Being in tune with yourself
Increasing your
productivity requires working with your natural tendencies, rather than
fighting them. Follow these tips and give a constructive boost to your life
Productivity takes a more prominent role in your life
once you are managing work as well as life. Increasing your work efficiency
becomes an ultimate goal behind each new assignment. If you have tried to keep
up with the rising expectations and implemented every productivity tip you came
across and yet failed, it’s time to stop and contemplate.
A lot of productivity advice doesn’t take into
account human shortcomings. Humans are flawed, messy, and chaotic, and
sometimes they just don’t feel like working. That’s normal; the key is working
with those tendencies, instead of against them. So if you hate most
productivity tips, here are five that are actually worth trying:
Do one thing at a time
One Stanford study found that people who multitask,
do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as
well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, and that this practice
could make you more prone to distraction. Blocking off chunks of your time with
a recurring calendar event like, “No Meetings” or “Do not schedule” can help
you stay more focused at work.
Break down your tasks
Mark Twain said that if you eat a live frog first
thing in the morning, the rest of the day will feel like a breeze because the
worst is over. The idea of “eating your frog” is that by completing the ugliest
task on your to-do first, you can take comfort in the knowledge that the rest
of your day will be better. This classic productivity tip can frequently
backfire because it may lead to procrastination. If your toughest task for the
day is particularly painful, try breaking it up into slightly-less-terrible
chunks.
Take back the time you saved
The point of productivity is to get more done, and
done well, in less time. In theory, the result is having more time to live your
life. But in practice, it often means more work. You don’t have to surrender
the entirety of your saved work hours to your job — at least some of that
should be reserved for you. If doing so makes you happier, it’s a
scientifically sound action: A study from the University of Warwick in the UK
found that happy workers were 12 per cent more productive.
Tailor-made
If a tip is designed to reach type-A personalities —
as a lot of productivity advice seems to be — but you’re a laid-back worker who
values sleep and socialising, ignore that advice. It’s not for you, and that’s
acceptable. You’re probably not going to get much out of getting up at 5 am to
do yoga and meditate, anyway. You’ll likely just fall back asleep and wake up
feeling guilty. If you’re serious about being more productive in your worklife,
it’s a good idea to try new things and see what sticks. Just be sure to
consider the source, and how well it aligns with your own tendencies.
businessinsider.in
ET 10MAY18
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