We all have same but limited number of hours in a day. But do you ever feel like you are doing things but aren’t accomplishing anything worth being called ‘productive’?
If yes, then you’re not alone. In a recent survey, 57% of employees said they felt less productive and disengaged at work.
Maybe, the reason is not the time but the time-wasters at work that are killing your Productivity. It’s like you are constantly pushing an elephant up the stairs all day and it hasn’t walked up a single stair despite all efforts.
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If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can still save yourself. How? Here are seven time-wasters you must avoid that are killing your productivity.
- Constantly checking your emails
It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that emails are one of the biggest time-wasters. You, me, and in fact, each one of us is guilty of doing it. So much so, that an average employee checks his or her email 36 times an hour.
Solution: Limit your email checking time. For instance, you can set aside 15–20 minutes twice or thrice a day to check and respond to them.
2. Using social media on the go all the time
No doubt, Social Media is great for catching up with old friends and keeping up with the latest trends. However, by keeping your Facebook or Twitter tab opened while your working, you’re inviting yourself to be distracted. And, mind you, it can cost you 118 minutes a day.
Solution: Just like emails, you can allocate a specific time where you can check your social media accounts, be it in breaks or your lunch-time.
3. Noisy coworkers
Picture this: You are working on a presentation and amidst the pressure of getting things right and deliver it on time, you hear your co-workers laughing out loud on a silly joke taking away your all concentration and derailing you from your train of thoughts.
If it seems like an everyday scenario, don’t worry, we have a solution for it.
Solution: If a noisy coworker is keeping you from being productive, get yourself noise-canceling earphones. If it still continues, get your cubicle moved to another part of the office.
4. When you try to do it all
Contrary to the general notion, multitasking does kill your productivity. I’ll tell you how — when you are replying to an email while working on a task, it will take you more time completing both the things than it would have taken doing them individually.
Solution: Don’t complicate, do one thing at a time. Move to the next task only when you’ve completed the former.
5. Saying yes to everything coming your way
Your inability to say ‘no’ can cost you added hours of work and loss of productivity. Of course, be a helpful person but prioritize your work first. Always remember, by saying yes to being productive, you’re saying no to a lot of things that are unproductive.
Solution: As it’s not possible to please everyone, you can be honest and tell them that you’re already occupied with work and get back to them when you’re free.
6. Falling prey to procrastination
I guess all of us are culprit of being procrastinators in a way. We all shy away from doing some tasks in our schedule, for whatever reasons. But, trust me, nothing is worse than the feeling of something hanging over your head all the time. By procrastinating, you are making easy things hard and hard things harder.
Solution: The only way to beat procrastination is to act as you go. David Allen, author of a bestseller Getting Things Done suggests, if something takes less than two minutes, do it now.
7. Playing meeting-meeting every 2 hours
If numbers are to believed, there are 11 million meetings taking place every day in America and one-third of them are unproductive. The problem with these unwanted meetings is how they can waste the time and effort of so many people at once without accomplishing anything productive.
Solution: Keep them specific and time-bound. Or, how about allocating a number of hours every week to be spent on meetings?
Liked this post? If yes, then you are going to love this one as well —
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7 Time-wasters That Kill Your Productivity (and Their Solutions) was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
