For a lot of us, aspects of our work lives don't flow as easily and naturally as we would like. That could be because we feel there are more things on our to-do list than we are able to get done in the day, or it could be that we aren't quite sure how to find time for everything on our list but do not feel entirely rested when all is done and said.
Luckily, small changes can go a long way in helping us figure out how to optimize our days! Watch now for easy hacks you'll want to take note of, then incorporate into your week!
Welcome everyone to this month's webinar. Interesting topic on productivity hacks. We've got some tips for getting through your day.
Did you know that the average worker only is productive for about just under three hours in a standard eight hour workday? For a lot of us, aspects of our work lives don't flow as easily or naturally as I'd like.
Luckily, some small changes can go a long way to helping us figure out how to optimize our days. And we're going to go through 10 easy hacks. That you can take notes of then incorporate into your work week.
dita Solutions was started with my business partner, Steven Whyte, and we joined forces with Laurie Lawrence Olympic gold medallist swim coach. And here we are today. We started in the corporate world and now we're branching out into many different digital transformation aspects. And so that's why we're talking about these product productivity hacks today.
This is a little bit of fun today in compared to some of our other webinars that we've done in the past, so it's a little bit different. It's not all about systems and processes. It's a little bit about yourself and how you can integrate that into your day. So the first one, Talk about quiet time in the morning.
It's a really good way to start the day, is to wake up early earlier than everyone else and just have some time for yourself so you can better get focused and not have so many distractions around you so you can get the day startled off onto a good foot. Set your daily goals. Having a goal for each day will help you stay focused on track and to decide what you want to accomplish by the end of the day.
And work towards number two, meditation, and mindfulness. Now that sounds interesting to some of you, meditation and mindfulness, but that can be done in many different ways. Meditation and mindfulness are great productivity hacks that can help you focus and get things done. Taking a few minutes to just meditate or be mindful can help clear your mind and allow you to focus and stay on task.
Other ways that you can do that is by stepping away from your computer, going for a walk outside, just clearing your head in between your tasks that'll help you. Then complete tasks, clear your head from after doing it, and then moving on from it. The best times to meditate or be mindful of first things in the morning, so before you start your work day as well.
Taking a few minutes for yourself to send yourself and to help yourself to be more productive for the day. So for myself, what do I do? I like to get up early and go for work. I get up a couple of hours, few hours prior to work and I will start my day with a walk and and that's a, just for a half an hour walk. It gets me out of the house, it gets, it wakes me up. It allows me to think to myself, and it just clears my mind. And then I can come back and then take my time and have a coffee and get ready for work, watch some news, and so it's not rush. What you don't want to do is be getting up 45 minutes before work, racing into work, sitting down at your computer, and then waking up half an hour to an hour later in the day.
Because you've started the day in such of a rush. It's just getting that early start to the day in there. And that's where the third point is, the exercise and movement part. So getting your body moving is a great way to increase your energy levels and your productivity levels. Take a few minutes to do some simple exercises or go for a walk, can make a big difference in how you're feeling throughout the day.
That's what I mentioned that I do. In the day, in the morning at the start, and also I'll do it throughout the day as well. I'll get up from my desk and I'll take a walk At lunchtime, I'll leave the office, get up, go for a walk. It's just to break up your day and also to keep yourself moving instead of sitting down in front of a computer all day.
Drink plenty of water. Stay hydrated. It's important for overall health, but it can also help you stay focused and productive during your workday. So drinking plenty of water will help you stay alert and thinking clearly throughout the day. I come from up north I spent a lot of time up north, and so I got into the routine of drinking a lot of water when I lived up there because of the hot temperatures.
And I've brought that back to me, coming down into a cooler climate. And it works well to just keep yourself hydrated through the day. It keeps your mind clearer. You don't get dehydrated, you don't get headaches. It's easy to keep focused. Hack number four. This getting into a little bit more on the business side.
Video calls, not meetings. And we are really right into this here. Having meetings is a huge time sink. So especially if you're not well organized. For this reason, many businesses, including our own use video conferencing instead of in-person meetings. So video conferencing can save you a lot of time and can be just as effective as a meeting.
There's a couple of things that you save time on here. One is preparing yourself to go to the meeting, making sure you've got everything that you need, getting to the meeting, waiting for everyone else to be sorted, and then there's a social aspect of that, and then you get to your meeting points, and then you've got to get back to your desk and get started back on your work.
In all you, you're sinking a huge amount of time into going to a face-to-face meeting. We got the technologies today to do online video meetings, so it's a great way to save a lot of time and have everything at your fingertips that you need for that meeting, so you don't have to prep for.
In the sense that you don't have to take things with you. You can have it all there at your desk where you've got your station set up and you can keep moving as soon as the meeting's finished, talking about workspace. And some people in my business will say, I'm not the best at this.
Number five, declutter your workspace. What's that mean? A cluttered desk or workspace can be a major source of distraction and anxiety, so taking the time to declutter your space can help you stay focused and feel more relaxed. In other words, not piles of paperwork having inboxes on your desk that are jam packed of things.
I'm just looking around and looking at mine at the moment. They're a good way to keep you feeling more relaxed because you don't have. Lots of different things in your eyesight. You just want to focus on the thing that you're working on at that time. And that's really is always going to mainly be on your computer and your space.
If you have items that are taking up space and that don't serve a purpose it's time to let them go. Hack six. Don't forget your desktop. So same as your desk. Then there's your computer desktop. Don't it's good to take some time to declutter that. As well as what you're doing with your physical space.
Take a look at your computer desktop and get rid of any of the files or folders that you don't need. Organize them your remaining files and folders so that you can get to them easily so you know where everything is and Exactly how to get there. You don't want to spend half an hour trying to find that information that you need to complete the task that you're on now.
If you've got a desktop that's got 50 icons on it, it's time to package them all up into maybe one icon or get rid of them all together. And then look at the things that you do on a daily task and then have those out easily accessible so that you can access them quickly and be able to move onto your next task easily.
Finally, unsubscribe to any email list and newsletters that are no longer of interest to you. So we all get bombarded with emails and I guarantee a lot of them are junk mail and. All things that you've signed up to in the past because it was a part of a project that you were working on or was part of some of your responsibility at the time, and that you wanted to track those businesses or that information or those communities.
But then you've moved on. Then it's important to take the time to just weed that stuff out. You can also set different rules within inside of your email system so that when emails come in, a unsubscribe or b, if you're still wanting the information at call, you can have them getting directed directly into a specific folder so it's not actually in your inbox of your to-do list.
And tasks that you need to do, it's just reference material that you can find when you are wanting to go back to it. So unclutter the desktop. Number seven, avoid interruptions. And I know this is a very difficult one, especially if you're working in an office environment. We're all got people around us and we've also got technology around us.
Set aside some time each day to work uninterrupted. During this time, turn off all of your notifications on your phone in your computer. Let your co-workers know that you will not be available during this time, and ask them not to disturb you unless it's an emergency. So it's really good to have that time put aside every day.
And I do that a lot after hours or sometimes in the early part of the morning just to get through what I need to get through. But it is an important step so that you can get more of your tasks done and not let all the distractions hit you at once. Utilize the Do Not Disturb features on your digital tools, including things like teams and Zoom and Google. Your outlook so you can set to away or not available. And that just allows you then to know that you'll have that time every day just to focus on the things that you need to get done and understanding what you need to get done as the next hack.
Number eight, write a to-do list. This may seem like a really simple productivity hack, but it can be surprisingly effective. Write down everything you need to do in a day and then prioritize the items in there that you need to get done. This will help you keep focused on the important, most important tasks and then get them done more quickly.
Set a time limit for each task as well. So don't let a task just roll on and on. You, if you've got a list and you need to get through it, you're going to need to set some timeframes for each of those tasks that you can spend on them. So once you have your to-do list, allocate a time limit to each of the tasks, and this will help you keep on track and avoid getting bogged down in the one particular task.
Number nine learn to delegate. For a lot of us, there's only so many hours that we have in the day for most of us, eight. And if you want to be successful, then you need to learn how to use them wisely. So one way to do this is to delegate your tasks. And learn how to say no.
If you tried to do everything yourself you'll quickly become overwhelmed and bogged down. Not only will this impact on your own productivity, but it will also affect the quality of your work. So we all know that feeling of someone asking us if we can help with something or do something. and we just drop everything on the spot to do it, and then our own to-do lists then get forgotten, and then we don't get our own things achieved.
But we've got to learn at times to go, no, I can't do this now, or I can do it at a later date or a later time in the day so that you can get through your list in the timeframe that you have. You can also add in your daily to-do list is to do those ad hoc requests, so make that a part of your to-do list each day as well.
By learning to delegate and to say no, you can focus on the tasks that are most important to you and to get more done in less times.
And number 10, utilize digital tools. If you find yourself doing the same task repeatedly see if there's a way that it can be automated. Repetitive and tiresome task can impact on your focus and reduce your level of productivity.
There are many different software program. And apps that can help you to automate repetitive tasks. This will free up your time so that you can focus on more important things in your in your day to make sure you get through those. And that's where dita comes in and where dita can assist you in that.
The dita platform can play a pivotal role in transforming your organization's productivity and performance through digital transformation. What's digital transformation? It's the process of using digital technologies to create new and modified existing business processes, culture and customer experiences to meet changing business and.
Requirements. It's also in our name, it's digital, it's integration, it's transformation, and it's automation. So our solution of dita Solutions has a range of automated solutions designed to streamline and automate the business processes. With a secure platform, you'll be recording all your business operations online and in one place, so your business will be improving its process.
It's procedures, tracking, compliance, and training, all while storing the information safely and securely in the dita cloud. So I'll just go through some of those digital assets and tools that we have that can help you in that process and can help every business to automate, to digitalize and automate their process.
Firstly is dita learning. A tailored learning platform for all your business training and compliance needs. So that includes onboarding new staff, which is very heavy in resource. You can really build an automated process on taking people through their learning training.
Collecting the compliance information that you need from each person. So not only is it good as a, an onboarding tool, but it's. Ongoing professional development. So to ensure that your staff are trained and understand the roles that they need to do and how to do them in the most efficient fashion, the dita documents.
dita documents is about, or is automating the creation, storage and distribution of documents. So instead of having paper and filing cabinets and emailing off documents and updating them in different folder. In the one spot, you can conversion control them and you can assign them out to all team members or individual team members, and you can track what page they're on, where they're up to, how long it's taking them, and you can also ask them for feedback acknowledgements and for digital signatures as well.
dita contractors. So just ensure ahead of your contractor. At all times. So just like your own staff, you have got the same responsibilities for your contractors. They are part of your team in the way that they create your services and supply. So you need to ensure that you've got them well trained and you also, you've got all their compliance up to date as well, especially for legislative and regulatory requirements and also for your insurance policies.
Data forms. So what we do with dita forms is we gather information and simple and have simple reporting and automated workflows. So it's what dita forms do is collect information that you need and from collecting that information then we can then set a workflow. From gathering that information to what's next.
So it can set a new path and a new procedure to start off, or it can be stored and then reported on at a later time. Most processes in a business, a lot of work processes in a business, especially those mundane processes repetitive processes can be sorted out through dita forms with what workflows attached to them.
dita Visitor is just about streamlining your front desk procedures safely and securely. So as a a business operator owner, a director a supervisor, It's your responsibility for every person that walks into your office space or workshop, your place of business. And the one way to do that and to keep up with regulations is to check them in so you can utilize a digital tool instead of having someone that has to meet them and bring them in.
You can do that through a digital process and you can have a record of that for any emergencies. And then dita Catalog. We're all about offering services and products to our clients, our customers. The dita Catalog is a way to be that front end shop and to automate the process of the sales, the deliveries, and also automate the process of the receipts and other things that.
Get passed along from one person to the other in the business model. We can encapsulate all that through the dita Catalog. There's a lot of updates happening to that shortly. And we'll be putting out some information possibly the next month, which will take you through all the new updates that are happening in the updated version of our Catalog.
Transforming your business in your workplace, there's five key steps to implementing the digital transformation strategy. The first step is to understand and know what your current process is. Understanding how your process works is crucial in understanding. How we can transform that process. So you need to be able to put it out on paper or put it down, record it, and understand what that process is.
That's the first thing. The second thing is to then identify what are your bottlenecks? So where are your manual processes letting you down and where are you spending your time doing those manual tasks? And they're the things that we're going to try to where we can fix with a digital transformation process.
What's your goal? So let's work to identify what the new goals you wish to achieve in your business process. And then we can build that in as well. And number four is then mapping new workflows. So what we do is we work to map out new workflows and then work out how to automate these through digital transformation.
And then finally it's number five is continued improvement. Nothing is set and forget. Businesses are evolving all the time, the environment around us and evolving all the time. Society's evolving our customers wants and needs always change. So you don't just set it once and then forget about it.
You need to be con looking for continual improvements and so digital transformation is never set and forget. We work with you to continually evaluate your business goals and to map new and innovative ways to achieve them. Alright, hopefully that was of some help today. Just 10 hacks for your day to try to become more productive.
Have a look back through those 10 hacks. And we will catch you next month. Don't forget, keep up with up to date with us on the social medias at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or if you need to get in touch with us, just jump onto our website, dita solutions.com. Email us or you can call us.
Thank you very much for joining us today and we will catch you at the next webinar.
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