Have You Tried These Practical Methods to Reduce Wasted Time and Improve Productivity?

At the end of the day, it’s everything that matters. If you aren’t productive and continuously lose track of what you are working on or fail to complete necessary tasks that will lead to success, then you have a major problem. You could end up failing your customers (and yourself), missing deadlines, and - believe it or not - could run yourself right out of business.

Long story short - being unproductive is not very productive.

Here are practical tips on improving productivity from 3 experts we spoke with:

Replacing virtual team calls.

“Replacing virtual team calls with another method of communication can improve business productivity. It’s important to have communication with your team members and remote working can feel isolating, but sometimes they aren’t needed. Do you know how wasteful most of these calls can be?

Instead, find a way to communicate project updates, accomplished tasks, and upcoming plans without having to have everyone (or even multiple people) jump on virtual calls. Use project management tools to track project progress, send messages via Slack to get updates, and make it known that all employees must send updates on Friday of every week (or whatever you’d prefer).

The benefits to this type of process over virtual calls are abundant, and business productivity is just one of those things.”

-Tip submitted by Jeff Sherman, Founder of Top Marketing Agency

Planning as much as I can.

“I stay productive by planning out as much of my day as I can down to the minute. I use my daily planner and my watch to focus my thoughts on one thing for a specific time. When the time is up, I narrow in on the next task.

By having my day planned as much as I can, I am doing everything I can to limit wasted time and keep me on task. Without any strict plan, I can waste time without even realizing and that leads to an unproductive day.

Planning is always good, especially when you’re time is valuable. All entrepreneurs should plan their days the best they can to ensure maximum productivity.”

-Tip submitted by Aaron Winston, Strategy Director of Express Legal Funding

Cleaning up my workstation.

“My one tip to minimize productivity loss while adjusting to working from home would be to minimize the things around your workstation.

If you are working from a desk – or if you’re working from the kitchen table – you should completely clear it off of all items, including your cell phone, books, random pieces of paper, and more. It’s crazy to think, but even a table decoration can become a distraction to the wandering mind and get in the way of your productivity.

When I am working, I have my computer, one pen, one piece of paper, and nothing else.

Having nothing to pick up allows my hands (and mind) to just focus on working. No distractions should lead to a minimal amount of time-wasting.”

-Tip submitted by Jackson Cunningham, Co-Founder of JJ Suspenders

Keep an eye out for more articles about improving productivity in the near future!