How To Fix Your Productivity Problem Through Tech In 2021

The last twelve months have been difficult for many businesses, with offices and workplaces closed for an extended period and disruption to normal working routines. But whether you’re continuing to work from home or starting to shift back to an office, if your productivity levels have dropped then it’s important to find ways to make your operations more efficient and boost your output.

Monitor where your time goes

The best starting point for fixing your productivity problem is to understand how you and your team are spending your time.

Use a time tracking tool to monitor where your time goes. This will show you exactly how long each task or piece of work takes. You’ll be able to see if simple, repetitive tasks actually take twice as long as you’d expect.

With accurate timings for each different task, you’ll be able to identify the things that are holding you back. Maybe there are some everyday tasks that could be automated with a piece of software? There might be areas where you and your team need to look at ways to improve processes or some training might help you to do the work quicker.

Even just setting a timer while you work so that you know how long you’re spending on something can increase your focus and help boost productivity.

Optimize your desk setup

Whether you’re at home, in the office, or elsewhere, your desk setup can make a huge difference to productivity. A quick fix for productivity problems is often to update and optimize your workspace.

Ensure you’ve got a desk space that’s big enough and a chair that you can adjust to sit at the right height comfortably all day. If you’re constantly fidgeting or changing how you’re sat then you probably need a better chair.

Using a laptop can be more flexible if you’re switching between home and office work, or if you’re on the move a lot. But make sure you’ve got a laptop stand, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse so that you don’t have to hunch over it for long hours. Where possible use a second screen so that you can view more of your work at once - you’ll be far more productive if you’re not constantly switching between tabs or windows.

You also need to make sure that you’ve got all the little things like wires, mac docking stations and adaptors, especially if you’re connecting to several devices. Having the right accessories for your equipment will ensure you don’t waste any time trying to make things work.

Technical problems can be a huge drain on your time and just being sat in the wrong position all day can cause long-term problems for your back, neck and eyes. Optimizing your desk set up with the right technology is an important part of increasing productivity.

Keep everyone on the same page

Miscommunication and lack of clarity can have a huge impact on your productivity levels. You need to always be clear about what responsibilities you have, what you need to be doing and when.

With many teams working remotely or in separate locations, it’s so much easier for things to get confused. This is why effective communication and project management is essential to fixing your productivity problem.

Each project or piece of work needs to be broken down into stages and tasks. These then need to be assigned to individuals with a clear deadline and an overview of exactly what they need to be doing.

If you’re working on multiple projects at once, project management is going to make it easier to keep track of what everyone is doing and give you an overview of progress.

Regular catch-ups are also important so that you can check in with everyone to make sure they understand what they’re doing and what to prioritize. Use video calls and instant messaging tools to communicate regularly when your team isn’t all in one place.

Automate your processes

There are plenty of ways in which you can use tech to cut down the time spent on repetitive but essential tasks. These are just a few of the areas you could be automating:

• Accounting software: You can automate your payroll, expenses process and invoicing
• Marketing automation: Use scheduling tools to automate social media posts and email marketing software to streamline your communications
• HR software: Simplify managing employees and handling things like sick leave and holiday requests
• Customer service: Use chatbots to handle customer queries, set up automated responses and filter messages

Using tech to automate your processes will often make them more efficient and effective, allowing you to free up your time to focus on more productive tasks.

As the disruption from COVID-19 continues into this year, it’s important to tackle your productivity problem sooner rather than later. There are plenty of ways that tech can be used to improve your workflow and make your business more efficient, you just have to find the right tools, equipment and software to meet your requirements.