’re looking at serious negative consequences. “Important” tasks are those that contribute to your long-term (personal or professional) goals.

The trick here is to add each of your listed tasks in their appropriate quadrant.

Tip: Among equally urgent and important tasks, choose the hardest one first. Once that’s done, doing the rest would be easier for you.

Develop and follow a routine

You can make the process of carrying out a task even easier by turning it into a routine. Once established, you won’t have to think about the task or need discipline; you do it on autopilot.

Here are a few tips how:

• Look for smaller tasks on your to-do list and combine them. This will save you time and minimise interruptions. For instance, if you’re into journaling, write a post for your company blog afterwards. Or you could group all your phone calls in one hour and paperwork in another.
  
  
• Turn your task into a game to motivate yourself to finishing it. For example, you can reward yourself each time you shorten your time to hire.
  
  
• For your routine to be successful, you need to stick to it. If you follow the routine long enough (e.g. 30 days), it will turn into a habit. Developing a routine into a habit will make the task automatic and use up less energy and time.

Get an accountability partner

An accountability partner is someone who helps you follow through on a goal you want to carry out. You can also keep your goal to yourself, but it’ll be easier to make excuses.

The American Society of Training and Development found that people are 65% likely to reach a goal after committing to another person. The likelihood goes up to 95% when holding regular meetings with accountability partners.

For best results:

• Get someone you don’t want to disappoint.
• Meet with your accountability partner on a regular basis.
• Be honest with your accountability partner.

Create a standardised process

You shouldn’t keep changing how you do things. Otherwise, your output won’t be consistent. To address this, you need to standardise your process and carry out the same tasks the same way.

Having standard processes comes with a few other benefits such as:

• Getting the same quality results, even if you delegate the task.
• Performing tasks at a faster, more efficient rate.
• Ending the need for guesswork.

Of course, you also have to make sure the process works well, and that you (and your employees) always follow it.

Keep your meetings within 15 minutes

Having too many meetings ruin productivity. They keep you from getting any actual work done, and can actually be replaced by email, IM, or a phone call. Plus, meetings are usually scheduled for an hour even if the agenda can take only 15 minutes to discuss.

So if you must schedule a meeting (virtual or in-person), limit it to 15 minutes. For in-person meetings, do it standing up to help keep it brisk.

Take breaks to relieve your stress

Everyone experiences stress from work, relationships, and the future, among others. While stress isn’t always bad (a little helps you stay focused), too much of it will affect your health, concentration, and performance.

To help you cope with stress, make it a point to take 5 to 15 minute breaks about every 60 to 90 minutes. For every 2 to 4 hours of work, take a break for least 30 minutes.

As a best practice, stay away from screens during your break. Social media, in particular, can increase stress and affect your ability to focus. Instead, you can nap, stretch, take a walk, exercise, have a healthy snack, or meditate.

By taking breaks, you’ll make better decisions and concentrate for longer periods. You’ll also increase productivity and creativity.

Automate your tasks

One of the most effective ways to get more things done is to make them more automatic so that you’ll:

• Work faster.
• Consume less physical energy.
• Free up mental energy.

The easiest way to do this is using technology to your advantage. Here are a few examples to give you some ideas.

• QuickBooks lets you automate payment of invoices and sending direct deposits to employees.
• Gmail has a feature that lets you create and send canned responses.
• Zapier lets you create Google Calendar events from new Trello cards, create new Jira issues from tagged Asana tasks, and more.
• Windows has a Task Scheduler that lets you automate tedious tasks on your PC.

Partner with us

Here’s an even better way to be more efficient: delegate tasks you need done. But don’t hand over work to just anyone; team up with Remote Workmate. We’ll find the best specialists for your business and do all the heavy lifting for you. including payroll and onboarding.

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