On their part, employees have a duty to change their habits regularly and improve themselves both personally and professionally in order to be optimally productive. Here are four ways through which employers and employees can pull together towards improving work productivity:

1. Learn to manage your energy

Productivity is a marathon race, not a sprint. Employees need to learn/be taught how to manage their energy throughout a workday in order to minimise time wastage and to maximise their productivity. Among the many energy management approaches you could adopt as an employer:

Learn to start your day right

A good morning translates to a happy, energetic, productive day. There are days you wake up filled with negative thoughts and troubling emotions. Make a habit of meditating and exercising in the morning in order to get the negative energy out.

Biking, dancing, walking, and other low intensity exercises are good for calming down a troubled mind. Another great idea would be riding a motorised bike to work which will help you stay active and healthy.

Eat right

Feed your body and brain healthy food at all times. Eat lots of fruits and drink lots of water throughout the day. Only eat natural non-processed foods. Avoid junk foods and processed sugars.

And although carbohydrates are good for their energy-giving properties, aim to eat more vegetables for long-term healthy living.

Visualise success

Make your goals clear every morning. Take stock of your long-term goals and visualise your to-do-list for the day. Visualise success in all meetings and conversations you will have during the day. Encourage only positive thoughts and emotions when you sit down at your desk.

Set deadlines and boundaries

Hard deadlines give you more focus and less temptation for distraction. Tell your mind that your only option is to meet set deadlines. While at it, remember to organise your tasks in their order of priority and to only work on tasks that have to be cleared first before moving forward.

Let everyone in the office know that you are not to be disturbed unless there is an urgent issue that needs your attention. And lastly, always remember that multitasking doesn’t work! Taking on multiple tasks simultaneously, no matter how easy they may seem, will only drain your energy and slow you down.

Exercise during breaks

Take breaks between tasks in order to re-energise your body and spirit. You can use that time to chit-chat with colleagues in the break room, but it is advisable to engage in cardiovascular activities once in a while. You can try a weights workout or running, say for 20 minutes, to increase the adrenaline in your body.

Exercise is also a reliable source of creative energy that you need to stay optimally productive especially in the afternoon. On their part, employers need to ensure that there are a gym and a shower in the workplace in order to encourage employees to exercise during workdays.

Have after-work plans

Managing your energy also means having plans for when you finish the day’s job. Plan a dinner date, buy tickets to an event, plan to pick up your kid after school, or deliberately park your car in a space where you have to move it within a set timeframe. After-work plans help you build a strong work-life balance.

This balance is important because it prevents serial workaholics from burnouts and serial procrastinators from costly time wastage. Solid commitments after work will force you to work harder during the day in order to eliminate the need for avoidable overtime.

2. Invest in productivity tools

Invest in project and task management software such as ProofHub and nTask if you feel overwhelmed by big projects. Such apps will help you visualise your progress and stay on top of things at all times, so you don’t waste time taking stock at every step.

You can also invest in time management tools such as Digital Scheduling & Calendar software for help with organising daily tasks, booking meetings, and scheduling events. Such tools help you separate high priority tasks from those that can wait and sync all your timetables for minimal time wastage.

3. Embrace co-working spaces

Employers need to help their employees achieve a healthy work-life balance in order to create a happy and productive workforce. One way of doing this is encouraging remote and flexible working. That is where coworking comes in. Co-working spaces give workers the work-life balance they need by providing amenities such as gym rooms, yoga studios, and boxing rings within their premises. These are amenities that most traditional offices lack.

And because diverse talents assemble at these co-working spaces (lawyers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, name them!), being in such spaces allows employees to interact with people from entirely different fields. That gives them new perspectives and solutions, widens their social and professional networks, and generally makes them better employees.

4. Redesign your office for maximum productivity

If co-working spaces can’t work for your line of work, your best alternative is to create a productivity-centric office. Employers can:

• Create personal spaces for each employee - small spaces/offices that individual employees can decorate and customise as per their individualistic preferences.
• Create social spaces for collaboration and bonding. These include break rooms, thinking rooms, and kitchens.
• Paint the walls green to boost creativity and blue to improve employee productivity. Avoid red and yellow colours because they are said to suppress creative thinking.
• Improve the lighting, either by installing more LED lights or adding an extra window, to reduce eye strain, headaches, fatigue, and stress in your workforce.
• Control noise levels in the office through sound masking systems and noise-cancelling headphones.

Final word

There are only so many hours in the day for you to achieve your career goals. However, you need to work smart in order to increase your daily output. You need to be more deliberate about how you manage your time and how you invest in your productivity.

This will take lots of time, patience, and experimentation, but you will crack it if you keep your head down and work!