Do you end each business day wondering where the time went? Did you only check one thing off your to-do list today? Do you feel like you’re always helping someone else when you should be working on your own tasks?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, we bet you aren’t at your most productive.

In this article, we’re going to discuss three ways you are compromising your business productivity and how to turn things around.

Way #1: Internet Browsing   

While the World Wide Web contains boundless information to help you do your job better, it also contains multiple pathways to a loss of business productivity.

If you’re like the rest of the world, you might jump on Dictionary.com to check the spelling of a word only to find yourself checking sports scores an hour later.

It’s so easy to tell yourself, “I’m just going to look for a minute,” when that minute turns into hours. Internet browsing is a certain productivity killer.

Along with the Internet comes social media. While you might start out working on your business’ Facebook page, you’ll quickly find yourself exploring friends or other business pages.

Again, what started as a five-minute task has turned into an hour of fun exploration. Leave the social media browsing for after work. Or, if you must schedule it in your day, set a time limit of 30 minutes.

Since we’re on the topic of the Internet, we must mention the problem of email refreshing.

Way #2: Email Refresh Syndrome

This is another activity compromising your business productivity. Sometimes I’ve found myself checking email every five minutes, or at least every time I get a notification that I have a new email which is usually every 30 seconds.

One way to handle email refresh syndrome is to decide first thing in the morning when you’ll check and respond to email.

For example, you might decide to check your email at 9 am, 2 pm and again before you leave for the day. This is a good way to stay productive without micromanaging your email.

Way #3: Misdirected Procedures

Have you tied your employees’ hands? Do they have to get permission to do even the smallest of tasks?

If yes, then you might have some misdirected procedures that are compromising your business productivity. Here are some tips for giving your employees a little leeway and giving yourself some extra time in your day.

• Empower your employees. Show them you have faith in them. Give them a task and trust them to finish it appropriately and in a timely fashion.
• Cut down on the number of meetings. In our digital world, team meetings don’t always mean eight people sitting down at a conference table for two hours twice a week. Today, collaboration can be done through online collaboration apps such as Evernote, Dropbox and Basecamp. It can be done on your own time without wasting large amounts of your week in meetings. If you must hold meetings, keep them small so more can be accomplished in less time. Additionally, schedule a beginning and ending time and stick to an agenda.

To Conclude

We want you to get more done with less hassle. To that end, we recommend limiting work-day Internet browsing to a minimum, setting specific times for checking email and revising some of your office procedures.

Take small steps each day to correct the tasks that are zapping your productivity, and you’ll soon find that at the end of the day, you’ve checked off all the items on your to-do list, and not just one of them. 

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