More often than not, we end up finding similarities between our jobs and our time before them, i.e., our college life. Just like we used to study before the exams in college, every year before the annual review, the productivity of a workplace magically goes up.
Most of us who work today would much rather have others provide points for improvement rather than make those improvements ourselves. Why? Because it is easy.
But easy is not what we live for. While waiting for others to provide tips and inputs for you to improve your work is an easier option, it has no room for personal growth and makes you lazy and dependent on others.
In a similar way that a knife has to be kept in use to maintain its sharp edge, your mind needs to be challenged and kept on its toes if it is to remain sharp and intelligent.
How to improve productivity at work
Here are a few tips and ways in which you can keep your mind sharp, active and focused, and keep a high value at your workplace with improved productivity.
1. Milestones. Set them
It doesn’t matter whether it’s your professional life or personal life. Setting clear milestones and working towards achieving them has a noticeable impact on your quality of work and outlook towards things.
Maintain a calendar, keep an eye out for deadlines, and treat every milestone in your project as a learning experience. You will have to learn new skills in order to achieve some of the milestones you set. And you must work to retain those skills over a longer time.
2. Have a plan. Always
Any goal without a plan is just a dream. When you set milestones and goals for yourself, you also have to draw up a plan that will help you reach those milestones. Every major achievement is reached with a solid, foolproof plan that takes into account all the contingencies and possible outcomes. So, choose the project planning tool that will turn you in a project planning professional.
Planning also helps you prioritize your tasks and goals so that you get the important things done first and don’t find yourself in a soup later.
3. Improve your communication skills
Just like a highway that is free from congestion, communication is a two-way street. You have to listen as well as convey in order to achieve a tangible outcome or result, and improve the overall work. Every opinion matters and can contribute to your final product.
4. Know your strengths and weaknesses
This is probably the most important thing one should be aware of. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Your strong points and weak points?
Nobody is perfect. We are all humans and have our own set of strong points and weak points. You might be excellent at a task, and not so much at another. Learn to celebrate your strengths, but at the same time, don’t shy away from your weaknesses. Work to overcome them. Every weakness you overcome adds to a new skill in your skillset. And why settle for an “Okay” when you can deliver an “Amazing!”.
5. Once you start, stop only at the finish
A major reason why your productivity is affected at work is because of leaving tasks unfinished. You take on a project. You get distracted. You abandon the project. In order to really and truly improve, this cycle needs to stop.
Start small, but work towards larger and more complex tasks. Set rewards for yourself for when you complete tasks within the deadline, and penalties for when you don’t. It might seem difficult at first, but then again, nothing worthwhile is easy.
Once you make it a habit to complete all of the tasks you take on, you will see a significant amount of change in how you look at yourself, and more importantly, how others treat you, view you, and value you.
The same boiling water that softens the potato, hardens the egg. It is you who has the ability to change and grow into something better, not the circumstances. So, if you’re good at your job and you want to stand out in it, take the initiative and start working on your work performance.