Productivity can be defined as a person’s ability to be efficient in everything, achieve the desired high results, and work fruitfully and beneficially. Being highly productive is not an innate trait but an acquired skill of a successful person, developed by practice. This skill can be developed and improved in work and ordinary everyday activities.
High productivity brings satisfaction that one can not buy. After all, we are happy and satisfied with ourselves if we have done a lot, see the desired result, and know we haven’t worked in vain. Consequently, we need productivity for self-realisation, happiness, and confidence. But how do we achieve this?
The amount of time we have at our disposal is limited. We have personal commitments family life, but beyond that, work tasks, and some even run a business. There is often not enough time for what we need to do, and our charges accumulate. We lack efficiency in such situations but often don’t know how to be more productive and use every minute to our advantage instead of wasting precious time.
Loss of motivation at work is one of the most fundamental problems everyone has faced at least once in their lives. The lack of desire to work at the usual rhythm, to develop and improve your skills, can lead to a constant subdued mood. Consequently, the daily commute to work will irritate us, and the familiar faces of our colleagues will be unpleasant.
So how can we avoid succumbing to the influence of monotony, learn to self-organise at the right time, and enjoy our work? If this seems impossible to you, this article is for you. We will consider the most effective ways of self-motivation and will try to return even the most “burned out” specialists to the joy of the meaningful activity.
Right Choice of Work
The very first step to solving the loss of motivation in the workplace is to understand whether you are the right person for the position. We are talking not only about professional qualities but also about character types, personal preferences, etc. Work can be conditionally divided into several types:
- physical
- intellectual
- sedentary
- active
- monotonous
- with an irregular schedule, etc.
For example, if you like the routine work with papers in the office from 9 to 5, you will never be happy with a work routine that constantly presents new problems or regularly goes on business trips. The opposite is also true — an active person who loves changes and new tasks can go crazy if constrained to monotonous work in one place.
So the most important thing is to make the right decision about the type of work you need. You will never be happy in an unsuitable job, no matter your motivation.
Constant Pursuit of the Result
Constantly set a goal for yourself, even a small one. For example, correctly prepare a monthly report and get a bonus. Or do a certain amount of work in a week and reward yourself with a well-deserved rest over the weekend. Or use one of the best productivity apps to complete some routine tasks faster than usual. It will also be helpful to come up with some reward during workdays — for example, allow yourself an extra break or a cup of coffee only after you’ve completed the task at hand.
If your pay level is directly dependent on the work performed, the strongest motivation will be the desire to earn money for a big purchase or a vacation. After achieving such a goal, you’re likely to feel more interested in your job and increase motivation to continue working in the same spirit.
Make Hard Things Simple
In most cases, work remains undone not because of its difficulty but unwillingness to start doing it. Any task, even the most difficult one, can be simplified if you mentally prepare for it, thinking of the simplest and most rational ways to complete it. Also, you should complete large tasks step-by-step, dividing them into several small parts.
Any work should begin with preparation: move all necessary things close to you so that they’re at hand, and move the things you don’t need out of your sight. You should not be distracted by anything. Otherwise, your interest and motivation will quickly fade, and fatigue and irritability will replace them.
Take Care of Your Health
No matter how banal it may sound, a healthy and energetic body is much easier to set up for productive work. To do this, you should follow a daily exercise routine and pay special attention to your sleep. It is desirable to sleep at least eight hours a day. To do this, you should give up sitting at the computer at night and unnecessary clicking of useless links on the Internet.
A healthy person has a lot more helpful energy than an unhealthy one. Coming to work, they don’t need to waste time on getting started — they’re ready to perform daily tasks immediately. As for healthy sleep, it is impossible to work hard or efficiently if you’re sleepy. A sleepy employee wants only one thing: to finish work as soon as possible and go home.
Even more helpful for efficient work during the day is morning jogging or other morning exercises. So if you have a little time in the morning, make sure you get some exercise. This will benefit your body and energise you for the day.
Appreciate Your Free Time
Having lost motivation at work, a person wants to get free as soon as possible and go home. This desire, however, can also be a powerful motivator. It is necessary to think in the opposite direction: the faster and better you do your work, the sooner you will be accessible and able to go on a date, play videos games, or do whatever it is you want to do with your free time. At that, you’ll feel proud you’ve done your work well.
Spend your free time properly, too. Lying on the couch all weekend or vacation is not the best option. It is necessary to organise your leisure time most excitingly:
- Go on a bit of a trip.
- Go on holiday with friends.
- Solve some crossword puzzles.
- Play a mind-stimulating game.
- Catch up on your reading.
- Go to a yoga retreat and the like.
If you have something like that to look forward to, you’ll work hard in anticipation of days off and strive to earn more money for the upcoming vacation.
Motivate Yourself With Examples of Successful People
You can read many fascinating and striking stories online about people who have worked hard to reach heights in one field or another. They might motivate you and serve as good examples for you. After reading such stories or watching documentaries, ask yourself: how am I worse? You will realise that everything is in your hands and depends only on constant and hard work.
To prepare yourself for practical work, you can even use envy as an additional motivator. To do this, think about the success of your colleagues, friends, and classmates. Then you will have an incentive to prove to yourself and others that you can do even better. The desire to compete and become better will give you additional strength to achieve your goals.
Organise Your Work Time Properly
An inefficient working day organisation can tire a person extremely and hamper their effectiveness. Thus, it is necessary to improve your efficiency constantly. To do this, you should keep a diary with the schedule of what you need to do or use the best productivity apps developed to organise your working day effectively.
Being Productive is Not About Perfection
There is no such thing as perfection. If you sit idly by, waiting for something to fall from the sky, you can easily miss your chance. But you can skip it as quickly when you cling to one task, striving to do it perfectly, and never moving on to the next task or phase.
If all companies waited until they made their product perfect, they would never enter new markets. You can sit around all the time, racking your brain and waiting for a brilliant insight, instead of being more productive and moving forward.
Delegate
You have to learn to delegate some of your responsibilities. You think you can do everything, but when tasks pile up like a mountain on your shoulders, that mountain can become too heavy to bear. One of the best insights you can have is to realise that there are some things you don’t have to be the best at. Delegating tasks to other people who do them more effectively will significantly help both the company and you. You can’t do everything yourself, and the sooner you realise that the better you will be.
Distractions as Productivity Thiefs
The more distracted you are, the more you tear your day apart. You need to create a work environment that allows you to have free time to relax and stay 100% focused when you need it. It’ll be even better if you avoid things that distract you, such as personal messages that take up the lion’s share of your time (or other employees with nothing to do). Focus on the task at hand and turn off your phone to avoid getting distracted. The same goes for messages in your inbox.
Celebrate Small Victories
We all like to do something well, and if you do something well, it deserves to be celebrated! Don’t forget your small victories, as they play a significant role in the growth of your career or studies. If, for example, you have a project that needs to be completed in a week, it would be ideal for dividing it into small tasks so that you can complete them without stress. Each time you meet a small commission, you can take a 5-minute break, and at the end of the day, you can eat something that you love (make it healthy, please!).
Let Motivation be on Your Side
If you’ve ever noticed that you lack the motivation to complete a project or task, it’s essential to find a way of meeting it with less stress for your efforts to be productive. You can divide your project into three parts. Whenever you finish each of them, you can take a break to celebrate this small victory and feel motivated enough to continue the work that still needs to be done.
Remember, if you want your work or study to be productive, don’t get upset about a failure. Let it be the other way around! Failure is an opportunity to do better and achieve positive results in your work. No matter how difficult the situation at work is, never give up. The most important thing is to believe in yourself and your strength. Think about your family and children, become an example and a role model for them. And then you are sure to achieve the desired success!
Conclusion
All of the above probably sounds like a lot to take in. It’s almost a treatise. Well, almost. Think positively. It’s not that overwhelming. You can make this or that mistake and forget a rule or two. Forgive yourself and start again. Practice makes perfect. Focus on the positives, and if there are some negatives, learn from them. If you focus on the adverse outcomes, you will be stressed and doubtful.
Make an effort to learn from mistakes with a positive mindset. You will attain that desired productivity that has so far remained elusive, and you will also learn to focus on and pursue positive results. If you follow our helpful tips, you will improve your intellectual abilities and find work much more accessible.
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