If your 2020 was like most people’s, you maybe weren’t quite as productive as you’d like to have been — and that’s okay. Covid-19 and the shift to remote work have made life difficult for everyone, but that’s no reason to think that 2021 can’t be better. There’s no easy way to emerge from a year like 2020, but maximizing your productivity is as good a place to start as any. 

Maximizing your productivity going forward will be something of a balancing act. Covid-induced productivity habits can be hard to shake, but doing so can make all the difference when it comes to what you accomplish on the job. If you’re hoping to start off 2021 on the right foot, you’ll want to maximize your productivity as soon as possible. Here’s how you can do it:





There’s no easy way to emerge from a year like 2020, but maximizing your productivity is as good a ... [+] place to start as any.


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1. Consolidate your tech.

This year, thousands of businesses took their operations online and used tech tools to help them do so. Digitally emulating an office is no small task, and the software required to do so can quickly become overwhelming if not managed properly. Instead of letting your desktops and dashboards become overloaded with apps, programs, and widgets, work to combine and streamline all of those processes.


Instead of wasting time by constantly switching between applications, look to adopt platforms that incorporate as many of your critical services as possible. All-in-one marketing platforms are quickly gaining steam as go-tos for businesses looking to save money and increase efficiency, as are full-service offerings such as Salesforce’s Customer 360. When it comes to productivity, simpler is better — apply that mantra to your tech, and the results will speak for themselves. 


2. Take command of your inbox.

One of the many consequences of sudden remote work was a huge uptick in e-mail usage. An overloaded inbox is nothing new, but Covid-19 has made email more critical to the business communications equation than ever before. Those hoping to boost productivity in the coming year need to show their inboxes whose boss — and that means far more than just deleting unreads. 


A clean inbox is a happy inbox, but the possibilities for improvement don’t just stop there. Tools like Mixmax allow you to track email, easily schedule meetings, and automate your workflow. Combine that with tools to track how much time you actually spend in your email to take control of your inbox and your time. Email is not going anywhere anytime soon — might as well use tech to maximize your productivity while using it. 

3. Stop multitasking. 

It’s the age-old productivity paradox: the more you try and do, the less you’ll actually be able to accomplish. While this fact is well-known among all sectors of business, the post-Covid landscape has caused many to revert back into the taboo world of multitasking. Sometimes it feels like taking on a critical mass of responsibilities is the only way your business or career can make it through times like these, but there’s always a better way to do things. 

While there are a number of apps out there designed to help you curb a bad multitasking habit, very few of them do anything that you can’t do yourself. Focusing on one task at a time is eminently achievable using just a few basic psychological tricks, such as only keeping one window open on your desktop at a time. By building strong working habits from the ground up, you’re ensuring that high levels of productivity become germane to the way you operate. 

4. Separate home and office — even if you’re remote.

Before the pandemic, it wasn’t quite as difficult to leave work tasks at work and keep domestic life at home. Now that many people sleep, eat, and relax just a few feet away from where they work, the line has become quite a bit thinner. Keeping the personal and professional separate is both more difficult and more important than ever, as failing can have a serious impact on productivity. 

Remote work productivity is hard enough to achieve as is, and maintaining high levels of it is even harder if you’re letting one part of your life creep into another. There’s a reason that companies like Chegg, DocuSign, and ServiceNow are giving employees extra time off, with some even forcing employees to take paid vacations. When you’re at work, you want to be fully present. In order to do that, the same needs to be said for when you’re at rest. 

Productivity is all about developing habits and routines that make it easier for you to complete the tasks that you need to — simple. What’s not so simple is developing the habits themselves, but these hacks can go a long way in getting you on the road to productivity in 2021.

Source: Forbes

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