Well-Being

Six Ideas For A More Productive Work Day

March 20, 2014

All About Living With Life – Six
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the new year begins, a lot of you are probably evaluating 2013 to figure out what worked and what didn’t. For me (and most of my co-workers), the last year was a roller coaster: the startup I co-founded, Ministry of Supply, took off and our customer base more than quintupled. As I became more and more busy, I tried to experiment to find out how I could become more productive and keep up with the workload. I tried it all, from scheduling 15-minute meetings to not taking any meetings; from sleeping less to sleeping more.

In the end, I found that my well-being and happiness at the workplace are the things that are most correlated with productivity for me. Here’s how I keep healthy, happy and as productive as possible at work:

Work out regularly. My best ideas come to me when I’m running along the Charles River, not when I’m looking at a blank Word document. Over the years, I’ve learned to embrace this: instead of forcing myself to stay in the office all day, I force myself to get up from my desk and run. I work out regularly during the day, right when I find myself fading. I’ve made sure that everyone at the office knows that it’s a ritual that makes me more productive and creative. We’re an active group at Ministry of Supply, so it’s not a hard sell!
Take meetings outside the office. Given that I’m not the only one at the office who likes activity during my workday, I’ve made it a point to schedule some meetings in conjunction with exercise classes. My Customer Experience team goes to yoga together weekly. This enables us to leave the office, be active, and have off-the-cuff conversations on topics that likely wouldn’t have come up if we were meeting in a conference room.
Mix it up. During the day, you can typically find me working from our kitchen, from the couches, from my desk, or holed up by myself in a conference room. Most people aren’t productive working from the same place all day, every day. Find out where works best for you. It may depend on the time of day or the task you’re doing.