We’re fast approaching Work Wise Week in the UK and QuickBooks is looking to share productivity tips in honor of this week. This article is a collection of what we do at DigitalOx to improve productivity and work smarter.
In this internet age it’s easier than ever to procrastinate, distractions are only ever a few clicks away; and as an internet company we’ve had to adapt and innovate in the way we approach our working days.
We encourage all our staff to take daily hourly breaks, which for most of us consists of a walk around the local area to keep our heads clear, stretch our legs and reset our focus. We’ve found this to be the second most important factor in boosting our productivity over the years (although we do have to stagger the breaks so the office isn’t empty and the phones unanswered!).
Harnessing our productivity and improving our overall office health and fitness goes hand in hand here: nearly all of us have some form of exercise tracker wristbands that remind us when our next hour’s ‘movement break’ is due, meaning we don’t lose track of time and get bogged down. Importantly, this has also had a positive impact on staff health and absences: we’ve monitored way fewer sick days since implementing this ‘movement drive’, so overall we couldn’t be happier with the positive impact this one seemingly small change has had.
As an internet company, most of our Online Reputation Management work on behalf of our Clients can be carried out remotely, and we all have days where we don’t want to be stuck in an office! So we allow our employees the freedom to choose to work from home or wherever they want a few times a week (or in some cases full-time). We’ve often spent whole mornings or days working in the lounge area of a wi-fi networked local business meeting spot: a change is as good as a rest, or so the old saying goes, and a change of scenery every so often certainly motivates and drives performance in our team.
Most of us work in spurts and productivity rises and fails, and interrupting someone while they’re in the prime of their focus can ruin productivity and delay output. Although everyone has to be contactable, sometimes you really need to shut out the world and just focus: we provide headsets, so you can zone out the office noise when you really need to. If someone has their headset on in the office it effectively acts as a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. (Unless somebody’s making a cup of tea, obviously!).
The amount of information and knowledge that we have to deal with on a daily basis is more overwhelming than ever before. To operate effectively as an Online Reputation Management company, we have to learn every aspect of our Clients’ businesses to be able to provide them the best possible service. And as we now have many international clients, sometimes our days can start or end at strange times to accommodate them!
So how do we make sure our team here doesn’t get ‘lost’ in their daily tasks? We encourage all our employees to structure their work in to-do lists (most of us use Todoist) so they can split up their day into bite-sized chunks and stay on top of deadlines. This allows tasks to be organised in groups and divided up by priority so you can action the important things first. Implementing Todoist has probably had the biggest impact on our office’s productivity as it removed the stress of structuring your day inside your head.
We love sayings here like ‘work smarter, not harder’ and Work Wise Week is an opportunity for us all to assess that we’re truly doing that, every single day. So have a To Do List, take walks, work from home, mix things up a little: your mind and body will thank you for it and, ultimately, your business and your Clients will reap the benefits.