90% of UK CEOs say that digital technology is vital to improving productivity (9 Spokes), but are you taking advantage of the resources around you?

I’m sure most people think they are being productive, but there is a difference between being extremely busy and working productively.

Do you create to-do lists and work through them as the day goes on? Or do you get distracted and do whatever task springs to mind first?

Either way, we can all improve productivity in our workplace – here’s how…

Overtime Equals Underproductive

Working overtime is common for most professionals, but did you know that productivity decreases by 50% after working forty hours a week? (Slide Share).

So our first tip (believe it or not) is to work less! It is much more effective to set aside a certain time frame to complete your tasks, rather than just continue working until the task is done.

Additionally, if we are working with a deadline, we tend to be more focused and productive.

Prioritize your daily tasks in order of importance. Then set yourself a time to complete them as you go, say two hours for the most important job.

You will find that you will do more in a day and complete individual jobs quicker.

But, when the clock strikes home time, go! If you stay late, chances are your brain has already switched off.

Work Hard Rest Hard

It’s all well and good working hard to get more done, but that hard work must be rewarded with rest periods.

Florida State University found that students who worked in no more than ninety-minute intervals were more productive.

So after an hour and a half of working, go and make yourself a cup of tea. Get away from your desk and take a break. You will see an increase in concentration and thus productivity.

Workflows Work Wonders

As speech recognition experts, we meet many businessmen and women. Some of them say: “I don’t need speech recognition, I don’t write much” – but do you?

The average worker spends 25% of their day reading and replying to emails (Slide Share). Therefore, it doesn’t really matter if your job doesn’t involve writing huge reports, speech to text software can help with the small things.

Life Hack estimates that in our working day, we send 42 emails per day, if you could dictate these emails instead of typing them, you would complete them three times quicker!

Think of the extra time you would free up. Time to get on with important work? Time spent face-to-face with clients? Or time spent improving customer experience? Take your pick.

Whether it be various options within digital dictation or speech recognition, finding the right workflow solution for you will have a huge impact on your productivity.

If you’re interested in increasing your productivity and going home on time, then get in touch. We’d be happy to have a no-obligation chat about improving your workflow system.