There are days when I spend hours writing one paragraph of a blog post, and days when I write the whole thing in half an hour.
I never knew what that was – the moment when time gets lost and everything is just flowing effortlessly out of you. Until I found a video by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a former psychologist at the University of Chicago, who calls this state of mind ”flow”.
Here at DeskTime, we did a study of the most productive employees to understand their habits and learn from them. Originally published on Daily Muse, the article took off and was republished by Mashable, Business Insider, Inc.com, and Lifehacker. Here’s the original and complete text of the study with even more useful tips to increase your productivity.
If you’re looking for the best productivity tools in one place, you’ve just hit the jackpot.
We did the research, so you don’t have to. Here are 25+ of the best productivity apps to use in 2018 that will help you optimize your time and get more things done whilst staying balanced, happy, and, you know… sane.
Without further ado – here they are:
From the outside, freelancing might seem like the perfect work and lifestyle. Lucky freelancers can choose their favorite projects and clients, manage their own time and work from exotic countries while sipping cold drinks on the beach.
That’s the beautiful myth. If you’ve ever been a freelancer, you surely know it’s not all roses. And the freelance work you like and do so well doesn’t take up all of your time.
From my experience, roughly 10-25% of the time is spent on writing proposals, preparing contracts, prioritizing my tasks, planning my workflow, and issuing invoices.
What a productive year 2017 has been! We hope that you too managed to accomplish a lot and reach your most important goals – both professional and personal.
This year we covered many useful and fun topics related to productivity, employee management, and office environment. Here’s a recap of our most-read blog posts, published within the last 365 days.
Employee motivation at the workplace seems to be a problem nowadays.
A study on employee engagement has found that 70% of employees are disengaged at work. For a manager whose success depends on the productivity of their employees, these statistics don’t exactly inspire confidence.
The chances are that your employees are counting down the minutes until they can shut down their computers and call it a day. That’s quite the opposite of the vision you have for dedicated, passionate employees who will stop at no ends to guarantee the success of your company.
Look:
Research from the University of California found that demotivated employees are 31% less productive, are 3x less creative and 87% more likely to quit than motivated employees.
And it gets worse:
It was calculated that every unmotivated employee costs the business an estimated $2246 a year. Now, imagine your company employs over hundred people, out of which 70% dislike their job… That’s a LOT of money they’re losing.
The question is: if 70% of all employees say they are disengaged and unmotivated at work, then what the heck are managers doing that terribly wrong?
Let’s say your business is doing well. You are constantly growing, increasing revenue. You have the best people on the team, dedicated to the same goals and vision as you are.
Sounds perfect, huh?
But then…
It comes to your attention that some of your employees are chitchatting behind people’s backs, and some seem a little resentful.
You notice that some of your workers are taking advantage of your good heart and are deliberately being difficult:
Some may not be as punctual as you’d want them to be. Some are cheating your time clocking system. And you may think it’s something offensive only to you, but consider your other honest and hardworking team members. Is this fair to them?
As a manager, it’s your job to take notice. Because good office environment has a huge effect on your employees’ work capabilities. Unfortunately, so does a bad one.
Where you work is as important as what you do.
Various studies have found a connection between office environment and employee productivity. In fact, it’s been said that a well-designed office can increase your team’s overall productivity about 20%.
And if 20% increase in productivity doesn’t sound convincing enough to invest in office improvements, here are some more stats that might change your mind:
A study found a company’s most productive employees can increase its yearly profit by $5,000.
Meanwhile, the average cost US businesses pay for unfocused and disengaged employees can reach $450-550 billion yearly.
Writing to-do lists is a helpful way to remind yourself of everything you have to do that day, from tasks at work, to picking up groceries on the way home. But their effectiveness depends on how you write them.
There’s no use in writing a to-do list if you don’t actually check off any of the items you need to get done. It’s easy to overestimate what you can accomplish and to write down every little errand and thing you should do, instead of focusing on priorities.
We’ve been able to cover some cool topics this year as they relate to productivity at work, home, and everywhere in between. Take a look at what our readers loved best – these were our top 5 most popular blog posts of 2015.
