cultivating productivity in the office

Little feels better than starting your workday by going over your to-do list with confidence, excited and ready to tackle the tasks ahead of you. You dive head first into your work, and by the time you resurface from your work flow groove for a quick breather, it’s already lunchtime! And after a replenishing lunch, you jump right back into the swing of things, knocking off tasks on your to-do list left, right, over, and under. Until finally, the workday ends, giving you time to marvel at how much you accomplished today—and how seamless, easy, and enjoyable it all felt! If only every day was filled with this much productivity. Not to worry, though—read on for a deeper dive into productivity in the office, and how to make the most out of every work day!

the current state of office productivity

While optimal productivity is a priority in any work environment, workers may not be as productive as they can be. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American employees work an average of 8.5 hours per day. However, a study of almost 2,000 office employees found that people were productive for a little under three hours everyday. That’s less than half of the time they spend in the office! In fact, 79% of the survey participants responded that they do not consider themselves to be productive throughout the entire workday. Rather than working, here’s a look at how these employees spent their time, on average:

Checking social media: 44 minutes
Reading news websites: 1 hour 5 minutes
Discussing out of work activities with colleagues: 40 minutes
Making hot drinks: 17 minutes
Text/instant messaging: 14 minutes
Eating snacks: 8 minutes
Making food in office: 7 minutes
Making calls to partner/friends: 18 minutes
Searching for new jobs: 26 minutes

The Harvard Business Review explains that this lack of productivity can be partly attributed to the expectations placed on employees: “Many of today’s organizations sabotage flow by setting counter-productive expectations on availability, responsiveness, and meeting attendance” leaving employees in a “constant state of distraction and hyper-responsiveness.” From long meetings about inconsequential minutiae to the pressure to respond to emails the second you receive one, employees are perpetually pulled in a plethora of directions that prevent them from actually accomplishing the things they are meant to accomplish.

These distractions impede an employee’s ability to enter a state of “flow,” a term used first by psychologist Mihàly Csìkszentmihàlyi to describe the psycho-physiological state in which people were “fully employing their core capabilities to meet a goal or challenge created.” People who were able to enter a state of flow as they were working reported that they “were more productive and derived greater satisfaction from their work than those who didn’t.”

increasing productivity

Clearly, the ability to access the flow state can play a major part in cultivating productivity; but how can you access this ultra-motivated, ultra-accomplished mode of mind? Here are some tips to help maximize how productive you are in the office:

Decrease distractions: As discussed earlier, the modern workplace is rife with all sorts of distractions that can slow down your productivity, with social media standing as one of the biggest offenders. Turn off the notifications for any social media applications you may have to reduce any pings that may pull you away from your work.
Have the proper tools and equipment: Little is more frustrating than being ready to take the next big step on a major project only to have your progress halted because you can’t print some necessary paperwork due to a faulty printer. Limit unfortunate circumstances like this by ensuring that all of your office equipment are in top shape.
Establish realistic goals: Hiking Mount Everest is a seemingly insurmountable task; but if you break that trek up into smaller hikes from checkpoint to checkpoint, it becomes a lot more feasible of a goal. Apply this same concept to your own major projects—breaking them up into smaller, more manageable goals—and watch your motivation and productivity rise!

Enter the pomodoro technique

Amidst all of the productivity hacks, there exists one time management strategy widely hailed as one of the most effective ways to optimize your productivity. Enter: the Pomodoro Technique! The Pomodoro Technique, created byFrancesco Cirillo is a time management technique built around making the most out a set amount of time. Here are the basics of this technique:

Choose a task.
Set a timer for 25 mintues (or one pomodoro).
Work on the task until the timer goes off.
Take a short break, usually 5 minutes long.
Repeat until you've finished four pomodoros, then take a longer break, usually 15 minutes.
Repeat the process as long as desired.

And that’s it! Stick with the Pomodoro Technique for a day, and watch yourself burn through your to-do list in no time. One of the reasons why the Pomodoro Technique is so successful is because it instills a sense of urgency and focus within you—you know that you only have 25 minutes to work on a task, encouraging you to give your undivided attention to whatever you’re working on. And then once a pomodoro is up, you have a short break!

This is another benefit of the Pomodoro Technique: it gives you time to take regularly scheduled breaks. Giving yourself a break throughout your workday is important for your professional and personal well-being, and with the breaks allocated through the Pomodoro Technique, it encourages you to actually pause from what you’re working on to give your mind a rest.

But as with any technique or strategy, the Pomodoro Technique is a tool meant to help you, not hamper your success. For example, if you find that you have truly found a state of flow in a pomodoro, and your timer goes off—but you know that you can finish the task in 10 more minutes—then go ahead and pause your break timer to finish your work strongly.

in conclusion

Ultimately, fostering productivity in your office can be accomplished through a variety of ways, from shutting off your social media notifications to committing to a new time management technique. The physical environment of your office space is just as vital to cultivating productivity; and here at Facility Solutions Plus, our experts can help you design the perfect floor plan with just the right pieces of office furniture to ensure that your office is ripe with productivity.

Facility Solutions Plus is a client-centered, full-service commercial office furniture dealership and service provider that specializes in meeting needs, solving problems and enhancing the total office environment through customized, cost-effective workspace solutions...and more.