During 2020 many people started working from home, remotely, as a result of Covid-19. It happened fairly quickly and quite seamlessly, thanks to the technology we have at our disposal.
Now, in 2021 when most people are returning to work after a Christmas holiday break, the remote working arrangement is continuing due to the fact that the Pandemic is far from over.
It will be interesting to see if the remote work arrangement will continue when things do return to normal one day, or whether it may become a permanent arrangement, perhaps following a hybrid approach where employees may continue working from home 2 or 3 days a week.
With this trend, it is very beneficial for employers and managers to ensure teams have home offices that enables high productivity.
Find below an Infographic covering the rise of remote work, the challenges people experience with that and details of office accessories to help with success.
A project leader has much influence over a team’s productivity. Therefore, it is always good to ask yourself: “How can I help my team to be more productive?”
You want to empower people to solve their own problems, and to be self-sufficient. You want to encourage collaboration, sharing and trust.
Consider taking a coaching approach where you listen more, ask good questions and be slower to rush to action and advice. Also understand the dynamics of behaviour change. The fact that habits are the building blocks of good behaviour, means that you want to encourage good habits and set the example.
Below you will find 10 specific ways to help your team be more productive and motivated to perform optimally, with compliments from Wrike.com.
You all know how challenging it is to stay productive at work all day long. There is so much time wasted on inefficient work like:
Scouring through email looking for documents
Accidentally using outdated information, causing necessary rework
Waiting for someone to send you the information you need
Answering “Can I ask you a quick question?” desk interruptions
There are productivity techniques to help combat some time wasters like multi-tasking. For example, a time-management method called the Pomodoro Technique (first developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s) that works on the principle that you focus on a task for 25 minutes and then take a break for five minutes. This technique forces you to focus on a single task, eradicating the negative effects of attempted multitasking. This focus has an immediate positive impact on your productivity and will enhance your work speed.
However, it’s estimated that 25% of the average worker’s day is wasted on inefficient work. That’s huge. If you work an 8-hour day, that’s 2 hours wasted every day. …10 hours per week. …520 hours per year. Do the math and you’re paying the average worker for 65 days (over three months of work!) of “info gathering” every year. For every employee in your company!
Another way to increase your team’s productivity, is to use work management tools which help teams cut out these inefficiencies, so we can stop spending so much time on “info gathering” and start putting our time into actually getting work done.
Read more on the challenges teams and managers are facing in today’s workforce in the Infographic below, sponsored by Wrike. Try Wrike’s work management tool free for the next two weeks, and challenge your team to get more done every day.
In today’s demanding world, we need to consider wellness in order to be productive and to stay present, focused and positive in the chaos we’re often confronted with.
We want to strive for well-being so that we can know ourselves better, have more fulfilling relationships, personally and professionally, and reduce stress.
Wellness will lead to happiness and studies like the Harvard Business Review have reported that happy workers are 31% more productive and three times more creative than the rest of the workforce.
Find below 13 ideas to build a happy and consequently, a more productive workforce, with compliments from Wrike.
Recently I attended the Peak Work Performance Summit hosted by Dr Ron Friedman. Ron Friedman, PhD, is an award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation and he’s author of the book: “The Best Place to Work”.
In the previous article: “What I Have Learned About Peak Work Performance” I shared some great takeaways from the speakers who were interviewed. In this article I’m going to share more views from well-known productivity experts.
Building an external brain
I was really impressed with how much I’ve learnt from David Allen, author of “Getting things done”. Here are two highlights.
He explained how we are bad at remembering, but good at recognizing. We need to clear internal mental space to make room for good ideas. Our head is for having ideas; not for holding them. That’s what he means by building an external brain – objectify it; get your head empty.
He’s also of the opinion that you shouldn’t take notes on a laptop. It’s better to write things down and to see lists visually rather than digitally.
Combat procrastination
People procrastinate because they feel out of control or uncertain about what to do or where to start. If tasks are described on a physical level of what to do next by using verbs, it’s much easier to have a kick-start. if not, you procrastinate and you have the nagging feeling of ‘when will I do this?’ So remember, put them all on your list with next actionable steps and review it regularly.
Essentials only
A few valuable lessons can be learned from Greg McKeown on determining what is essential and eliminating everything else. He authored the book: ‘Essentialism – Disciplined pursuit of less.
He explained that if you want to become distinctive; find out what makes you really good. Choose to be an Essentialist at work. Saying NO is a very important skill; but do it in a very polite way. Focus on what is essential, concentrate on getting that done well, as that will add most value.
Don’t use busyness as a badge of honour. When you are asked: ‘How are you? – choose to respond differently.
Instead of stating how busy you are and doing a million things, rather share a story from your life – like what you did yesterday with your children. Busyness may let other people feel you are more important, but could also make you look like you’re not in control.
Practices for the Essentialist
Create space to explore what is essential.
Every day write down the 6 things you want to do for the day; prioritise the list, cross off 5; focus on nr 1. Only work on what’s important now. When done, take the next thing.
Reallocate resources to the one thing that should get done; make it as effortless as possible
He’s starting a movement on how to become an Essentialist – so watch that space.
How to coach your teams
I want to conclude with the work of Michael Stanier, author of “The Coaching Habit”.
Learn how to coach your teams better by doing the following:
Listen a bit longer
Be slower to rush to action and advice
Probing more to find out what’s below the surface
Ask a question like: “what’s the real challenge here for you?” It puts the emphasis on the person, rather than the problem.
Look for leadership where you empower people to solve their own problems, and to be self-sufficient.
Have a few good questions. For example, in response to what a person is saying, encourage them by asking: “yes and what else?”
Understand the dynamics of behaviour change – habits are the building blocks.
Overcome the urge to give advice. Rather use the question: ‘what else?’ instead of telling the person what you think.
If you like the Peak Performance ideas and you want to know more, I have good news for you.
You can get Lifetime access to the ‘Peak Work Performance Summit’. You will have unlimited access to interviews with people who are sharing valuable information based on years of research for books and based on their real life experience.
We all want to become healthier, happier and more productive, but we seldom address these desires consciously on a day to day basis. Recently I was so fortunate to attend the Peak Work Performance Summit hosted by Dr Ron Friedman. Ron Friedman, PhD, is an award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation and he’s author of the book: “The Best Place to Work”.
Since I’ve learnt so much from each interview that Ron so masterfully conducted, I have decided to share a few takeaways with you. By simply applying some of these principles, I believe it has the potential to transform your life!
I loved this idea from Dan Pienk, an idea I have come across before, but I’m now more motivated to apply it at work as well as for personal growth.
He recommends doing a pre-mortem every six months asking:
What do I want to learn?
What do I want to achieve?
What are the pitfalls?
Like you can imagine, this can lead to much better goals that will be easier to achieve, since you are already addressing anticipated challenges even before they appear.
As for starting a new project, it’s a good idea to start with a pre-mortem so that the project can be setup for success, because it helps to think through what success will mean and it will identify possible risks or obstacles that may be blockers to successful delivery. Then a project manager and team can purposefully go ahead with the intention of solving possible problems even before they occur and continue to follow the markers identified for success.
Find out more in Dan Pink’s book: Drive by clicking on the image.
Reduce your focus to achieve better results
What Jay Papasan shared about the one thing that high performers do differently, is that it helps to reduce your focus to achieve better results. What does he mean by that?
It means that you focus on your one thing – the 20% that give 80% output. By doing one thing only, it could throw other things off and it may seem like the balance can go off, but in reality you are focusing on the one thing that will yield the biggest results. This can be applied at work, but also to your health, finances and family life.
Another interesting point he made, was to put being a husband or wife first, before being a parent, because you want to role model being good in marriage. Where else will our children learn to stay committed in marriage?
Find out more in Jay’s book: The one thing by clicking on the image.
For good fruit to grow, you need to be pruning
Todd Henry, who writes about creativity, productivity, and how to find passion for your work, shared an important principle. For good fruit to grow, you need to be pruning, like for a vineyard.
According to Todd, it’s important to learn to say NO to things. Build good practices around the domains you need to excel in. For example, establish blocks of time for study, reading or for writing, whatever it may be that you are doing.
Innovation happens in the gaps, in the quiet times. Create space in your life to bring the best of who you are to what you do. Personally, I loved this statement and as a working mom of 3 children, I constantly have to remind myself to carve out space in my life in order to be my best self.
Read Todd Henry’s books to find out more.
“The accidental creative – How to be brilliant at a moment’s notice”
“Herding Tigers – Be the leader that creative people need”
“Louder than words – Harness the power of your authentic voice”
Pillars of Success
Craig Ballantyne, coach to high-performing entrepreneurs and executives to get more done, have massive impact, grow their influence, and have a personal life, shared ideas to help you ‘own the day and control your life’. He shared five pillars of success:
Do better planning and preparation than ever before
Have a measureable outcome; have action points at the end
Positive social support – engage with people around you for support
Meaningful incentive that will motivate you
Self-imposed deadline and the power this has to help you stick to what you’re doing
Read his book: “The Perfect Day Formula” for more ideas on how to have the perfect day.
If you like the Peak Performance ideas that I shared in this article, I have good news for you.
You can get Lifetime access to the ‘Peak Work Performance Summit’. You will have unlimited access to interviews with people who are sharing valuable information based on years of research for books and based on their real life experience.
Whether you’re managing a schedule or organizing your time, there is one simple trick to improve your workflow for any and all tasks.
While working remotely I’ve tested more methods than I can count for boosting productivity. From software to diets to exercise and beyond, there’s one simple trick which has stood the test of time and I would like to share that with you.
You need to be following a process. What are the benefits?
Processes remove uncertainty
First and foremost, when you document workflows in a process you’re removing any uncertainty for the person working through it. As long as you provide ample instructions to go with your back checklist template (enough to tell them what to do and how to do it), there’s next to no reason for them to slow down mid-task in an attempt to remember the next step.
Put it this way; if you’re working through a process from memory you’re largely leaving success to chance. If you want to manage the project effectively, you need to have a reliable way to make sure that no steps are being skipped to maintain a consistent high quality.
Speaking of consistency…
You’ll have a consistent, measurable method
Again, rather than leaving the consistency of your team to chance you’re providing them with explicit instructions which they can easily follow. That means that rather than letting human error into your work and relying on memory, you have a consistent, documented process which is followed every single time you need to complete a particular task.
This same consistency is the only way that you’ll be able to effectively track and compare the results of various projects. If you’re running with a vague, half-solid method then the steps taken will likely vary in some way from one project to the next, making it incredibly difficult to pin down why a particular project succeeded or failed.
In turn, this will make it much harder to replicate your successes and avoid previous failures. Without knowing exactly what method was followed, there’s every possibility that you won’t even know what’s being done wrong.
Documented processes can be optimized
Being able to track your projects as they progress with a consistent method also means that when things go wrong you should be able to trace the fault back to your process. If a deadline is missed or a task not completed satisfactorily, it’ll be because of either a fault in the process or because the person working didn’t follow it.
Once you’ve documented your workflow and created a consistent approach, it’s easy to improve and to avoid disaster in the future.
Optimizing a process is a cinch. All you have to do is sit down with the people who worked through it, talk through their experience with the process, compare that to your results, and then you should be able to identify the section which needs improving.
For example, a particular step in the process could need more detailed instructions, a piece of software may need replacing, and responsibilities may need making clearer to increase accountability.
Documenting your workflows is the best way to improve your productivity and effectively manage your team’s projects efficiently. Whether you documenting processes using a special app or jotting them down in a pen-and-paper file, try it and see for yourself how easy it to improve your workflow.
Benjamin Brandall is a content marketer at Process Street, where he writes on startups, SaaS, and workflows. In his spare time, he runs Secret Cave, a blog about obscure entertainment and internet culture.
As project managers, we are all inundated with emails daily. Therefore, I want to share the 6 Time Management tips to manage your email from BrightWork to help us become more productive as professional project managers.
Tip #1
Set special time aside for emails and turn off all email notifications.
Tip #2
Clear your Inbox once a day or at least weekly. This one I struggle with, but I do manage to read and action all my emails daily.
Tip #3
Eliminate multiple folders for different type of emails. Create one ARCHIVE folder for emails you want to keep and use the Search function to find them. With my ‘blue’ analytical personality, I still prefer folders, hence, it takes longer to clear my Inbox.
Tip #4
If you get the same questions again and again or you need to share the same information weekly, create an email in drafts answering the common questions.
Tip #5
Don’t reply to an email when you are angry. I believe anyway that it’s better to deal with conflict in person and keep emails for information sharing that is unemotional; that is more professional.
Tip #6
Have a systematic, simple email management process in place.
Click here for the Infographic: 6 Time Management Tips to manage your email
Let us know in the comments sections what other email tips you have! Please click below to subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting not to miss any future updates!
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A few valuable lessons can be learned from Greg McKeown on determining what is essential and eliminating everything else. He authored the book: ‘
Whether you’re managing a schedule or organizing your time, there is one simple trick to improve your workflow for any and all tasks.
As project managers, we are all inundated with emails daily. Therefore, I want to share the 6 Time Management tips to manage your email from 