Sometimes when you work in a full time office job like a call centre or data entry role, you can find yourself stagnating and feeling bored at work. This can affect your productivity because your brain is not fully alert or concentrated on your work. In this article, we will discuss 5 ways you can improve your productivity at work and bring your focus back to where it should be.
- Create your own training documents to remind yourself of procedures or routines.
This is especially helpful if you are still relatively new in your role and haven’t properly memorized the routines yet. You can do this either handwritten in a notebook or typed and printed. Use highlighters to colour code different sections of your documents so you can easily refer back to them quickly. You can even make a contents/cover page so you know exactly what pages different pieces of information are on or just to make it look pretty. This is a great way to boost your productivity because it allows you to switch off the part of your brain that you use to think back and remember different details because you know that you can just look in your documents to find out. This gives you an opportunity to focus more of your energy on the task at hand.
- Take full advantage of your break times.
A big mistake some people make is working through their break or lunch times and causing themselves to become stressed to a point where their productivity is no longer worth the cost of having taken the break. It is for this reason that you should make sure you take full advantage of your breaks, if you have optional breaks in the morning/afternoon you should take them and give your mind and body an opportunity to relax and recharge for a moment. This will help you not only to boost productivity but also to break up the day and make work more manageable from your own perspective.
- Use post its/notepad notes to remind yourself of any work you need to do.
Sometimes it can feel difficult to keep on top of your to do list for the day, whether you work in a call centre and have a lot of call backs to make, or you work in admin and have a bunch of tasks from yesterday that you didn’t get to complete. Post it notes can be great for this, as you can just stick them on your monitor or somewhere on your station and they will be in front of your eyes for when you get a moment to complete those tasks. Notepad notes also work if you like to have your to do list all in one place, though you won’t be able to stick those up in your field of vision as easily.
- Take review feedback on board.
It might not always be easy to take on some feedback your manager will give you especially if it’s negative but there is a good reason for monthly reviews/manager feedback and it’s so you can improve your productivity overall. You might feel a little hurt that your manager says, for example, that your results are ‘just over average’, however you can turn that feeling into motivation to do better and get better feedback next time. Use those failures to motivate yourself and drive yourself to improve your performance.
- Always keep yourself full and hydrated.
When you’re having a busy day, it can be easy to forget to eat/drink as much as you should. However, it is vital that you keep your body fully hydrated and satiated, or else you are likely to see your productivity plummet. Your mind cannot work at full alertness or capacity when it is distracted by hunger or thirst, so bring a snack to work for the morning or afternoon and always have a bottle of water on your desk.
These are our 5 tips for helping to boost your productivity at work. These are just some simple, common sense examples of how you can look after your mind by being organised, healthy and willing to learn. Hopefully these tips help you and for now, good luck!
