13 HACKS TO HELP NEW MANAGERS FUEL THEIR PRODUCTIVITY

We’ve all had those days.

As a Manager /Leader you start the day early with the best intentions in mind.

There’s a huge project on your to-do list and the deadline is looming…………

But instead of sticking to the plan and getting an early start, everything but work captures your attention.

Once you’re at your desk, it’s emails, phone calls, meetings, and messages ……………………..

Soon enough, any hope of that project is done before lunch is a distant thought.

You’re not alone!

28% of the average office worker’s day is spent focused on unnecessary distractions.

That includes an average of five hours each week surfing websites not related to work.

Just when you put those unnecessary distractions aside, lunchtime hunger pains creep in, and all you can think about is Chipotle.

Now that you’ve wasted your entire morning, your brain suddenly erupts into a state of panic and your stressful afternoon evolves into a long night of work.

Now imagine if having a productive workday was more than just a fluke — imagine it as a sustained habit.

28%of each day is spent in distraction

27% of office workers feel disorganized

13 hours on average are spent each week on checking emails.

To boost your morning motivation and help you knock out your to-do list with less stress-induced headaches, read on for practical productivity hacks and tricks.

Get these 23 Productivity Hacks to Work Smarter, Get more done and find Fulfilment and Balance Here !

Note -Additional time and effort will be required in the beginning.

But after a bit of self-reflection and forward-thinking, I assure you, you’ll find these hacks helpful for long-term changes in your workday habits.

1.Begin Your day with an Hour of Power .

Very often we claim to be too busy, especially when it comes to taking care of ourselves.

It seems that our lives are filled with the demands of other people and unfortunately we tend to put off the “me time” until someday in the future.

One of the biggest enemies of productivity is burnout, and the best way to avoid burnout is to make time for self-care.

But did you know that there is a certain part of the day that can give you the personal time you need?

This time is the morning time.

By getting up earlier, you can add more flexibility to your morning and enjoy a better start to your day.

Set an objective to get up 30 minutes earlier than what you currently do.

But rather than switching to this new wake-up time all at once, make this change in smaller increments.

At the same time, commit to this change by being consistent with your new wake-up schedule (in other words, keep executing your new wake-up plan every day).

Take full advantage of your new-found “me time” by investing in yourself.

For example, you could:

Meditate
Read a self-help book or Quotes to be motivated.
Exercise or go for a walking
Listen to your favorite music.
Write or journal your thoughts.
Work towards the next level for your career.

Morning times are best used to set the intention for the day, or to think and plan for your goals.

You will find that in a short time, you will be able to achieve a lot.

2.Work in time slabs.

Whether you work in an office – for yourself or someone else – Try to find an optimum working style; one that suits you (and your job description) the best to help you improve your focus and effectiveness.

Have slabs of time reserved for creative work, answering emails, handling your direct reports , planning and reflecting on the day .

3.Keep away from Distractions.

Distractions are all around us and if you are not careful, they could ruin your whole work day.

That’s why it’s important to protect your precious hours so that you can work on the things you planned to do.

There are three types of distractions you could be exposed to during your workday:

Communication-Phone calls, emails and messages asking you to respond immediately .Unproductive meetings.
Other people -Eg-your direct reports or colleagues asking you to solve problems when it is creative time for you.
Internal distraction-Your mind wandering about a dinner you will have with a friend in the evening during work hours .

4.Start your day with a Plan.

Implement the habit of planning your day.

This way you know exactly what you should be focusing on when your work day starts.

Making a daily task list will be one of the biggest improvements to your productivity.

Since You know the tasks you should be doing, you don’t waste your time on unessential stuff.

5.Identify your MIT ( Most important tasks) and do them.

When you plan your task lists for the next day, identify the 3 Most important tasks for the next day and get them done. Commit to completing them or else something else might keep coming up and you will keep postponing them.

Here are 8 ways to know your Priorities and MITS.

6.Forget about perfectionism.

Focus on getting the job done right rather than perfectly because nothing is ever truly perfect.

You should always take pride in your work, but you should also know when to move on to the next thing.

7.Work Smart.

”Before you work smart, work hard. If you only work hard and not smartly, you may end up only working for the rest of your life .’’

The quote explains itself very nicely by emphasizing the importance of smart work.

And if you think that hard work is the only route to success then you are holding a myth that has been doing rounds in society for a long time and will never allow you to tap into your full potential.

You will never be able to understand what you are truly capable of if you believe in working hard all the time.

What is smart work ?

Smart work involves effective and efficient ways to complete a task and manage the quality and time also.
It helps you achieve the goals by a deadline without compromising on quality.
Smart work involves planning, delegating, prioritizing, and scheduling the working process more smartly.
Smart working is less strenuous physically because more mental techniques are used and you look for multiple ways to complete a task.
The results are visible even with small inputs.

Read the post here –13 REASONS WHY NEW MANAGERS MUST WORK SMARTER TO SUCCEED IN THEIR CAREER

8.Select your meetings wisely.

Meetings are a great way to share ideas and thoughts between you and other people. Unfortunately, they can also be a time suck, eating your time from productive work.

Be careful while selecting meetings.

Choose to attend meetings that are purposeful and short.

9.Process your email effectively.

The fact is that email can be a time suck.

If you keep checking emails as soon as they arrive in your inbox, your work day becomes scattered and your ability to focus on your important tasks weakens.

To prevent this from happening, take a more organized approach to deal with your e-mail messages.

10.Eat the Frogs.

If there is one type of task that we tend to postpone more than anything else, it’s those “frog” tasks.

In this context, the term “frog” was first coined by Mark Twain (and later popularized by Brian Tracy in his book, Eat That Frog!), by saying that you should “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

11.Focus on one thing at a time.

Although multitasking may seem like a good strategy to follow, it is a myth.

You end up splitting your focus over many tasks, thus working ineffectively.

Therefore focus on one thing at a time for a better quality of output.

12.Use tools

Tools and templates make it easy for you to work faster and be more effective with your time and efforts.

For eg – I use templates to write blogs and emails.

A planner helps me plan and write my tasks in an organized way. A marketing calendar helps me to block days and times for my marketing activities for the year.

Look out for a Productivity toolkit here.

13 . Hire a Coach

A coach will help you make the best use of your potential so that you feel more motivated.

He/ She will help you gain more clarity with what you want and how to get it faster by seeing better possibilities.

A coach will support ,encourage and point out where you fall short and keep you accountable while working towards your goals.

If you need to boost your Productivity, look for a coach here.

CONCLUSION

I have covered a lot of ways to make your workday more productive.

Now it’s your turn to put all this information into practice, but before you take action there are a couple of things to remember.

First, implement the one tip that helps you the most as it relates to your current productivity problem.

In other words, don’t try to implement everything at once, as this may lead to unnecessary stress and confusion.

Then, remember that in most cases you might have to tweak a certain tip a bit so it fits your needs.

Our working styles, job descriptions, and work environments all differ, so one tip that might be a good fit for person A, might be a good one for person B.

To get the most out of the tips in this post, always find your approach to them.

Finally, what matters most is that you put these tips into action and test them out.

We’ve all had those days.

As a Manager /Leader you start the day early with the best intentions in mind.

There’s a huge project on your to-do list and the deadline is looming…………

But instead of sticking to the plan and getting an early start, everything but work captures your attention.

Once you’re at your desk, it’s emails, phone calls, meetings, and messages ……………………..

Soon enough, any hope of that project is done before lunch is a distant thought.

You’re not alone!

28% of the average office worker’s day is spent focused on unnecessary distractions.

That includes an average of five hours each week surfing websites not related to work.

Just when you put those unnecessary distractions aside, lunchtime hunger pains creep in, and all you can think about is Chipotle.

Now that you’ve wasted your entire morning, your brain suddenly erupts into a state of panic and your stressful afternoon evolves into a long night of work.

Now imagine if having a productive workday was more than just a fluke — imagine it as a sustained habit.

28%of each day is spent in distraction

27% of office workers feel disorganized

13 hours on average are spent each week on checking emails.

To boost your morning motivation and help you knock out your to-do list with less stress-induced headaches, read on for practical productivity hacks and tricks.

Get these 23 Productivity Hacks to Work Smarter, Get more done and find Fulfilment and Balance Here !

Note -Additional time and effort will be required in the beginning.

But after a bit of self-reflection and forward-thinking, I assure you, you’ll find these hacks helpful for long-term changes in your workday habits.

1.Begin Your day with an Hour of Power .

Very often we claim to be too busy, especially when it comes to taking care of ourselves.

It seems that our lives are filled with the demands of other people and unfortunately we tend to put off the “me time” until someday in the future.

One of the biggest enemies of productivity is burnout, and the best way to avoid burnout is to make time for self-care.

But did you know that there is a certain part of the day that can give you the personal time you need?

This time is the morning time.

By getting up earlier, you can add more flexibility to your morning and enjoy a better start to your day.

Set an objective to get up 30 minutes earlier than what you currently do.

But rather than switching to this new wake-up time all at once, make this change in smaller increments.

At the same time, commit to this change by being consistent with your new wake-up schedule (in other words, keep executing your new wake-up plan every day).

Take full advantage of your new-found “me time” by investing in yourself.

For example, you could:

Meditate

Read a self-help book or Quotes to be motivated.

Exercise or go for a walking

Listen to your favorite music.

Write or journal your thoughts.

Work towards the next level for your career.

Morning times are best used to set the intention for the day, or to think and plan for your goals.

You will find that in a short time, you will be able to achieve a lot.

2.Work in time slabs.

Whether you work in an office – for yourself or someone else – Try to find an optimum working style; one that suits you (and your job description) the best to help you improve your focus and effectiveness.

Have slabs of time reserved for creative work, answering emails, handling your direct reports , planning and reflecting on the day .

3.Keep away from Distractions.

Distractions are all around us and if you are not careful, they could ruin your whole work day.

That’s why it’s important to protect your precious hours so that you can work on the things you planned to do.

There are three types of distractions you could be exposed to during your workday:

Communication-Phone calls, emails and messages asking you to respond immediately .Unproductive meetings.

Other people -Eg-your direct reports or colleagues asking you to solve problems when it is creative time for you.

Internal distraction-Your mind wandering about a dinner you will have with a friend in the evening during work hours .

4.Start your day with a Plan.

Implement the habit of planning your day.

This way you know exactly what you should be focusing on when your work day starts.

Making a daily task list will be one of the biggest improvements to your productivity.

Since You know the tasks you should be doing, you don’t waste your time on unessential stuff.

5.Identify your MIT ( Most important tasks) and do them.

When you plan your task lists for the next day, identify the 3 Most important tasks for the next day and get them done. Commit to completing them or else something else might keep coming up and you will keep postponing them.

Here are 8 ways to know your Priorities and MITS.

6.Forget about perfectionism.

Focus on getting the job done right rather than perfectly because nothing is ever truly perfect.

You should always take pride in your work, but you should also know when to move on to the next thing.

7.Work Smart.

”Before you work smart, work hard. If you only work hard and not smartly, you may end up only working for the rest of your life .’’

The quote explains itself very nicely by emphasizing the importance of smart work.

And if you think that hard work is the only route to success then you are holding a myth that has been doing rounds in society for a long time and will never allow you to tap into your full potential.

You will never be able to understand what you are truly capable of if you believe in working hard all the time.

What is smart work ?

Smart work involves effective and efficient ways to complete a task and manage the quality and time also.

It helps you achieve the goals by a deadline without compromising on quality.

Smart work involves planning, delegating, prioritizing, and scheduling the working process more smartly.

Smart working is less strenuous physically because more mental techniques are used and you look for multiple ways to complete a task.

The results are visible even with small inputs.

Read the post here –13 REASONS WHY NEW MANAGERS MUST WORK SMARTER TO SUCCEED IN THEIR CAREER

8.Select your meetings wisely.

Meetings are a great way to share ideas and thoughts between you and other people. Unfortunately, they can also be a time suck, eating your time from productive work.

Be careful while selecting meetings.

Choose to attend meetings that are purposeful and short.

9.Process your email effectively.

The fact is that email can be a time suck.

If you keep checking emails as soon as they arrive in your inbox, your work day becomes scattered and your ability to focus on your important tasks weakens.

To prevent this from happening, take a more organized approach to deal with your e-mail messages.