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Emc & Associates Ltd.

Productivity ideas to make your staff work Smarter

1. Use your commuting time to be productive by making your own daily “To Do” list or meeting Agendas or prepare emails for sending later or Brainstorm some new ideas ?

2. Research has shown that most people work best in 90 minute segments and that the most productive people allocate time to plan their work each day, allocate time for urgent items and time to review their progress on each day’s work. Also, try to instill in all your staff to schedule tasks to do that day, starting with tasks that other people are reliant on first, then the simplest tasks and lastly the most complex and unique tasks.

3. Quit Multi-tasking – research has repeatedly shown that trying to undertake several tasks simultaneously results in lost time and productivity. Focus on each item, not many.

4. Give up the illusion of Perfection – Use the 80-20 rule much more often, most tasks can be 80% completed in 20% of the time – Perfection is not always required.

5. Take exercise breaks – research shows that concentration and creativity are maximised when work is interspersed with a walk around the office, or going outside for 5 minutes, once every hour. Sitting for 20-30 minutes induces a hibernation-like state in your body.

 6. Re-evaluate meetings – are all agenda items, attendees still relevant, is each meeting still achieving what it is supposed to, is everyone still required at every meeting ?

7 Get everyone to split their email inbox in to two – Important & Urgent – there is a HUGE difference in how these things are managed, but most people regularly mix them up.

8. Schedule time each day to check / read your email inbox & use 7. above.

9. Hold more Standing meetings – this increases engagement, reduces boredom and increases group performance.

10. Always Train all your staff before you promote them, especially in how to manage people, before their mismanagement make other members of your staff leave. The single biggest reason people give for leaving a company is Poor Management, so train all the staff you promote, each and every time. People are better at managing themselves (with no manager) than being badly managed by someone who is unfair, fails to motivate employees, fails to clearly direct them and intervenes regularly with their work, micro-managing them.

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