How to maximize your productivity at work (Video)

Maximizing our productivity at work is essential in our fast-paced life. You’re probably using different techniques, tools and even apps, and you have a favorite and more efficient way when it comes to organizing your workday, and that’s totally fine. You don’t have to follow what other people do; you just have to find out what works best for you and refine it.

An example is: waking up early to tackle everything on your to-do list. We hear this and read about this all the time. It might be a great solution for some to accomplish more and better, but it’s not for everyone. There are morning people and evening people, and the difference is related to the circadian rhythm, or our biological clock that regulates our entire body throughout the day, from hormone levels to digestion, sleep, and more.

Believe it or not, morning and evening people have structurally different brains so that’s why you may be a night owl functioning better in the night, and that’s totally fine! You should just improve the way you work to achieve better results, not necessarily change your biology.

In the video above, our coach expert Sabrina Cadini shared a few tips that might be great for you to replace old habits, or just to try and see how they work for you.

Prioritize

You always have your plate full at work, and in addition to your to-do list, there are always new tasks and projects being assigned to you, and it seems like you have to accomplish them in the same amount of time. However, if you analyze things more in depth, you can see that there may be a different deadline for each to-do; in this case, you can decide what to tackle first. One simple and great tool that we at Mana always recommend helping with prioritization is the Eisenhower Matrix.

This method helps you prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance, very simple. You probably have seen the Eisenhower Matrix before, and you can make your own in no time. You will basically take a piece of paper and divide it into four parts that will become the four categories where you list all of your to-dos: urgent and important; not urgent, but important; not important, but urgent; not urgent and not important.

Once you list your to-dos under any of these quadrants, you’ll have a better idea of what should come first in your daily routine.

Reduce Distractions

Have you ever been able to work 1, 2 or even 3 hours without stopping? Maybe not. In real life, your phone rings or a notification pops up on your computer, or maybe a colleague stops by at your office with some important questions, right?

We all live in a distraction-filled world, and those distractions are slowing us down, killing our productivity.

If you can, turn off all email notifications, set your phone to silent (or, even better, put it in a drawer or in a different room), and if you work at a physical office, you might want to hang a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door during those deep work hours.

Despite thinking that we’re superheroes when it comes to tackling work tasks and projects, we’re not that great at multitasking. You might think you’re handling multiple tasks at once and doing them well, but scientific research tells us this is not the case. What you’re doing, or your brain is doing, is task switching, so you’re still working on one thing at a time.

Keep watching the video for more tips, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get fresh tips and tricks delivered every two weeks!

How can Mana help you improve productivity at work? By tracking your time. When you track your activity, you can get valuable insights about your workflow, your behaviors, and spot those productive patterns that can help you change and improve the way you work and also the way you live.

Want to know more about Mana? Download the app today and schedule a call with one of our coaches to learn how to spend your time better!