It’s time to get serious about your work if you’re hoping for advancement. Keep distractions at bay with these 5 simple tips for guaranteed productivity.
The Internet can indeed be considered as both a boon and a bane in the workplace. On the one hand, it does help you move along smoothly through your workload, since all of the invaluable and formerly hard-to-find information is always available and right at your fingertips. On the other hand, however, it’s just this easy access to information – the not-so-valuable kind we get from “surfing the Web” – that keeps people from doing what it is they really have to do each day.
To help you maximize your time, therefore, here are the 5 top productivity techniques that let you get the most out of your computer connection:
1. Rearrange Your Internet Windows
If you’re one of those people who need to be ever-present on social media sites, you need to find a way to do so without falling into the trap of getting irretrievably distracted from work. To do this, open one window specifically for work-related tabs, and another for the social media tabs.
The key here is in tricking the mind into thinking that you are actively logged in to you social network sites, while at the same time keeping them out of view under your work window. It’s a mind game, yes, but you need all the tricks at your disposal to counteract the appeal of these entertaining sites.
2. Learn How To Speed Read
Speed reading is one good technique for productivity. Whether it be in school or at work, you’ll undoubtedly need to do a lot of readings. Sometimes you can set it aside for later, but sometimes it simply can’t be avoided. The thing about this type of work, unfortunately, is that it often ends up at the top of your to-do list – especially if you’ve been putting it off. You can’t write a paper and then do the research about your topic after the fact. For any written work, reading usually comes first. As such, most people find their work progress stalled because of the fact that they read too slowly.
3. Create A Rewards Program For Yourself
Set a time limit and a goal for each task. For every one item you finish on your to-do list, give yourself (for example) five minutes of online browsing time as a reward. If you finish the task before your set time limit expires, you can even give yourself an extra 5 minutes. By giving yourself something to look forward to, you also give yourself the impetus to work faster.
4. Go Analog
If the Internet is distracting you, and you don’t need access to it for a specific task, shut it down. By switching off the modem and staying away from online distractions, you’re able to concentrate on the task on hand. It’s a situation that forces you to think of nothing else but work, thereby allowing you to finish it faster.
5. Schedule Your Work Online
You might be able to resist the temptation to chat online, but what do you do when your friends keep pinging and emailing and IM-ing you? Go online for work when most of your peers aren’t active. If you’re not being drawn into the social network sites by others, it will be easier to avoid going there yourself. What’s more, without these distractions, by the time your friends do get online, you’ll already have accomplished a lot and completed so many tasks, you’ll enjoy having the time to chat, rather than feeling guilty and stressed out.