Productivity is one of the aspirations of every business. Achieve get more done using less time. This can be achieved by improving the tools we have to work, but also withtechniques that help us improve productivity in the company, as everything can train and train to improve mechanisms.

Once we ‘ve plateaued with the tools we have available is the time to start thinking about other programs that help us improve, but also some investment in hardware, allowing do the same job faster. This moment usually happens when we realize that we’re ahead of the tool we use, ie we are faster the computer we use or have a machine to do a specific job that delayed us.

Coordination and organization

This is one of the basics that can improve in almost all businesses. On the one hand, we have the coordination between different departments, which are many hours that are lost throughout the year by misunderstanding, lack of coordination among different employees of the company involved in the same project.

Establish workflows suitable for our organization helps reduce these misunderstandings and that each department will get the right job when you have to intervene. If we have tools that facilitate the creation of these flows will be easier since it will notice the different departments, you can be creating milestones, etc.

On the other hand, there is the question of the organization of work is fundamental.Sometimes we want to attack many fronts at once, unable to advance any of them. But we often underestimate the time needed to perform a job. We sin always put fewer hours engaged and then this implies that project fewer hours than at the end they do. The result causes late to start the next project.

Short and effective meetings

In this regard the business meetings are one of the thieves of time if not organized effectively represent a major problem. I think I’ve proven over years different formulas and have the most effective results be short meetings, no more than 15 minutes a preset agenda very clear.

They can make as many as needed to coordinate and organize work, but should not be extended. Then you have to come out with clear conclusions, we can now go through email to all those involved to make it clear the route plan that has come out of it.

If they have to intervene employees or managers from different locations videoconferencing is the perfect solution, but everyone should have reserved time in their agencies and adequate infrastructure to be carried out without interruption. Should be avoided as far as possible waste time and money on travel.

Reduce interruptions

As regards the personal work is important to try to establish techniques to avoid interruptions. It is best to leave the phone off the hook, warn us that do not pass callsfor 25 minutes and devote exclusively to do a job that would otherwise end up dilating over an hour because we had to talk for five minutes with three different customers.

It is essential to learn to handle emergencies customers and gradually try to manage an agenda that allows us to work during certain intervals without being constantly interrupted. Return calls and messages once finished and unfinished work back to focus on the next task.

This is the hardest part of training, as it not only affects internally but also with companies and clients with whom we relate and, therefore, requires a constant tug of war between the client who wants to be served immediately and the need doing other tasks asked us, so pay attention to one necessarily mean stop working for another.

Techniques used personal productivity

Once each employee has their assigned work and is a matter of personal organization that the company must encourage and reward. Here we have to use techniques of personal productivity to help improve the work, concentration and be more effective.An example is the Pomodoro technique is more complicated when concentrating on a task.

If you do not have a common tool for the organization of work we will have to use a task list, either personal or for the department, where they will be set work that we have pending. This will help us not to forget tasks and if someone is saturated else can deal with it.

Here everyone has to learn to organize to meet their work as quickly and effectively as possible. Many times it is not easy to concentrate in open office environments, where everyone you can order something at a particular time, there is movement in the room distractions that make you lose the thread, etc. So we have to concentrate, work to abstract from all this moving around and finish our work quickly.

Adequate rest after work

Finally manage our breaks properly is essential. The concentration on a task and the amount of time we can be 100% is limited. Our brain needs phases of compression and decompression, maximum concentration and relaxation. Not to think about anything work …

It is therefore essential not only rest on weekends, but try to forget about work when we left office, when we closed the computer, etc. Nothing check email on mobile upon waking, answering emails at odd times, etc. All this makes it easier to get the freshest work with clearer mind and be able to better solve problems.

No face all these hit points. We can concentrate on one of them and when we have managed to improve, move to the next. Once we’ve improved the way we work is the time to evaluate which tools will help us improve productivity by improving the organization, coordination, workflows or favoring personal productivity.