Whether you work in-office or are a part of the UK’s growing remote/hybrid workforce, two of the most critical aspects towards achieving success within the workplace are staying organised and maximising your productivity.
Although it can be challenging when you’re up against countless work hours, unfair management, and tedious tasks, learning ways to get around these issues is essential for maximising your productivity.
Interestingly, there are some effective strategies you can employ to stay organized and boost your productivity in your workspace. So, in this post, we will be going over a few of them to get you started. They are practical steps that you can start employing right away.
If you’re ready to unlock your full potential, continue reading to discover how you could create a work environment that fosters success and encourages you to complete work tasks efficiently.
Ways to Stay Organized and Increase Productivity in Workplace
#1: Prioritise and Plan Your To-Do List
During a typical workday, you’ll probably have a to-do list longer than your arm, and while creating a list is a no-brainer, the key to successfully ticking off all the tasks is to prioritise. To ensure that you work through your to-do list as efficiently as possible, list all your tasks and categorise them based on their importance.
For instance, if you need to have a report on your manager’s desk for two o’clock, this should be placed above smaller tasks. Because if it isn’t, you could spend most of your time on a low-priority job and not allocate enough time for more urgent tasks, like your two o’clock deadline in this scenario!
As a result, this could lead to you getting into more trouble and suffering consequences because of your disorganisation. To prevent this, you will need to plan your daily to-do list and rank each task depending on its importance. This will help you work through them more efficiently and ensure that you stay on top of the essentials.
#2: Leverage productivity tools
You could stay on top of your long schedule by using traditional tools. Tools like sticky notes or a notebook can come handy in this case. And if you think you can easily misplace these ones, which can cause you to miss tasks and leave a toll on your productivity, you can decide to use software tools.
You could consider downloading an online productivity app that sends you notifications to ensure you stay on track and that nothing goes unmissed.
#3: Keep Your Physical (And Digital!) Workspace Clear
Unfortunately, not many people know that our brains are naturally hardwired to like order. So when untidy desks and cluttered PC desktops surround us, separating the mess from your to-do list is more challenging.
The longer our brains try to ignore the chaos and focus on the task at hand, the more unpleasant emotions we suffer, like irritability, stress, limited focus etc., And this, over time, can start to affect how efficiently we complete tasks.
If this sounds familiar, it might be time to learn several organisation strategies and techniques to keep your physical and digital workstations clear and functional so you can perform to the best of your abilities. We’re not saying that you must turn into the next Marie Kondo; it could be as simple as allocating fifteen minutes at the end of each workday to tidy your desk so it’s clean and ready for the following day.
Or, if your physical work environment doesn’t suffer from your disorganisation that much, you could consider tidying up your work PC, as this is most likely where you spend most of your time and, as a result, probably suffers the most.
You can sort out your work PC in several ways, from clearing your browser cache/history and emptying your recycling bin to purging unused files and using online PDF tools like Smallpdf to shrink your electronic files to free up more storage space. This can help you organise your work PC and achieve better productivity at the end of the today.
#4: Embrace Technology
It’s no secret that we live in a digital world, with technology ruling almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives. Provide your team with the tools they need, including all-in-one computers, to embrace and leverage technology for enhanced productivity and efficiency.
While it might be an inconvenience for tech-wary people, for those who choose to embrace it, various digital tools can help you better your organisation skills and maximise your productivity levels while at work (and outside of it!).
Some of the most popular include:
- Cloud Storage Solutions
Traditional storage solutions like filing cabinets are quickly being made redundant by cloud storage solutions such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, which enable working professionals to access electronic files from anywhere in the world and at any time.
They also offer many other benefits, such as improved document management processes, seamless collaboration, enhanced security measures, and more.
- Project Management Software
Nowadays, managing your workload and delegating tasks to your co-workers is easier than ever using project management platforms such as Asana, Trello, or Monday.com.
Like cloud storage solutions, project management platforms also provide organisations with other benefits, such as streamlining communication between employees, monitoring project progress, delegating skill-specific tasks to employees, and more.
- Time-Tracking Applications
As many working professionals know, time is money, so it’s essential to make the most out of your workday. And interestingly, time-tracking applications can assist with this. Using digital tools like RescueTime or Toggl can help you assess how you use your time at work, identify productivity gaps, and help you decide what changes to make to ensure your productivity is maximised.
- Note-Taking Applications
As we touched upon briefly in one of our previous points, effective note-taking is essential for ensuring your workday is organised. While you can do this using traditional routes like notepads or sticky notes, there are note-taking applications like Microsoft OneNote or Evernote, which enable you to take notes more efficiently.
Plus, most note-taking applications have a searchable database that allows you to refer to previous notes when needed, unlike traditional routes, which require you to find the information manually.
#5: Minimise Distractions
Whether you work from home or in an office, distractions can appear out of nowhere, significantly dampening your productivity levels.
From kids hassling you for a snack every half an hour to that overly social employee in the cubicle next to you who won’t take the hint, it is essential to try and keep all distractions to a minimum so that you can focus on the task at hand and remain productive.
There are many ways that you can keep distractions to a minimum. Some of them include:
- Wearing noise-cancelling headphones
- Hanging a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your office door,
- Working in a room devoid of distractions, such as the TV, radio, etc.
- Silencing notifications on your devices
All these ultimately make it much easier for you to concentrate and improve your productivity levels.
