Tips and Examples for Being More Productive and Successful at Work

There is no better time to start to outperform what you were able to accomplish last year. The New Year is a great time to adopt new habits that can help you be significantly more productive in 2021. First, it's important for you to hit the reset button in your mind and realize that you have a clean slate ahead of you. Here are a few handy tips on how you can outperform at work, be more efficient and productive, and give your career a much needed boost for 2021. 

Set Clear Goals 

 

Much like making New Year’s resolutions at the start of every year, getting clear and realistic goals for yourself is the best place to start on being your better self.  If the year will be a journey, think of the goal as the finish line. Knowing your career goal helps you in knowing how to get it in the first place, whether it be to take on a new career shift or to get that long awaited promotion. Economist Sylvia Anne Hewlett explains in her book that making one’s own opportunities is crucial to one’s career development. 

The next step is to take action and figure out what you need to do to reach your destination. This involves identifying little things that need to be done to achieve success. You are taking actions that you know will increase your productivity and breaking them down into manageable steps that you can start to implement. Look inwards and see what skills you need to learn and improve on. SImilarly, you can look around you to draw inspiration from other people who you see as being successful. For example, a small goal that you can start with is being more punctual in work. 

Start Your Professional Development Journey

Learning does not stop in the classroom. This cannot be more true with the many ways to learn new skills, which makes it a great decision to invest in your own self-development. 

This is beneficial for many reasons such as a way to curb boredom and stagnation, and helping you in being more efficient and productive in the work that you do. 

With the many options from business coaching, online courses, virtual training, or even by just reading a book, there are many ways to learn at your own preferred time and pace. 

Equipping yourself with skills can help you get more things done, widen the range of the things that you can do, making you more productive in work. 

Research shows that proactive people are better contributors, innovators, and overall performers. 

Work Smarter, Be Disciplined

Working smarter is different from just working hard. This means you are able to be more efficient and productive with your time. Research from UC Berkeley shows that top performers are those that focus on fewer goals but obsess over them, that their extreme dedication to their priorities produced the best results. 

This means having the discipline to do away with unnecessary tasks that take up most of your time and instead putting your focus and attention on the ones that matter. If you are the type to check your emails every 5 minutes or so, then this is the sign to drop that habit. This way you get to spend your office hours doing work that matters and get to do your job more quickly and efficiently. 

Network and Build an Online Presence

It is never a bad idea to be social every now and then with your colleagues and others who work in the same industry. Getting to know the people you are working with and letting them get to know you can help in your career and reputation. This does not just mean meeting in person but also connecting and networking online. Study shows that 85% of jobs are filled via networking which displays how crucial networking is to those hoping to advance in their career. 

Add colleagues or people you have come into contact with in LinkedIn so that they can see what you are up to and vice versa. It is important in this day and age to dedicate time in building a strong online presence.

Prioritize Self Care

With the right amount of time spent in working on yourself, there should also be ample time to take care of yourself. With the start of the new year, view it as a clean slate to build yourself up into a better version of yourself which includes prioritizing yourself. This can be a way to learn to start paying more attention to yourself and what your body needs. Wellness expert Kelsey Patel explains that self-care is how we cope with life’s daily stressors.

It is one thing to take care of yourself physically by eating healthier, getting the right amount of sleep, and forming good daily habits such as taking time for self care and limiting your time checking out social media. Taking care of one’s mental health is another overlooked facet that is part of taking care of oneself. This can be accomplished even just by being positive, being kinder to yourself and not letting yourself get absorbed by stress and negativity. “Positive thinking will let you do anything better than negatively thinking will”, according to motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. 

There is no point in letting yourself get consumed by things such as stress. While stress is an external factor that cannot be controlled, how we manage it is something that we can work on. Taking care of yourself both physically and mentally can have good payoffs as it lets you give your best at work and do more. When self-care is practiced, one can reap benefits such as an improved immune system, increased productivity, and higher self-esteem, according to a faculty member of the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA). 

Having a stress ball is one handy way to relieve yourself of life’s daily stressors. Incorporate one into your work desk or office space and see the difference it can make in helping you focus on what matters. Serenilite offers premium stress balls and has them known for being one of the best names in stress relief. Discover the way to being more stress free to let you focus on what matters and help you achieve more in your career for this year.