23 Great Ways to be More Productive at Work (Part 4)

My goal in writing about productivity is the help you have a better quality of life. As I often mention, my goal is not to help you jam-pack your already busy schedule. However, by getting things done more quickly with fewer resources, you in effect free up time. This means more time for things that are important to you and energize you. Take advantage of these insights on ways to be more productive at work.

Working with the tips I provide can help you get stuff done more efficiently and feel good while doing it. With that said, work productivity is definitely a topic worth considering, but don’t get stressed out by trying to over-optimize. Always thinking about if you are productive or not can become a source of constant stress. Instead, learn the principles, practice and listen to your body. Then a lot of these things will become second nature. Before diving into the last post in this series of 4, lets quickly review the first 16 tips:

1. Make a Schedule
2. Take Breaks
3. Minimize Distractions
4. Take Advantage of Multitasking
5. Procrastinate Purposefully
6. Just Start
7. Manage Your Energy
8. Take Advantage of Repetitive Tasks
9. Reduce Complexity
10. Get Enough Sleep
11. Eat Healthily
12. Exercise Regularly
13. Stay Hydrated
14. Maintain Good Relationships and Avoid Gossip
15. Learn to Say No
16. Write Shorter Emails

17. Make Your Environment Work for You

One of the most effective ways to be more productive at work is to make your environment work for you. Your work space should facilitate productivity not hinder it, but our experience is often the opposite. Nevertheless, this does not have to be the case! Even making a few small changes can cause you to feel more comfortable, relaxed and focused. Slight ajustments to your work space can lead to significant productivity gains.

Ways to Be More Productive at Work through the Physical Work Environment

Here are some of the main findings concerning optimal conditions in the physical environment to enhnce productivity:

1. Temperature: an optimal room temperature for the office is somewhere between 22 and 24°C (71.6 – 75.2F). Productivity declines by 2% for each degree above 25°C (77F).

2. Noise level: some studies suggest that quiet environments correlate with fewer task errors and more work productivity.

3. Plants: interactions with plants can change our attitudes, behaviors and physiological responses. Studies support that passively viewing plants in natural settings has a stress reducing effect. Furthermore, office workers feel less tired when they have access to plants or window views. Studies also show that natural environments can have a restorative effect on attention.

4. Clean and Organized: work spaces that are tidy help you to focus better and use your time more effectively. It’s one of the easiest ways to be more productive at work. If you organize your work space, you wont waste time looking for stuff. In addition, clean spaces are better for your health as you are less likely to develop work place allergies from dust and pollen.

5. Ergonomics: office ergonomics plays a critical role in employee productivity. For example, ergonomic furniture reduces your discomfort and fits to your needs. Examples include comfortable chairs, height adjustable desks, laptop stands, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, etc. With ergonomic equipment, you’re less bothered by physical discomfort and can better focus on work.

6. Lighting: well lit environments encourage focus. A good balance of natural lighting and artificial lighting is best.

Colors

Studies show that colors can have a significant effect on our mood and productivity. Some colors cause us to feel calm, comforted and more focused. While other colors cause us to feel excited or overwhelmed. In my opinion, taking advantage of colors is one of the most creative ways to be more productive at work.

Mood and Emotion

• Green evokes the most positive emotional responses and is associated with relaxation and happiness.
• Red is often perceived as stimulating or distracting.
• White walls tend to be perceived as boring and uninteresting.

Physiology and Wellbeing

• Red or colorful rooms with visual complexity bring the brain into a more excited state.
• Blue can have a drowsy and sleepy  effect.
• Blue and green spaces are associated with a sense of wellbeing. 

Performance

• Results of one study showed that working in an environment with white walls was associated with more errors being made compared to other colors.
• Red was shown to enhance cognitive task performance.
• Blue enhances creative task performance.

Productivity

• Neutral and cool blue colors as well as a balance between warm and cool colors can enhance productivity.

Creativity

• Cool colors enhance creativity, and support the ability to generate new ideas.
• Yellow is also shown to support creativity.

Personalization

Your work space does not have to be sterile. In fact adding personal touches such as a family picture or drawings from your child can help you identify more with you work space. In my opinion, this is one of the most pleasant ways to be more productive at work. One study showed that workers who felt a greater personal connection to their space were:

• more enganged
• more enthusiastic about work
• experienced better communication with colleagues and managers
• felt more attached to the organization

Ways to be More Productive at Work by Targeting Motivation

When you sit down in your space what factors would give you the feeling it’s time to get down to business? This varies from person to person, but it’s crucial to consider what works for you. Here a few things that have helped me work better:

1. Visible To-Do Lists

I like to think of to-do lists as goal-attainment lists. This way the tasks become more like mini challenges that I try to beat in a certain amount of time. Because these lists are visible, I don’t waste time thinking about what to do next. They help me stay focused and give me guidance throughout the day.

2. Visible Goals

Write down your overarching goals and keep them visible. Sometimes tasks are not very motivating, especially when they are mundane. By seeing your goals regularly, it’s easier to keep sight of the big picture. You become more conscious of how the individual tasks relate to each other and help you to reach your goals.

3. Increase Energizers & Resources

Consider things that energize you or help you to work better and try to increase them. For example, if you need more feedback, goal clarity, work variety or access to information let your manager know. Tell your manager exactly what you need in order to thrive and do your work even better.

Another way to feel more energized is to identify your strengths and figure out ways to use them more. Overall, working in an environment that facilitates your growth and success is one of the key ways to be more productive at work.

4. Decrease Stressors & Demands

Consider the things that drain you or are a source of prolonged negative stress. Actively try to limit these things. For example, if your colleagues regularly interrupt you, carve out times for concentrated work. This may require you to put up a do not disturb sign or rearrange your schedule. If your work suffers due to things like poor supplies, faulty equipment or inadequate training bring this up specifically with your manager.

18. Ways to be More Productive at Work – Communicate Effectively

A lot of the problems I’ve experienced when working on projects was due to poor communication, false assumptions, different expectations and competing goals. For instance, our employer branding campaigns depend a lot on the graphic department for visuals. In the past, we’ve had to go back and forth way too many times before the graphics were correct. All of us had more work the necessary due to misunderstandings and unaligned expectations. Looking back, I could have avoided a lot of these problems. It’s crucial to learn how to communicate effectively.

Know Your Counterpart

If you know how the person you need to work with ticks, you can adjust your communication style as necessary to avoid misunderstandings and ultimately reach your goals. You’ve noticed that people have different communication styles. Some like to get right to the point while others enjoy some small talk. Certain colleagues prefer a list with bullet points while others want a visual. There are colleages who value talking about things face to face yet others prefer written communication. Some need exact instructions for every step, others just need to know what the end result should look like – they figure out how to get there.

Get to know your counterpart and how to best communicate with them. Step out of your comfort zone and be flexible, even if you prefer a certain kind of communication. Also, don’t be afraid to address crucial topics, even if they are uncomfortable. According to my experience, this is where some the biggest misunderstandings occur. For instance, I don’t like putting people under pressure and didn’t have a habit of giving my colleagues a concrete deadline for when they needed process my request. As a result, my requests were often put on the backburner. Needless to say, things ended up a lot more stressful for me than they needed to be.

I’ve learned to address this topic clearly from the get go. When I need something I give my colleagues enough time in advance and make sure they are clear about my expectations. If needed, I will also check-in to see how things are going. Some colleagues need these reminders. For others, you know they will deliver on time or communicate in advance if something comes up.

Identify Conflicting Goals

Another important point to consider is if your goals conflict with the goals of other departments or the goals of your colleagues and managers. If this is the case, it will be very difficult to deliver excellent results. When there are tight deadlines and lots of pressure, conflicting goals can be quite problematic. For example, your manager may require you to take on another client even though your plate is quite full. Their goal is to maximize team revenue. However, you know that the quality of your work will begin to suffer if you take on too many clients. Your goal is to deliver excellent customer service. If you don’t address this issue, both you and your manager will be displeased.

Another example is if you report to two managers and one requires you to work quickly while the other emphasizes work quality, even if it takes longer.

Once you’ve identified competing goals, it’s important to facilitate communication among all parties involved to find a balance. Ask questions so that you understand where others are coming from. Also learn to communicate what your priorities are and why they’re important. It’s particularly convincing when you can show how your priorities are tied to overarching organizational goals.

In any case, ironing out conflicting goals is one of the most effective ways to be more productive at work.

Results may include:

• Shifting deadlines
• Adjusting workload
• Realigning or reorganizing priorities
• Reallocating resources
• Better communication, less misunderstandings

Overview

• Know who you are dealing with and how your counterpart prefers to communicate
• Adjust your communication style as necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings and reach your goals
• Communicate regularly
• Make your expectations transparent and don’t be afraid to address “uncomfortable” topics
• Identify competing goals and work out a solution – try to make goals align

19. Ways to be More Productive at Work – Minimize Decision Making

Kahneman’s dual-processing theory states that decisions arise either from System 1 or System 2 thinking. When engaging in System 1 thinking, you make decisions using quick and easy intuitive processes. In one study analysts who used System 1 thinking were more likely to issue forecasts that conformed to consensus data. In some cases they also used older forecasts to make their predictions.

With System 2 thinking, decisions are the result of slow, rigorous reasoning processes. Because of this, System 2 tends to result in better decisions. The same study showed that analysts who used System 2 thinking produced higher-quality, more accurate forecasts that had a stronger impact on the market.

System 2 requires more cognitive resources, so people switch to System 1 after an extended period of System 2 thinking. This shows that making decisions eats up cognitive resources and can result in decision fatigue.

When your mental resources are drained, the quality of subsequent decisions suffers. So you’re likely to make more mistakes. In the study I referenced, analysts’ forecasts became less accurate throughout the day.

Counteract Decision Fatigue

You can proactively counteract the negative effects of decision fatigue.

For example, President Barak Obama explained that he minimizes his food and clothing choices to improve his other decisions. Mark Zuckerberg wears limited styles and colors of clothing. The point is to reserve you cognitive resources to help you make better decisions for more significant matters.

One way to better allocate your mental resources is to standardize your decisions in less significant areas such as:

• What you eat
• The clothes you wear
• What time you go to lunch
• The time you start and end work
• Your morning routine

Because your actions are always the same and you don’t need to think about what to do, you have more mental capacity to effectively work on challenging problems.

20. Make Boring Tasks More Meaningful

Associate the Task with Something Meaningful

We all want to work on tasks that feel engaging, but the reality is every job has boring work that you just need to get done. In such situations I motivate myself by building an association in my mind that links the undesirable task with something that is meaningful to me.

For example, I don’t like the administrative work involved with coordinating interviews. But if I just get it done, I can:

• have more time to focus on my employer branding project, which is something I really enjoy
• stop work early and go for a jog
• get home on time and work on my side hustle

Suddenly completing a task that I did not like, becomes more motivating, because I’ve linked it to something important and rewarding. This is one of the great ways to be more productive at work, because you’re less likely to waste time by procrastinating. You’ll be motivated to get those boring tasks out of the way, so that you have more time for the things that matter to you.

View the Task as Part of a Larger Set to Reach a Broader Goal

Another way to make a boring task more meaningful is to consider how it fits into a larger set of tasks to realize a broader goal. By viewing your task as a puzzle piece that completes the whole picture, you can recognize the true value of your contribution.

Based on Gestalt principles in psychology, people consider the same objects more valuable when they belong to a set. In one study participants reported greater joy and meaning for menial tasks when they saw how their tasks connected with other participants’ tasks to reach a greater goal. This strategy is referred to as superordinate framing.

The goal of my current company is to help pharmacists successfully open and operate their own pharmacies. There is a lot that goes into this such as finding the right location, building the pharmacy, marketing, ordering the products and much more. My job is to recruit the future employees. This is not always motivating because there is a large labor shortage in Germany. However, I’m energized to keep at it, because I know that my job along with everyone elses’ contributions will lead to a successful end result.

21. Pair Boring Tasks with Tasks That Demand More Attention

This productivity tip is particularly helpful when there is something you need to get done that doesn’t require strong concentration, but put off, because it’s boring. Instead of struggling to make the task more interesting, you can pair it with another task that demands more attention. This is referred to as tangential immersion.

Why does this work? Our mind seeks to be engaged, so we get bored when we do something that requires less attention than we have available. However, if we do a second task at the same time to occupy our excess attention, we’re more likely to be persistent and complete the boring task. This only works if the two tasks occupy most of, but not more than, our total attentional capacity.

How does this look in the work context? You can listen to music or play an audio book when doing tasks that don’t require much attention. I like to listen to music when I clean up my desk. This helps me to get the job done without thinking about how much I hate it. Walking around while on the phone helps me to concentrate better on what the other person is saying.

22. Stretch

One of the simplest ways to be more productive at work is to do stretching exercises. Sitting and looking at a computer screen for many hours every day is not good for your health. If your job requires this, you’ve probably experienced things like neck stiffness, back pain, shoulder pain and dry eyes.

I’ve integrated short stretching routines into my schedule to help prevent / relieve the aches and pains that come along with office work. This includes simple neck stretches and endeavoring to sit with good posture. I also do eye exercises such as changing focus and looking into the distance. In addition, I use a stress ball to prevent finger stiffness.

Strectching exercises make a big difference over time. They ultimately increase your productivity by relieving or preventing pain that can be detrimental to your focus and motivation.

23. Recharge

This is one of my favorite ways to be more productive at work. It’s really a continuation of the tip “manage your energy” from article 2 of this series. In that post my main point was to schedule tasks that require lots of concentration during your most productive times. This point focuses on how to tank energy and get rejuvenated.

People often respond to the demands of the workplace by putting in longer hours and neglecting proper diet and exercise. As a result, we become less engaged and more distracted. Constantly working with depleted energy reserves takes a toll on us mentally, emotionally, and physically.

No matter what the circumstances are, it is important to take the necessary steps to recharge your batteries.

Ways to be More Productive at Work – Manage Physical Energy

• Go to bed at a regular time
• Sleep longer
• Do cardio and strength training
• Eat healthily
• Drink enough water
• Take regular breaks
• Go for a walk
• Eat healthy snacks throughout the day to maintain glucose levels and avoid dips in energy
• Schedule time for rest and relaxation

Manage Emotions

We mostly perform best when experiencing positive emotions. This helps us to feel motivated and engaged. However, experiencing negative emotions like impatience, anxiety, anger, and irritability can drain your energy. Furthermore, depending on their intensity, negative emotions can make it hard to think clearly and logically. A key question is how do I keep my emotions from becoming too negative? Some strategies include:

• Identifying triggers and countering them
• Deep breathing to relieve stress
• Reframing how you think about certain situations to have a more balanced perspective
• Expressing appreciation for others
• Cultivating gratitude

More Ways to Keep Your Energy High

• Avoid switching between tasks and set dedicated times to focus on specific tasks
• Set times for concentrated, uninterrupted work
• Get the most important task done first
• Use your strengths and find ways to use them more – do what you are good at and what you enjoy
• Do what is meaningful for you
• Live your core values in daily behaviors

Another exercise is to map out your main tasks during the week using a calendar. Color the tasks that drain you with red and the tasks that energize you with blue. Try to find a good balance between the two. For example, you can switch between periods of red tasks and blue tasks so that your energy reserves do not become depleted.

Ways to be More Productive at Work – Summary

In this post I covered the last 7 of my top 23 productivity tips.

Make your environment work for you. Optimize your work space so that it energizes and motivates you. Enhance the things that help you work better and decrease the things that hinder your performance.

Communicate effectively. Learn to adjust your communication style to accommodate the person you’re engaging. Also, make your expectations clear, don’t assume everyone understands you. Uncover competing goals and try to make goals align.

Minimize decision making in less significant areas to have more mental capacity for finding effective solutions to complex problems.

Link tasks you don’t like to do with a reward or something meanigful. For example, if I get A done quickly, I will have enough time to do B.

Pair boring tasks with tasks that demand more attention. This will help you to stay persistent and get the task done.

Make sure to stretch. Little sretching exercises make a big difference over time and increase your productivity by relieving pain that can be detrimental to your focus and motivation.

Finally, take time to recharge your batteries. Schedule time for rest and relaxation. Also, pay attention to your body. Through signals like yawning or lack of concentration, your body will let you know when it’s time to take a short break or eat a healthy snack.

Enjoy trying out some of these tips. You’ll feel better while getting stuff done and will probably be able to free up more time for the things you love.

References

Kamarulzaman, Noorazlina & Saleh, Alia & Hashim, S. & Hashim, Hasnan & Abdul-Ghani, A.A.. (2011). An Overview of the Influence of Physical Office Environments Towards Employee. Procedia Engineering. 20. 262-268. 10.1016/j.proeng.2011.11.164.

Levi, Y., Hirshleifer, D., Teoh, S. H., & Lourie, B. (2018, July 20). Decision Fatigue and Heuristic Analyst Forecasts. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mwv3q

Savavibool, Nattha & Gatersleben, Birgitta & Moorapun, Chumporn. (2018). The Effects of Colour in Work Environment: A systematic review. Asian Journal of Behavioural Studies. 3. 149. 10.21834/ajbes.v3i13.152.