everyday success

Home > Money Matters > Work: At the Company > Working Success 

Productivity at Work

Work is fast-paced and loaded with productivity-enhancing electronics.  Your day is crammed with a continuum of calls, meetings, deadlines, more meetings and calls and, of course, emails.  It’s tumultuous.  How do you get it all done?  Equally important, how do you stay focused so you can get it all done?

Modern work environments are not designed to get you to a state of flow – immersed in your work.  Instead, it’s endless interruption.  Here are a couple of flow-inducing ways to keep your productivity high, so you can be a top-performer.

Managing communications - email, phone calls, even tweets.

You love that smart phone, it vibrates every single time another email hits your inbox.  You check it, who’s sent it, what’s the subject?  That tiny check of the message has interrupted your concentration, your mind has altered its focus.

It’s a 21st century phenomenon, the result of omnipresent electronic communication – emails, texts, IMs, tweets, calls.  In a 24/7 world, they never stop.  We think we can manage it, that we can multi-task, that we can do more than one thing at a time.  Not so.  Neuroscientific research shows that rather than simultaneously, we do many things quickly and sequentially, that our brains move from one subject to the next and the next very quickly.  Literally, the brain stops and switches to each next task you ask of it. It's sequential, not simultaneous.

While on a phone conversation, you glance to check for other messages.  To do that, your brain actually stops and switches to the message and then stops and switches again to get back to the phone conversation.   Same with whatever work you are doing.  To glance at the vibrating phone, your brain stops and switches so it can recognize the importance of the message.  To get back to your work, the brain must stop and switch back to the work but, often, the flow, the mental focus, is interrupted.

1.         Check for messages once an hour or even every other hour.  It’s tough to turn it off.  You’re a part of a community.  You share ideas and information.  Checking for messages is ingrained.  On the other hand, your decision to check at certain times in the day sends a different kind of message to your co-workers and superiors – it tells them that you value your time and your attention to your work. 

At the start, you may need to manage expectations.  When responding to messages after a no-message hour or two, explain that you check for messages hourly or at whatever frequency you've chosen. 

Enjoy the focus, the time for high productivity.  You may well find you are doing your very best work.  Your thoughtful dedication to your work will be noticed.

2.         Who’s calling?  Is your personal phone also sitting on your desk?  Is your personal phone also receiving all your personal email?  Establish discipline for friends and family.  Returning personal messages should be kept to a minimum during your workday.  Help your friends and family understand that while you value them, you also value your job. 

Naturally, if you are expecting a vital personal message, handle it.  But vital means your wife is in labor or your child’s school is calling, not where to meet for dinner.

3.         It’s only courteous.  It used to apply to phone calls, now it applies to messages, emails and tweets.  Your smart phone vibrates while you are in a meeting or while you are discussing a business issue with another.  It’s natural to take a glance.  After all, it’s a split second glance, right?  Accepting a call in the midst of a meeting or a discussion disrupts the flow; plus, it can be rude. 

Now, if you are anticipating important business information, it is appropriate to accept the intrusion.  If you are in a meeting, quietly remove yourself from the room to accept the call.  If you are in a discussion, apologize for the intrusion explaining the urgency of the call or message.

Honor the working goal.

Loyalty to one’s firm is no longer as strong as in the past.  On the other hand, there are many reasons to value your job.  Some people love the work they do and that is why they value their job.  Others value the income their job provides.  Still others value what they are learning on the job, knowing they’ll use the information gained and contacts made throughout their career.

Whatever the reasons, you can demonstrate your commitment to the work you do in the ways you do your work. 

1.         Respect your co-workers time.  Consider sending an email in place of a phone call or a drop-in visit to your co-worker’s office. For meetings you plan, consider whether the subject might be handled by email instead.  If the meeting is warranted, prepare a clear agenda with time paramenters. Be prepared and be timely.  And, for those of you who are talkers, keep an eye on your verbosity.

2.         Protect your working time.  This is the corollary to respecting your co-workers time.  When asked to attend a meeting, review the agenda and meeting objectives.  Confirm to yourself that your presence at the meeting is warranted and that the time invested is merited.

3.         Recognize the value of other people’s opinions.  Each one of us brings our own ideas, our own talents, our own perspective to the table.  One really terrible idea might actually engender the truly brilliant idea.  Shutting off individual contributions may keep the firm from excelling.  On the other hand, when managing a forum for ideas, keep watch on the amount of time invested.

4.         Keep your eye on the best outcome for the organization.  As you do your work, keep your firm’s objectives in mind. Ideas for greater efficiency or effectiveness demonstrate your commitment and your value to the firm.

Getting the job done.

The single most important job skill sought by employers today is the willingness, the tenacity to actually do the job.  It may be boring, it may not be a job you love but if you are interested in keeping the job, be certain you get it all done.  Lucy Kellaway of the Financial times reports that study after study points to conscientioiusness as a key hiring requirement.

With these steps, your productivity will be on high.