How to Improve Your Productivity

Are you struggling to get things done? If so, learn how to improve your productivity using:

This is really productivity 101. Each day, make a list of tasks you need to get done during the day. But very importantly: don’t be over-ambitious and write down the whole week’s tasks to be handled in one day. If you do this, you won’t be able to stick to your list and soon you’ll abandon the list-making habit completely.

(You can also use a number of cool smartphone apps for doing this. See the next point!)

Be more productive by turning it off! No, actually — there are really cool calendar, list-making, and task management apps available for smart devices. You can check out some of them here: 12 Free Apps Every Student Should Have.

However, at the end of the day, if you find yourself constantly checking Facebook or using WhatsApp when you need to be working: Turn your phone off!

The Kanban system is a famous work system developed by an engineer at Toyota motors. You can make your own simplified personal Kanban system using sticky notes:

1. Draw 3 columns on a board.
2. Label them ‘1. To do’, ‘2. Doing’, ‘3. Done’.
3. Write all your tasks for the day on Post-it-Notes (you can choose different colours for different levels of priority).
4. As you start working, or finish a task, move the relevant Post-it-Note to the next column.

This seems very simple, but keeping visual track of your progress like this will help you when it comes to productivity. Try it out; you might be surprised.

Not only will earphones block out noisy children at home, or talkative colleagues at work – but if you put on some light music, you’ll find yourself 100% more focused. Some instrumental, jazz, or classical music will alleviate the boredom of working or studying and will keep you focused on the task at hand.

There is a law called Parkinson’s Law that states:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”

The inverse of this is also true, meaning that work contracts to the time we give to it. So try completing your tasks within a time restriction. Set a timer for a particular task and get it done!

A journal or blog can help you increase productivity in the long run. Take time to keep track of and reflect on your own personal development and achievements. This will help you constantly and consciously work towards keeping yourself accountable and improving yourself.

Don’t eat junk food or a load of sweets! It might boost your energy or happiness levels for a few minutes, but pretty soon afterwards you’ll start feeling sluggish and listless.

A healthy snack, on the other hand, will lift your mood, give you some energy, and keep you feeling right and ready for the next task on your to-do list.

If you work in an office with your colleagues, don’t feel too shy to ask for help or advice from people who are better at certain tasks than you are. Struggling to format your document in Microsoft Word? Ask the office tech wizard.

Depending on what you are struggling with – you might save yourself an entire frustrating afternoon’s work this way.  

Learn your keyboard shortcuts! Both for your operating system (see Windows’s shortcuts here), and for the software you are using. In the long run, this will make working on a computer much easier.

Moreover, if you are one of those people who type using only 2 fingers, you should definitely learn how to type faster. This will boost your productivity significantly.

One of the great benefits of distance learning is that you not only learn new skills and gain new new knowledge, but also that you learn a number of indirect skills. Because you study part-time from home, you quickly learn universal skills such as:

–        Time management

–        Self-motivation

–        Multi-tasking

For more information about studying via distance learning, feel free to visit our website at https://www.oxbridgeacademy.edu.za/

Visit Oxbridge Academy’s website