July 18th, 2018
As CEO of iContract, me and my team need stay focused and ensure that our productivity is high! I wanted to share my five tips that will help you become more productive in the workplace!
Keep meetings under control
It’s very easy to have too many meetings working in a start-up. Meetings are of course important, but they need to be managed efficiently. Keep your meetings to the point and ensure the discussion doesn’t drift off into new topics as this will be time wasted in your day. Before starting a meeting, decide what you want its objective to be and have a clear agenda for people.
Once a meeting is over, you’ll want your team to have clear action points to take away with them and work to. This will prevent any need for another meeting to take place.
In my experience, I like to keep things fast-paced and constantly moving. If there’s an issue I feel we’re over analysing, I’ll normally put it aside and move on to review it at a later date.
Assigning a specific time period for meetings I find, keeps things productive. Using a stopwatch or even an egg-timer stops meetings going out of control.
Use the tools you have effectively
I’m lucky to be a Start-Up CEO in such a digitally switched on world. Technology has made the way we work easier and we’ve now got effective tools that can improve our communications.
It’ s so easy to use these tools badly. For instance, e-mail is such an important form of communication, but it can be misused.
If I’m working on something that requires a lot of my concentration, I will from time to time need to contact someone about something. Rather than waste time composing a long e-mail, tools such as Slack allow me to chat and converse with others quickly. This is just one way of using a tool effectively, so your time is used effectively and not sucked up by small meaningless tasks.
Stay hydrated and active
I’m a keen runner and fitness enthusiast. I find keeping active and hydrated with plenty of water keeps me fuelled for the day. Drinking plenty of water throughout the day helps my mind stay clear and focussed. I try not to overdo it on caffeine and sugary drinks as I find that makes me a bit sluggish and my productivity wears off as a result.
I would advise anyone to try and fit in a morning or afternoon run in their workday and maintain a good level of hydration in order to stay productive.
Don’t sweat the small stuff
In my working day, I find I work best in the mornings when I’m most alert and switched on. With that in mind, in the morning I think about what big projects I can tackle that demand a lot of my energy and enthusiasm.
I leave smaller and more admin driven tasks that are easier to complete until later in the day. If I were to dedicate time and effort to these smaller jobs earlier on in my day, it would be a waste of my energy and would ruin the rest of my workday.
Curtail distractions
Although we live in an age in which technology and the online world has transformed our lives for the better – we’ve become creatures of comfort for it. It’s now so easy to get distracted in the world of work.
On a strict work day where I need to get a lot of things done, I give myself a social media ban until it’s lunchtime and I’ll reward myself with a bit of Facebook or Instagram time. I also try to keep my phone at a good distance from me where I only use it when I need to answer important calls, and I’m not tempted to play around on it.
Distraction is everywhere in the work world and I find you have to create your own set of rules to overcome things like procrastination.
Written by Amanda from iContract
June 20th, 2018