Today's workplace environment makes it hard to be productive. With consistent breaking news stories and countless alerts on our cell phones, it's challenging to find time to do everything.
Ron Friedman, PhD, author of The Best Places to Work, brought together 26 science and productivity writers for an online summit. He gathered their advice for making people more productive.
Here are nine productivity tips for leaders, according to Dr. Friedman's article in the Harvard Business Review.
1. Use your own time to your own advantage. Sometimes it seems like we're constantly playing defense, fulfilling others' requests and responding to emails. Instead, we should block off some time each day to play offense and work on important projects we've initiated ourselves.
2. Realize busyness is a lack of focus. Being busy and having a lot on our plate is exciting and often makes us feel needed. But too much busyness isn't necessarily a good thing — doing busywork all day is a sign of wasted effort.
3. Understand the idea of the "ideal worker" doesn't exist. The "ideal worker" is seen as an employee who seemingly works consistently, putting his or her needs behind that of his or her job. Top performers don't see it this way — they take breaks and take time to sleep and exercise. Strive to do the same.
4. Purposely leave projects incomplete. Rather than spending hours working on one specific project, get up and take a break. Famous writer Ernest Hemingway utilized the same technique. After taking a hiatus, you'll return to your task refreshed and with new ideas.
5. Make breaks part of your routine. has found "we are more likely to find breakthrough ideas when we temporarily remove ourselves from the daily grind," Dr. Friedman wrote. This temporary removal can be as simple as going for a walk or as monumental as taking a vacation.
6. Resist the urge to over-help. According to Adam Grant, PhD, author of Give and Take, top performers are often those who like helping other people. But giving too much and too often is a recipe for disaster. Instead of saying yes to everyone who asks for help, pick out your passions and help others in those few areas.
7. Know how to say no. It's overwhelming to say yes to too many people, so Dr. Friedman suggests having a strategy for saying no. "Create an email template, or write out a script that you can use when doing it in person," Dr. Friedman wrote.
8. Monitor and measure important behaviors. In her book Better than Before, author Gretchen Rubin writes, "If you want to eat more healthily, keep a food journal. If you want to get more exercise, use a step counter. If you want to stick to a budget, track your spending." Keeping track of the behaviors that are important to you will help you reach your goals.
9. Work today to make time for tomorrow. Top performers look for ways to delegate less important tasks or activities to others. Completing or delegating tasks each day will give you more time to complete key activities the next day.
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