H O W O U R T E A M S TAY S F O C U S E D

6 S T E P S T O B E Y O U R M O S T P R O D U C T I V E S E L F

“Once I became mindful of how easy it is for me to get distracted, I started to think seriously about

productivity. How can I manage my time better?”

C O N T R O L Y O U R S U R R O U N D I N G SS T E P 1

C O N T R O L Y O U R S U R R O U N D I N G S

Designing the perfect workspace is important. And feeling comfortable plays a big part. But your environment affects you directly as well. Pay attention to:

• Ergonomic furniture: Choose a chair that prevents you from slouching.

• Lighting: Exposure to natural light has been proven to enhance productivity.

• Sound: Get in the zone with noise cancelling headphones.

C R E AT E R I T U A L SS T E P 2

C R E AT E R I T U A L S

Whether it’s a cup of coffee before work or sharing breakfast with your team, creating everyday rituals is a major key to staying productive.

• Try the 2-minute rule: If something takes you <2 minutes to get done, get it out of the way.

• Set aside time for emails: Check email in the morning and don’t go back until the afternoon. This way, you get the most important messages out of the way. And if you’re feeling courageous, achieving inbox zero is a great task to mark “done” on your list each day.

• Work remotely (if you can): Our editorial team takes their remote writing day very seriously. Every Wednesday (our company’s ‘no meeting day’) the team writes from a quiet place like home or a cafe.

R E M O V E A L L D I S T R A C T I O N SS T E P 3

R E M O V E A L L D I S T R A C T I O N S

The other day I sat down to write this. I had everything ready to go when suddenly, a group message on Slack needed my attention. What happened? I only started writing a few hours later. Exactly what I needed. Not.

So, how can you avoid this from happening in the future?

• Create tunnel vision focus: Sign off of all chats (Slack, HipChat, Hangouts), or at least turn off notifications.

• Use noise cancelling headphones.

• Leave your phone inside your backpack/bag or on airplane mode.

V I S U A L I Z E Y O U R W O R KS T E P 4

V I S U A L I Z E Y O U R W O R K

• Having a lot to do can be overwhelming, even stressful. Give yourself enough time to prepare each task in advance. Create a high-level overview of your work when planning your day/week. How can you do this? Write everything down.

• Forgetting an idea can be a worst nightmare and remembering it in the shower a few weeks later might be too late. Trust in the notepad, make checklists that move your tasks to “done,” and go home on Friday guilt-free with a better sense of achievement.

D I V I D E Y O U R TA S K SS T E P 5

D I V I D E Y O U R TA S K S

• Use agile methodologies. Work in 1-week sprints, which break down goals into smaller manageable tasks. Complete several projects by the end of the week running all sprints in this way.

• Set 3 specific goals for yourself. If you don’t achieve them, go back and try to understand why it didn’t work. Maybe a goal was too big. Perhaps you didn’t allocate enough time to tackle things. If either is true, then divide tasks into smaller ones that you can manage. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

G I V E Y O U R S E L F H E A D S PA C ES T E P 6

G I V E Y O U R S E L F H E A D S PA C E

• Make sure you don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t work on something for more than two hours unless you’re in a flow state or “in the zone.” Take walks. Leave enough space to process and assess the work you’ve done. Burnout does more damage than you think.

T H E M A I N TA K E A W AY

When it comes to personal productivity habits, you never know what works until you test it. Experiment, find out what works for you, and stick with it. If you’re not sure where to start, ask others for suggestions. You might be surprised by how knowledgeable your colleagues can be!

About the author

Joanne Torres is an online & outreach marketer at Typeform. Compared to the industry average, Typeform has 4x higher completion rates due to their human-first design approach—keeping people’s attention from start to submit.

Follow Joanne on Twitter @possiblyjoanne and connect with her on LinkedIn.

SILENCE ONE OF THE WORST DISTRACTIONS: EMAIL