10 ways to improve your performance at work
Successful professionals create value by finding a need and meeting it. They are unique in being able to create new products, services, business models, or just simply more effective solutions with passion and insight.
Here Bayt.com offers some tips on how to improve your productivity at work:
1. Plan and prioritize.
Failing to plan is planning to fail. Have an end goal in mind and organize a game plan to get there. Create a daily schedule and stick to it. Be punctual and don’t postpone. Determine what projects and tasks are critical, urgent and create the largest value and benefit to the business. Select what you can easily postpone and what you can delegate without hurting results; a lion’s chunk of prioritizing involves simply learning to say no.
Focus is a key trait of productive professionals; distractions are the bane of productivity. According to Bayt.com’s ‘Rest and Recreation Habits Among MENA Professionals’ poll earlier this year, 30.7% of respondents say that they spend more than five hours a day surfing the internet just for fun. Don’t lose sight of your vision, mission and values along your journey. Remember, sustainable success is rarely about revolutionary breakthroughs, it’s invariably a process of evolution that feeds off consistent progress.
3. Set interim milestones and reward yourself.
The road to your destination may be long and winding; the end-goal may still be a few moons away. But don’t let that stop you from taking time to smell the roses. Set clear milestones for interim success and reward yourself with a break from time to time. Breaking a long project into chunks of mini-tasks with individual milestones and success metrics will keep your morale high and energy levels soaring. 62.2% of professionals in the region polled by Bayt.com claim that they do receive recognition or praise at work but only from others; make sure to tabulate your own progress and reward yourself too!
4. Read something new.
Try to allocate some time every day to read, refine skills and learn something new. Take notes and share your knowledge whenever possible; in this way you are learning more actively and also building a reputation and establishing expertise for yourself. With change happening all around you, the quickest way to increase productivity, improve performance, and maintain a competitive edge is to stay fully abreast of the latest tools, trends, and technologies in your industry. 77.9% of respondents to a Bayt.com poll indicated they read constantly and 69.6% indicated they believe reading is vital to career progress.
5. Ask a question.
What if I did this differently? What if there is a faster, easier, more effective way to achieve the same results? What if I changed my pitch/tone/content/brand or message? Whatever the question you ask, you need to constantly challenge the status quo and question yourself and others to find out whether you are really working as productively as you possibly could. Never be satisfied that things can’t be improved.
6. Simply listen.
Whether within your team or to outside clients, you need to listen regularly and often. They will provide you with first-hand insights into your performance and alert you to their preferences so you can better meet demand. You may be able to amplify your productivity substantially by better understanding and honing in on actual consumer expectations and learning to anticipate their needs. Listen to your team, your stakeholders and your peers in the industry too.
7. Take stock of your competitive space.
Rarely are we blessed with a space void of competitors; understanding your market is essential. Observe what your competitors are up to, analyze what they are doing right – and not so right – and treat their experience as a key learning opportunity to keep innovating and iterating.
8. Give credit where credit is due.
All of us rely on the cooperation, input, feedback and buy-in of others to get our job done. To facilitate and magnify this kind of cooperation, you need to give credit to others and show gratitude along the way. Help those around you to excel and you’re bound to rise together.
9. Stay healthy.
Good health and an acceptable work-life balance lead to better productivity. A recent poll conducted by Bayt.com reveals that professionals in the Middle East and North Africa are keen on maintaining a healthy work-life balance. In fact, 26.9% of polled professionals believe that their poor work-life balance has jeopardized both their mental health and happiness, and a staggering 64.8% of them would even accept a pay cut to have more free time on their job.
To sustain peak performance over the long term and avoid stress and burnout, you need to be physically and mentally healthy. Eat well, sleep sufficiently and try to squeeze some exercise into your routine on a regular basis.
10. Put your heart in it.
Passion is one of the single most important drivers of success. If your heart and soul aren’t in what you are doing, you are likely not putting your best effort forward. Do some soul-searching and find out what it will take to make you love what you do and perform to the very best of your abilities. Make sure your values are being reflected and respected in what you do and that you see true meaning in your work.
For more tips on boosting your performance at work, check out:
