No matter what your personality is, whether you’re a procrastinator or get your tasks done right away, everyone could use a little help to be more productive.
As Orange County IT Support providers, we see how many things distract employees throughout the day. Phone notifications, emails, or even someone in the office who wants to chat can all derail a productive work session.
Here are some things you can do to help keep you on task:
Use Headphones
Whether music helps you focus or not, wearing headphones is a great way to knock out a ton of work. Noise canceling headphones can be especially helpful to drown out the office noise and even phone notifications. And when you’re wearing them, your co-workers won’t try to bother you as much since they can see that you aren’t listening.
Stick to a Schedule
Setting a schedule or routine for yourself can really help you focus on each aspect of your job. Allowing yourself thirty minutes every morning to get things out of the way such as replying to emails or prepping for meetings, eliminates distractions so you can focus on what you need to accomplish during the workday.
You could waste your entire day responding to and dealing with all of the email messages that come into your inbox throughout the day. Giving yourself set amounts of time to work on tasks that have potential to send you down a rabbit hole is a great way to make sure you are able to get the rest of your tasks done, too.
Turn Off Notifications
That bright shiny notification light on your phone or the small popup on your computer screen about a new email message is hard to resist throughout the day.
Each time you are distracted from your current task by a notification it takes at least a few minutes for you to refocus. Multiply that by the number of times you receive notifications throughout the day, and you have a really large chunk of the day spent trying to refocus after a notification distraction.
Turn over your phone so you are unable to see the notification light. Turn off notifications so they don’t ping your smartwatch. Don’t allow notifications to pop up on your computer screen from your email program or your browser.
Not being able to see the notifications is half the battle. If something is that important, they will call.
Use Automations
The technology available to us these days can really help make everyone more efficient. Using automations to improve your productivity can give you a significant boost and really help you get more done.
Some of your everyday tasks can be repetitive, so trying to make the process more automatic could lift some of the workload. In other words: Look for ways to make your job easier with the technology available to you.
A little productivity help goes a long way, so pick one of these options and try it out for yourself. We would love to hear how much productivity you gain!
BRITECITY offers local businesses support in areas like Cyber Security, Cloud Services, Strategic IT, and Managed IT Services in Orange County.