For many people, organizing work tasks is a task in itself. In fact, people often find themselves staying late in the office as a result of bad planning. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. You can significantly increase your work productivity through better organization.
While this might sound like a lot of effort, there are many simple ways in which you get organized. Read on to learn some tips on how to be organized at work and spend less time working and more time enjoying the fruits of your labor.
1. Make the Most of Technology
There have been so many technological advances in recent years that almost no task needs to be done without assistance. When it comes to schedule planning, your options where tech is concerned are almost limitless. All it takes is a quick search to discover a huge range of day planners and organization software.
That being said, with such a large choice, many people often end up with a substandard productivity app, leaving them in no better position than they were in the first place. So, what are the best apps for productivity?
Moleskine Journey
For anyone with an intensely busy schedule, Moleskine Journey has to be one of the best organization apps out there. Featuring a calendar, alerts, challenges and the opportunity to create individual projects, each with their own goals and milestones, it is little wonder that the app has received such rave reviews.
It is mainly aimed at those in the creative field, but realistically, it will benefit anyone who wants to know how to get organized at work. That being said, the app offers so much more than just a work scheduling too. For example, it allows you to create a journal with photographs, so you can easily keep track of something like your food intake, for example.
CloudApp
If you work as part of a larger team, CloudApp can make communication and productivity so much easier. The app aims to show your team, clients or other related people your work rather than having you type out the details in a lengthy email. The app claims to be able to save you as many as 56 hours a week and is backed by some pretty impressive users including Facebook and Uber.
Evernote
There is a common misconception that Evernote is simply a note-taking app when in reality, it is so much more. Here, you can save articles, create calendars with alerts and, of course, make as many notes as you wish. It has a super simple layout, making it easy to master and is sure to free up a lot of time and allow you to be more efficient at work. What’s more, you can access many of the features for free.
2. Use Your Time Wisely
For the most part, people spend 8 to 10 hours each day at work. It may seem like a lot, but it’s impossible to be productive during the entire workday, so it can be difficult to accomplish everything you want to.
One of the best ways to remain efficient is to split your time up into manageable chunks — see them almost as small goals throughout the day. Using a day timer can be a real benefit and will allow you to allocate tasks to set hours of the day.
If you are working on a bigger project, it is important to break this down into smaller goals. Not only will it make you more productive, but doing this will likely make you feel less overwhelmed and more motivated to complete each task.
Some experts believe that spending between 20 and 50 minutes on any given task will provide you with the best “productivity value,” so to speak. Therefore, try to keep your tasks within this time frame. If something will take longer, split it into even smaller parts.
3. Take a Break
Being physically and mentally exhausted can seriously hinder your performance, so be sure to take regular breaks throughout your workday to refocus and sharpen your mind. These breaks don’t need to be long. In fact, five minutes out in the fresh air or a 10-minute coffee break can be the difference between accomplishing everything you want to and leaving work with a mountain of uncompleted tasks.
4. Prevent Burnout Through Self-Care
Just because you have left work for the day, it doesn’t mean that you can’t prepare for tomorrow. This isn’t to suggest taking work home and getting ahead but rather taking care of yourself. If you are eating a balanced diet, getting a good night’s sleep and taking part in regular exercise, your energy levels will be much higher and this will translate into improved productivity in the workplace.
5. Keep the Following Tips in Mind
Once you have each day planned out using an app and have split your time throughout the day, there are even more things that you can do to increase productivity and hit those targets with ease.
- Avoid lengthy meetings if you can. Often, a meeting will go on for longer than necessary as a result of chit-chat, fiddling with technology or going over issues multiple times. This can massively eat into time that you could be spending on more important jobs.
- Make the most of your commute. If you take a train or bus into work, you can use this time to begin organizing your day, send emails or get updates from colleagues giving you an advantage when you finally arrive at work.
- Keep your workspace clean. It can be all too easy for your work area to become cluttered, but staying on top of this can be beneficial. Things will be easier to find and it has been proven than a tidy workspace can have a positive effect on your mental and emotional wellbeing.
- Turn off unnecessary notifications. It’s not hard to fall victim to that pesky phone constantly pinging and dinging while you are trying to work. It’s almost a natural reaction to check a Slack chat as soon as a new message comes in, but is it always that important? The chances are that it can wait at least a few minutes if not longer. You would be surprised to see how much more you get done when you don’t have an annoying notification popping up every five minutes.
- Use the phone over email where you can as this will limit the amount of time you spend communicating one issue to another person. What may take four or five emails to clear up can take just two minutes on the phone.
