3 Foolproof Ways to Improve Productivity at Work

A project manager must have a deep connection with productivity. If you are a manager it’s important for you to find different ways to enhance your and your team’s productivity.

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager. - Peter Drucker

Thinking about productivity once in awhile won’t work. It should be a continuous process because only then it’ll become a habit, an unbreakable habit! For instance, using a web-based time tracking software can really do wonders to increase your productivity.  I’ve come up with 3 infallible ways that a project manager and his/her team can use to improve productivity at work -

• Ensure minimum distractions

It’s normal to face distractions at work. But, you need to realize that in long run even small distractions have huge impact on productivity. Activities like checking emails every now and then can eat a big part of your day. If you do so, then avoid doing it! Fix a time to check your emails or do it only when you have some free time. Also, avoid internet surfing and phone calls while working.

In addition to this, you can use a time tracking software to avoid distractions. How? You can set the number of hours estimated to complete the task using a timer, and then can set your pace accordingly. This way you are more focused on getting the task complete on time, and thus avoid all the distractions.

• Avoid team meetings as much as possible

If I talk about the real time-sucking factors at work, team meetings are certainly one of them. Those who arrange and attend meetings on regular basis just waste their precious time. I’m not saying that you should never ever go for a meeting, but avoid it as much as you can. It’s better to find some other way out.

Whenever you feel the need of arranging a meeting for discussion, consider other alternatives of communication. You can use email, phone or online collaboration to solve the purpose. And, if a meeting is unavoidable, prepare for it in advance. You can set an estimated duration for it using a web- based time tracking software. And, make sure it gets completed on time.

• Identify unnecessary work

It’s crucial to identify the activities, which are unnecessary and time consuming. But, the question is how to identify such activities? The answer is a time tracking software. By using the software, you can easily see how long an activity took to complete. This way, you can identify the tasks that are more time consuming than others.

Next step is to find out the tasks that not only are time consuming, but also not fruitful. Now, you can either remove such tasks from your list or allocate less time to them. Eventually, you’ll start spending more time on important activities of a project and manage your time more efficiently .

By now, you must have found the way to that deep productivity connection I had been telling about in the beginning of the article. By using these 3 ways you’ll definitely see a considerable change in your productivity.