Time-tested techniques and tools to increase workplace productivity

7 min readJan 28, 2022

Table of Contents

Most organizations use multiple apps for their day-to-day operations. The number of software apps deployed by large firms across all industries worldwide has increased 68% over the past four years, reaching an average of 129 apps per company, according to an analysis by Okta Inc. This growing trend leads to information silos and increases the time involved in searching for information. McKinsey reported that employees spend 1.8 hours every day — 9.3 hours per week, on average — searching and gathering information. This is a serious problem that affects your productivity and work-life balance.

We all aspire to be more productive at work regardless of where we work and what we do. Everyone is always looking for new ways to be more efficient and effective. Your employees are at their productive best when they can produce more output than the input given (time, energy, and other resources).

Employees who constantly work under pressure are less productive and have higher levels of disengagement and absenteeism. 41% of stressed employees have said that stress negatively affects workplace productivity. The average employee is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes per day. Being productive at work involves using the right tools to improve processes, refine workflows, and reducing interruptions.

Following the productivity tips listed below will help you boost your team’s workplace productivity.

Time-tested techniques to increase workplace productivity

1. Implement collaboration tools

Investing in new digital collaboration tools is one of the smartest ways to facilitate instant and effective communication between your employees. Tools like Slack, Clariti and Microsoft Teams and cloud-based file-sharing services like Google Cloud and Microsoft OneDrive allow you to streamline all communication, exchange files and work on documents in real-time.

2. Set goals for your employees

People tend to work more efficiently when they’re focused on a clear and predetermined objective with a clear deadline. Give your employees clear daily goals or targets will improve morale and productivity

3. Offer favorable working conditions for employees

Companies such as Google and Facebook offer outstanding workspaces for their employees as they believe happiness is critical to employee performance.

4. Eliminate time-wasting activities

For better productivity, your employees need to stay focused and minimize opportunities for unnecessary diversions like social media, chatting, distracting calls.

5. Automate repetitive and mundane tasks

Every company must invest in software that automates repetitive and mundane tasks so that your employees can focus on other critical tasks.

6. Create an organized workflow

Help employees focus on what matters most. Provide them access to tools like to-dos and calendars.

7. Get regular feedback from employees

Taking regular feedback from employees will reveal several key issues that are acting as productivity barriers. Encourage your employees to provide honest and valuable feedback and create a favorable environment for them to do so.

8. keep track of time

Researchsearch suggests only around 17% of people are able to accurately estimate the passage of time. So, every employee should keep track of how much time they are spending on each task.

9. Take short breaks

New research has shown that taking short breaks helps you to perform your task better while working without breaks leads to a decline in performance.

10. Give yourself deadlines

Give yourself reasonable deadlines to complete each task and do your best to stick to it. You will be surprised to see how productive you are when you are watching the clock.

11. Follow the “2-minute rule”

Entrepreneur Steve Olenski recommends taking up tasks that can be completed in about 2 minutes to make the most of the small windows of time that you have at work.

12. Avoid unnecessary meetings

Though meetings are very unproductive, many people still waste a lot of time planning, inviting and attending them. According to a study conducted by Atlassian, the average office worker spends over 31 hours each month in unproductive meetings.

13. Have short meetings

If at all you feel a meeting is necessary, have standup meetings. They are short, quick and productive.

14. Quit multitasking

Multitasking is one of the greatest productivity killers. Studies have found that multitasking reduces your productivity by 40%.

15. Use your free time judiciously

Whenever you have some free time, use it to create a to-do list, or do some brainstorming rather than spending it on Facebook or chatting.

16. Take exercise breaks

Take regular breaks to exercise as it actually helps improve productivity, according to a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

17. Work in 90-minute interval

Researchers at Florida State University have found that people who work in intervals of 90 minutes are more productive than those who work 90 minutes-plus. The study also points out that top-performing people don’t work more than 4.5 hours per day.

18. Create a pleasant environment

Research shows that offices with aesthetically pleasing elements like plants can increase productivity by up to 15%. So, surround yourself with some nice pictures, plants, paintings etc.

Get the right productivity tools

When you don’t have the right tools to do your work, you will get stressed out and frustrated. But you are not alone. A study points out that 56% of employees don’t get the right tools to perform their day-to-day activities. Here is the list of 10 best productivity tools that will help your employees to collaborate, manage time, remove distractions and organize their work better.

1. Time Doctor

Especially when remote working and work-from-home is becoming the norm, you need a tool like Time Doctor to keep track of your entire team. It creates a summary of the time spent by the team on each project, client, and task.

2. Brain.fm

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. If you are the kind of person who likes to listen to music while working, you are not alone. Brain.fm is a productivity application that uses music to stimulate the brain and helps to boost focus.

3. Nebo

If you have the habit of scribbling when you are talking to a colleague or attending a meeting. Don’t worry, Nebo automatically formats your handwritten notes into text. You can write anywhere, draw anything, then copy-paste content between pages and into other apps.

4. StayFocusd

If you are prone to distractions while at work, help is at hand. StayFocusd is a free Chrome extension that keeps track of all the sites that you are browsing and it blocks the sites that consume most of your time. So be it videos, games or websites, it blocks all the distractions and helps you focus on your core work.

5. HazeOver

If you are a multi-tasker and have the habit of toggling between multiple windows to get things done. Thank heavens, HazeOver removes all the distractions by automatically highlighting the window that you are currently working on and it fades out other windows (from soft dimming to intense black) until you finish the most important task at hand.

6. Panda

If you are an avid browser, Panda is the go-to app to keep yourself updated on all the latest news and industry insights all in one place. Panda allows you to browse over 100 inspiring websites in one go.

7. Plan

Plan is your perfect workplace companion. It is one of the best calendars and task management app for your desktop. With Plan, organizing all your tasks and events will become a breeze and you will no longer forget important meetings or leave any task unfinished.

8. Harvest

It is one of the best time-management software out there. If you are regularly missing your deadlines, then it’s time to analyze what is eating up your time and how much time you spend on each activity.

9. Spark

Spark understands which of your emails are the most important and pops them on the top of the list. Spark can help you save tons of time by organizing your inbox. Choosing some of the productivity tools listed above will add more productive hours to your busy workday.

10. Clariti

Besides bringing all communications to one place including email, chat, calls, to do, documents and social feeds, Clariti goes a step further and organizes all your work. Clariti introduces TopicFolders on the web that looks and feel like Desktop Folders but do so much more. TopicFolders hold emails, chats, documents, to-dos, and calls. Continue working with emails, chatting with coworkers, sharing documents and whatever else you do at work.

Clariti works behind the scenes to keep all your work organized by topic in a TopicFolder automatically without the hassle. By being organized you don’t waste time searching for information and always work knowing the context. This increases your productivity without any additional effort or stress.

In 2020, 75% of the workforce will be millennials who have a low tolerance for inefficient systems that make their information search process tedious. In order to retain this young and vibrant workforce, organizations must adopt the latest technology solutions and best practices shared in the blog.