MetaLab offers the following six tips to help boost efficiency and productivity at work:
1. Encourage workers to take their breaks. It might sound counter-intuitive, but workers who don’t get a chance to take a break from tasks will become tired, stressed and ultimately less productive. Even getting up for a stretch or browsing through a magazine for 15 minutes can increase productivity.
2. Create work-from-home opportunities. If possible, allow employees to work from home once a week. Working from home can help improve work-life balance and provide a quiet focus that gives employees a boost.
3. Put your meetings in motion. As long as the weather holds up, take a walk outside for a meeting. The movement and change of scenery can trigger creativity. If the weather outside is frightful,
4. Prioritize. Encourage employees to take care of their most important tasks first thing in the morning, when they have the most energy, attention and focus.
5. Condense communications. Avoid channel overload by condensing your most important communications into a single medium. A great way to do this is to implicate an online task management application to help reduce the hundreds of minute, detail-oriented emails that often take place between coworkers.
6. Automate wherever possible. Take advantage of programs that can minimize the amount of man hours that go into a project. For example, use an online invoicing and time tracking application that can reports, make sense of cash flow, monitor time management and notify business owners of upcoming financial deadlines.
MetaLab is an interface designer and builder. Visit http://metalabdesign.com/ to learn more.