50 Tips to Enhance Business Productivity

How would you rate your business productivity on a scale of 0-10?

Even if your rating is quite satisfactory, then also you should constantly improvise yourself to increase your output level. If you are a very result-oriented person, even then you should always be passionate about increasing your business productivity level. There should always be experimentation with different methods and systems to increase the output from your side.

You should always take the path of trial and error while trying to increase your business productivity and follow the methods that work best and discard the rest. The end result of this trial and error method is that you will always get the best methods that will help you to work faster and produce the best quality at the same time. Here in this article, we will try to elaborate on some highly recommended strategies and tips on our part to increase your scaling productivity. We have seen tremendously promising results among the businesses who have tried these methods. Each of the tips discussed below are supported by a set of contexts where it will work best, so g through the article carefully and apply them according to that context:

Do The Planning The Night Before: Before you go to sleep, spend at least five quick minutes in planning for the next day. Jot down all the tasks you want to finish the next day, prioritize them in order and fix a time slot for each task to be completed. By this way, you can immediately get down to work the very next day and boost business productivity
Settle the big ones: Try to sort out the bigger tasks at first. When they are in place, you can easily get the less important ones done very easily. It would be much more complicated if you try to do it the other way round.
Prioritize The Toughest: Try to take up the toughest task when you begin your work every day. When you address the toughest and solve it out, everything else becomes lucid and business productivity increases.
One Task At A Time: Address the tasks that needs high level of brain work first, and focus on doing it one after another. Don’t ever go for multi-tasking because you will end up doing nothing at the end of the day. For example, when one write articles, he or she should focus on that only, since it requires deeper thinking.
Multitasking: You can do it when you are doing something menial which does not ask for much brain work. For example, if you are ironing your clothes, then you can fit in other tasks as well like listening to podcasts.
Discard The Not So Important. Choose the must do work first and removes the nice-to-do work completely from the list. Why waste your energy and time on something unimportant? Constantly evaluate these things to make sure that the absolutely needed are addressed first. This is very important in increasing business productivity.
Create A To-Do List. This kind of list lets you (1) Perfectly streamlines all the tasks that comes in. Tasks always come in, but arrange them according to their urgency and importance. This way, you will be able to focus on your tasks at hand rather than getting distracted all the time by things that aren’t so important. (2) It gives you the option to judge everything clearly on things that you need to do and adjust yourself accordingly (3) You will never miss out on anything important that you should have been done at the beginning of the day. (4) Create check boxes against each and every item in your to-do list. Tick against each box after you complete the task. This will give you immense satisfaction while working.
Chalk A Later Doing List. All day long, there will be innumerable things that may demand your immediate attention. Usually these are small tasks that don’t take away much of your time but aren’t that important either. List them in the later doing list and attend to them when you’re done with the big ones.
Frame a Business Productivity System: Basically, there is no one fixed system that works for each and every situation. The secret is that you need to experiment on the available systems and then choose a system that suits you the best.
Choose To Be Effective First And Then Be Efficient: Effectiveness means your ability to do the tasks that matters most to you. Efficiency means producing more in lesser time. your efficiency falls automatically if you concentrate on the non-valuable tasks more.
Stop Procrastinating: This is a huge waster in itself. Take out some time and contemplate on all the things that you could have achieved if you never would have procrastinated from this point onwards! Put in your best efforts and overcome this disastrous habit of procrastination.
Take The Help Of the Tools: There are some very effective tools, both software and hardware, which can help you to increase your productivity and we suggest that you should leverage on them a lot. For example, Nokia E63 Qwerty phone is very useful and thorough it you can type articles and check your emails even when you are on the go. If you commute a lot for business purpose and meet people all the time, then these types of softwares can prove to be very good for you. We assure you they can dramatically increase your business productivity after you give them a try.
Ever note and Sticky Notes are also a fast way to store and retrieve information. Gcal for maintaining the calendar and Gmail for emails are also two great tools. To make the process of brainstorming easier, there are softwares like mind-mapping that can prove to be very beneficial. Here’s some more among the freewares of which more than half of them work as business productivity tools. Here are some examples of the hardwares which can improve your skills and they are the PDAs or personal organizers, 3G mobile phones to check emails, and keep yourself connected, laptops to work on continuously even while you move and mp3 players for listening to the news, and podcasts.

Set Aside Some Time To Meditate. This works wonders is keeping your mind clear, calms your nerves and your soul, and enhances your awareness level. It also helps you to prioritize your work and helps you to business productivity on whatever you do all day. For example Vipassana meditation can boost up your momentum a lot.
Start Headlong: Be a early riser and try to begin your day much before others do. While executing your tasks, begin five or ten minutes earlier than usual. Because of this early beginning, much before the original deadline, you will feel extremely feel good about it and find yourself much more motivated than others to run faster so that you can lead others.
Follow The 80/20 rule: This rule talks about a phenomenon which says that 20% causes leads to 80% results. You no longer have to be a perfectionist and focus on the 20% of the things that matter. Try to implement it in enhancing your business productivity and see the results!
Clear The Mind Cloud: If you can achieve the highest level of mental clarity early, it will help you in focusing better on your task, and enhance your business productivity simultaneously. You can do a brain gym called brain dumping which clears all your distractions, thoughts (both positive and negative) and increases your mental clarity manifold. Another method is to take the help of meditation. It fully clears your mind, calms you down, enhances your awareness about your priorities and helps you to focus more and more later on.
Be More Organized. Too much clutter in your work can hamper the processing of your work. Get everything organized before you start your work. Yu should have a well organized and perfect filing system to keep both your soft and hard copies for later reference. Store them so that it can be easily retrieved and this boosts business productivity.
Entrust. If you feel that the task at hand needs immediate attention but at the same time (1) can be executed better by someone else (2) isn’t your cup of tea or (3) isn’t worth your time, delegate them immediately to the right person without thinking twice. If you are striving to get the maximum output against the time you have invested in sorting the tasks at hand, then entrusting it to someone else is the best option for you. For example, entrustment of the administrative work.
Outsourcing. It is very similar to delegating but the difference is that you pay someone else to do it. Internet has become ubiquitous in today’s life; you can hire anyone from the developing countries to execute the tasks for you at a much lower cost. Your professional work can also be handled by them, such as designing, photography, etc at a reasonable price. You can try out Elance.
Minimize Distractions / Remove The Time Wasters. Distractions in the form of MSN, Facebook, Twitter, TV, Radio, even you’re mobile are enough to decrease your productivity. Remove all these sources of distraction before you get down to work. If you try to work and socialize on these social media platforms simultaneously, you will soon realize that your productivity is touching the zero level. Cut them out totally if you are serious about business productivity. Remove the internet access altogether and create a no-distraction period where you can work undistracted.
Be A Master Of Your Skills. Master your skills to the tee so that your work is done well and fast. For example, if you are a photographer by profession, you can’t carry out your photography work properly if you don’t know how your functions of your camera well or your graphic software yet.
Choose The Periods Of Maximum Business Productivity. We all know that there are phases during the day when we are more productive and times when we are not. It’s early morning and late at night when we are the most productive as we get minimum distractions in these times. Identify you best productive times and then slot your toughest work to be done during these phases. For the rest of the time, do the menial work or just relax.
Choose The Enjoyment Factor. Choose the most enjoyable way to get your tasks done and you will see that more work can be done this way rather than using any other way. For example, one does more work when they enjoy a sport than when they do something less enjoyable like working out at the gym.
No excuses. Stop giving excuses of any kind and keep on working. Concentrate on the task for five minutes, and you will see that the urge to work will come on its own.
Take Ample Rest. A good nights’ sleep charges you up superbly to face the day with lots of energy. Your quality of sleep should be good and not the quantity. Before hitting the bed, try journaling or meditation to declutterize your mind so that you get good quality sleep.
Be A Devoted Learner. Find the best ones in your line of business and try to learn from them. Try to understand the best practices that they use and try to mold yourself according to their behaviors. This will help you to enhance your learning curve more and more.
Research and Reapply. Make a note of the best practices of business productivity that have already been applied at other places. Try to implement them in your line of activities. It is often seen that many of the best practices can actually be applied to different cases known as Medici Effect.
Do Some Improvisation. Set your goal first. Keep a close track of your performance. If you fail to meet your expectations, do some self introspection as to how you can improve on this. And if you have touched your target adequately, then also keep on improvising so that your performance is even better next time.
Study Materials On Business Productivity Enhancement. Books like Getting Things Done by David Allen and The 4 Hour Work Sheet by Timothy Ferris can increase your knowledge quotient manifold. You can also go through blogs like Life Hacker, Life hack, etc. Just a word of caution, don’t get too engrossed in these lives hacks and miss the target of what you are actually trying to do.
Create Your Life Manual. Store your target, long-term and short-term goals, strategies, plans, and other vital information on a diary so that you can turn those pages for later reference. This business productivity reference will help you to set your priorities in order and help you to remain focused.
Bundle The Same Tasks Together. Bunch the similar tasks together so that you can synergize them. For example, if you are going to the supermarket to buy the groceries, then list out the other things that you need to do there. This can help you to do them all at one go. If you are working on a project, try to finish everything related to it within the same time rather than doing it throughout the day.
Take The Help Of The Best Tools. The tools you use are to help you work faster, and not slow you down. Upgrade your softwares like Lotus Notes, Outlook, Photoshop, MS Office, to their latest version. Execute your tasks in a computer with moderate processor speed. Full proof your internet connection to avoid any slowing down.
Give Yourself Some Rewards. Incentives always alleviate the spirit of the worker and enhances their business productivity of practical operations. Reward yourself with something nice every time you touch a work milestone. Apart from the sweet feel of completing something, you will look forward more and more for these self rewards to motivate yourself further.
Say No. If you really want to get things done, you should learn to stand up for yourself and say no firmly to other distractions and things. Say no firmly to those things that you don’t wish to do, which are unimportant to you, and things which are unrelated to your field. You will face a bottleneck as far as your progress is concerned if you keep on saying yes to everything.
Stop Fighting. We often find ourselves in situations where things don’t turn up as we expected them to do. During those times just remove yourself from trying any further. When the purpose is defeated, stop trying anymore.
Create A Cozy Environment. Work environment must be extremely congenial as it plays an important role on how well you perform. Create a motivational spot for yourself where you can work peacefully.
Improve On The Ergonomics. Do you know that your posture affects your business productivity too? Improve on your posture and your attention span and what you demand will increase too. Ergonomics is too important here.
Delimit Those Negative Thoughts. Do you worry about something completely hypothetical? Have frequent negative thoughts? Get filled with negative feelings? Stop doing these and burst this bubble of trash. Press the delete button in your mind. And erase these things that are trying to hold you back for ever.
Lessen Your Commuting Time. Commuting time eats up on your time. Cut it down to the bare minimum by trying to commute through shortcuts, by taking cabs, hitching on someone’s car, and work from home, etc. If you are unable to, then leverage on the business productivity tools to make the most of your time.
Do Time Slotting. Slotting your time can make your tasks easier. You dedicate yourself in doing a single most task within that time frame. Nothing more, nothing less.
Set Your Target. Setting a target or a goal makes you work harder towards it. This also makes you your sole competitor in trying to reach the achievable in time.
Set Your Deadline. Draw a deadline for the goal you have set. Deadline speeds up and drives you towards your target.
Limit Your Emails. Emails should not hamper your business productivity; it should make things work better and faster.
Do Some Intricate Planning. We all know that blueprint creates a building. Good planning facilitates productivity in leaps and bounds. For example, if you are to write a ten page report. Invest some time in developing an outline and clear your thoughts a bit so that you can produce a high quality report in lesser time and effort.
Be Right In Time. Maintain your time in whatever you do. This minimizes the chances of your tasks to slide off the schedule.
Visualize. Think that you have completed the task. And feel the surge of euphoria. Now, gather as much as possible from that euphoria and use it to propel you towards your task completion.
Practice And More Practice. It is said that it takes thousands of hours to achieve success in what you are doing. So, work on diligently if you want to increase our business productivity. The better you do it, the more you can achieve within the deadline.
Use Incredible Force: Apply all your energy and get the task done. Imagine that you have a report to finish within three hours, try to channelize all your energy and get it done in one go. And if you do it for 30 minutes every day, you will have to recollect where you left which is a sheer waste of time.
Get A Good Guide. A guide makes you more aware about your loopholes, nudges you forward and opens your horizon so that you can touch new horizons that you ever thought to be possible.
Gift Yourself With That Precious Break. A fried brain produces rubbish. Or if you are physically and mentally too tired, then you need some time out. No point pushing yourself hard towards a disastrous ending. Rather give yourself a much needed rest and boost yourself for the next day. Or else you’ll face a slump in business productivity. Vacation is immensely important.