As Richard Branson says, “Clients do not come first, employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” Unfortunately, most employers don’t realize that. Office workers almost never get incentives. You get low salaries that don’t inspire you to work more efficiently. On the other hand, you superiors constantly give you new tasks that you cannot handle within office hours. They expect you to be more productive, but fail to motivate you.
You want to get a promotion or a raise? Then, you need to find your own motivation. You can’t expect your employers to give you constant incentives if such policies are not part of your company’s culture. However, if you manage to do more work in less time, you’ll be more effective, more content, and ready for a promotion.
Although your schedule is overbooked with meetings, emailing, report writing, and multitasking, you can find the balance if you start implementing the following tips:
4 Easy Ways To Be More Productive At Work
Make Priorities!
You wouldn’t expect to get productivity advice from a saint, but Francis of Assisi managed to grasp an essential rule in the advice he gave: “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” He was talking about priorities.
The first thing you need to do is become aware of the most important tasks you should complete. Write down all daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and remind yourself of their deadlines. Once you determine the priorities, start your day with those tasks. You have an extremely important presentation that your boss expects tomorrow? Well, you can delay the email messages and some of the paperwork for later; it’s important to take care of the most important task right now. Then, you can proceed with the tasks that are rated lower on your list of priorities.
This is the most important thing to keep in mind when developing the list: don’t overcomplicate it! It’s not necessary to give priority points to each task; that would give you a complex system of numbers that wastes time and energy. All you need to do is write a list of tasks, determine the priorities, and then rewrite it in the form of a weekly and daily schedule.
When you face another chaotic situation with overload of meetings to attend, documents to write, and email messages to send, you’ll handle it smoothly thanks to your list of priorities.
Improve Your Business Writing Skills
You didn’t see this coming, did you? The art of business writing is an almost forgotten skill. The Internet slang made us nearly illiterate, and the biggest problem is that we don’t even see the problem. If you spend hours writing email messages to your superiors, as well as to the clients and partners of the company, then you need to become a more productive writer.
How exactly do you become more productive in business writing? That’s an easy question to answer: you just become better in it! It’s important to become aware of the form and style of different types of content, including email messages, reports, evaluations, suggestions, PowerPoint presentations, business plans, and every other type of document you’re dealing with. When you know what form and style you need to preserve throughout the text, you’ll write it much more successfully.
Awareness of proper business writing style and form won’t make you a better writer, though. You have to practice! Pay attention to the way you write and make sure to preserve correct spelling and grammar. Business writing is done in official tone, so don’t try getting too personal in the correspondence. Here is one way you can practice: maintain a blog and write a new post whenever you get free time for it. Who knows, maybe you’ll become a very successful and productive blogger, so you’ll start earning money with this project. Can you think of a better motivation?
Invest in the Development of Your Skills
We all admired Steve Jobs, so it’s time to start listening to his advice: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
Jobs grasped the essence of one’s lifetime journey with this quote. Do you feel stuck in your office job? It would be great to abandon it and start doing something you love right away, but there is a problem: maybe you still don’t know what you would love to do. If that’s the case, then you can consider your current job as a starting point. It doesn’t matter what you do; you just need to reveal a new dimension of your job and find a reason to love it. What aspect of your work inspires you the most? What part of the day do you enjoy? That’s the thing you should focus on.
Think about attending conferences and seminars related to your industry. Develop new skills, such as programming, blogging, SEO, marketing, and any other universal skill you can think of. When you explore your interests and follow your passions, you’ll start feeling satisfied with your own work. That’s the only way to be truly productive.
Fight Motivation Killers
You don’t feel inspired to do your job? What exactly kills your motivation? Maybe your manager is not supportive enough? Your coworkers distract you during working hours? You don’t get paid enough? Are you dealing with toxic clients who are constantly disappointed with your performance? Whatever the motivation killer is, you have to identify it. Then, you need to do something about it.
If, for example, you’re not inspired to do your work because you don’t see chances for career growth, then you have to invest in your skills and become more competent for promotion. If you’re dealing with toxic clients, you need to do something about your own approach. Imagine you’re inside a balloon that allows you to listen to everything, but doesn’t allow you to get affected by someone’s words or attitude. It takes a lot of time to become immune to other people’s negative energy, but you’ll get better with practice.
Remember what Nobel laureate Herbert Simon said: “One finds limits by pushing them.” Don’t stand in your comfort zone; push the limits and you’ll find the motivation you lack.
You’ll Enhance Your Productivity when You See a Greater Purpose
What’s the common note you noticed in all 4 tips listed above? You have to make a great effort to organize your time and boost your own skills. We can’t wait for someone else to inspire us to do a better job if we don’t see the true reason for our efforts.
What’s the goal you want to achieve with this work? Are you doing it only for the money, or do you see a purpose that expands beyond the limits of your office? What changes are you making? Once you realize that, you’ll find the lost motivation and you’ll start doing a much better job.
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