Do you want to become more productive at work? These 7 simple tips will show you how.

During a typical eight-hour workday, office workers generally spend less than three hours working productively. (source)

Perhaps, no one has ever told you this.

Of course, this shows how much that is lost to unproductivity every single day.

A report by The Engagement Institute shows that every year US companies lose about $550 billion due to lost productivity.

The funniest thing is the American workers now spend a longer time at work than they spend sleeping, yet there has never been a noticeable improvement in productivity.

In fact, a 2016 US Bureau of Labor report shows that employees are less productive now than they were.

Unfortunately, some people blame this on the internet.

But is this true?

For me, I don’t think so and you are going to find out why.

But in this article, I will walk you through how to increase productivity at work with ease.

The strategies are astonishingly simple, so let get started.

Of course, if you find this helpful, which I am sure you would, please share with friends on social media using the buttons below and I will be super grateful.

Now, let dive in.

Want to become more productive at work? 7 amazing ways to increase productivity at work

I will be completely honest with you, being more productive at the work isn’t rocket science. It is never as difficult as people make it look like.

All it requires is just better management of your time.

And thankfully, this post has compiled 7 simple but amazing ways you can do this.

Of course, let’s begin.

Productivity tip #1: Take short breaks

Of course, this is counterintuitive, but the truth is taking a break might be more productive than you originally thought.

A lot of studies have shown that employees gain more focus and energy when they step aside from a long task for a while.

A study by DeskTime reveals that 10% of the most productive people work for 52 minutes, then break for 17 minutes.

Their secret to retaining the highest level of productivity is not working longer, but working smarter with frequent breaks.

According to the study, the break of 17 minutes lets your mind, your attention span and your body rest so that when the 52 minutes of work begins, you’re entirely ready to knock off the tasks to be done.

Of course, this means it is more productive to work in a batch of 52 minutes than working long hours consecutively.

Productivity tip #2: Decrease smartphone screen time

The whole essence of a smartphone is to make us more productive, but does having one truly make us one?

Let take a look at these statistics.

According to one study, the average person touches, swipes or clicks their phone 2,617 times a day while the top 10% do this about 5,427 times a day.

In different studies, it was discovered that average users spend about 141 minutes every day on their smartphones while 70% of all workers keep their phones within eye contact at work.

The bad thing about this is that it takes about 23 minutes to refocus after every distraction at work.

Another study shows that average employees spend about 56 minutes every day using their smartphone while 75% of employers believe that 2 or more hours a day are lost because employees tend to be distracted.

Of course, all these statistics show how unproductive using smartphones in the workplace could be.

Related Post: Is your smartphone killing your productivity?

Productivity tip #3: Leverage some productivity tools

Some people have blamed the internet for the declining rate of productivity over the years.

Of course, I don’t believe this.

The internet has availed us of a couple of tools that have proven over the years to be very effective in helping to boost productivity.

For instance, MailChimp now makes it very easy to collect thousands of emails from prospective customers and also send thousands of beautiful personalized emails to them within a few minutes.

With Google Trend and Google Correlate, marketers don’t have to necessarily enter the street in the name of market research.

They could pull up the data on how people are searching for their products, the time of the season they are doing that and also predict their buying journey in a couple of clicks.

Of course, we owe all these to the internet.

Aside from these tools, there are a couple of others one could leverage to become more productive, less overwhelmed and super organized.

Luckily, this article has profiled just 7 of such tools.

Take advantage of them to increase productivity at the workplace.

Productivity tip #4: Try the 2-minute rule

If it takes less than two minutes, then do it.

This simple rule has proven to be very effective in conquering procrastination and perpetuating a system of productivity.

The idea is if you see any task that could be completed in two minutes or less, do it immediately instead of scheduling them.

Imbibing this into your daily routines would help you to make the most of any small window of time that you have at work.

Of course, always ensure that you don’t get bogged down in these small tasks.

Productivity tip #5: Prioritize your most important works

Perhaps, you are not aware that multitasking kills productivity.

Of course, a lot of people believe that the ability to multitask is an important skill for increasing productivity at the workplace.

But research by Stanford University found that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time and the bad news is that it may even damage your brain.

So, always pick one task at a time and set deadlines for each of them and ensure that they are scheduled according to priorities.

Develop a culture of completing recurring tasks at the same time each day and always ensure that you begin the day with the tasks you dread the most.

Of course, always do them first thing in the morning.

Productivity tip #6: Reconsider your meetings

A study shows that 67% of executives consider more than 67% of meetings to be failures and the study also reveals that more than $37 billion per year is spent on unproductive meetings.

The same study reveals that 15% of an organization’s collective time is spent in meetings.

In a different study by Atlassian, it was found that the average office worker spends over 31 hours each month in unproductive meetings.

Of course, these re-enforce the need to always evaluate the objectives of a meeting before booking them.

If the same thing could be accomplished via email, phones or skype, then opt for them.

This simple attitude would save you a lot of productive hours.

Productivity tip #7: De-clutter your work environment

Most times we unintentionally create clutter in our work environment.

Of course, for some people, they can’t resist collecting certain things and the truth is clutter has a way of affecting productivity at the workplace.

A study shows that throughout our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours searching for misplaced items.

The same study found we lose up to 9 items every day and phones, keys sunglasses and paperwork top the list.

In an average home, a different study found that eliminating clutter cuts housework by 40%.

So, always take a few minutes before the start of work to organize your work environment properly.

Final thoughts on how to increase productivity at work

Being more productive at work isn’t rocket science.

Of course, you can get started right away by following our simple but astonishingly effective strategies.

Start with a couple of them, instead of trying to do a bunch of them at once.

Implement the tips for 21 days; the time it typically takes to form a new habit and then move to the next batch.

Continue this cycle until you exhaust the list.

I am sure you would come back to thank me later, but in the meantime, don’t forget to share this post.

I would be very grateful.