3 Sure-Fire Ways To Kickstart A Productive Day, No Matter Where You Work
It doesn’t matter if you’re solely working from home or heading into the office for a hybrid workday, one fact remains true: no one likes working with someone who’s woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Great social dynamics with your team, lasting productivity and fostering a team mentality can’t happen if you’re not doing what you need to care for yourself.
Why is this important? According to Harvard Business Review, having meaningful relationships at work can spill over into how productive you are. Even more so, a person’s morale has the power to spill over into how productive a team is as a whole. One Gallup report even says that disengaged employees cost U.S. businesses up to $550 billion a year from lost productivity.
Taking care of yourself is a big deal — not only for your own health but also for the health and productivity of your work-life. Learn how to start your hybrid workday off on the right foot with these three tips, below.
1. Create a routine.
Routine, routine, routine. It’s important. As we entered back into the world of working in offices in 2021, an estimated 46 percent of companies continued to be fully remote, while the remaining began switching to a hybrid work model. On the days when you wake up and work from home, or you’re commuting to the office several days a week, a routine can help you start the day off right.
If you’re looking to establish a routine, it’s helpful to start first with your morning routine. Do you like to work out in the morning? What about waking up an hour early to read or meditate? Perhaps extra time to pick out the perfect outfit or make your coffee, before hopping on calls with your team, is what will make you feel most calm. Whatever it is, find what works for you, and stick to it.
Everyone’s routine can look different. It’s about what works for you. My routine looks like a variation of this, weekly, and I find that it helps put my mind in the right place for being the most productive and helpful to my team:
- Wake up between 6:30-7 AM.
- Walk to a hot yoga class in my neighborhood, or if I’m working elsewhere, I’ll do a quick stretch routine on my mat at home.
- Take time for self-care. For me, this means doing my skincare routine, daily makeup and picking out the perfect outfit.
- Make breakfast (and either a coffee or iced matcha.) After all, it’s the most important meal of the day!
- Make a list of what I need to do, either mentally, or by writing it in my notebook. If I’m commuting, I’ll often make a list of priorities for work in my notes app.
- If I am working elsewhere, I will always put out my bag of things to take with me the night before. This helps me feel less rushed.
2. Make time for communication with your team.
When it comes to working in this day and age, it’s common to be glued to your screen, or get tied up in a project that keeps you from communicating regularly with your team. If you’re not careful, the day can get away from you, and tasks might be missed. This is why prioritizing communication can be so important in starting your work-day off right.
According to a Workforce poll, approximately 60% of companies do not have a workplace communication strategy in place. And another study found that companies with 100 employees or more spend about 17 hours per week clarifying unclear messages. This is worth an annual cost of approximately $525,000 in lost productivity.
By using a chat system like the one in Hive or Slack, you can stay in touch with your team members quickly, and check-in as soon as you sign on for the day. My team even has a group chat where we can all collaborate together. And even better, perhaps build a touchstone meeting into your day-to-day, either in-person or via Zoom — make sure to take excellent meeting notes, too. This will ensure everyone is informed on what is being worked on.
If you don’t communicate regularly with your team, it can be a slippery slope in feeling lonely in your workday, a lack of productivity and even forgetfulness. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
3. Keep track of your work with a productivity management tool.
Let’s face it: you’re only human. And being human means making mistakes and sometimes missing important tasks or deadlines. And in the hustle and bustle of remote work life, and being on a hybrid schedule, it may feel hard to keep track of things day-to-day. But utilizing a productivity management tool you can keep your team, and yourself, on track throughout the workweek.
Studies have shown that using a productivity management tool can improve the overall quality of work, boost employee happiness, increase remote team productivity, and even improve overall satisfaction from customers and consumers.
To improve your personal hybrid workday, a productivity management tool like Hive can help. With Hive, you can keep track of your action items, organize and manage projects, share projects with outside teams, track your team’s progress, run productive meetings and more.
With the right tools in your box, and the implementation of a great routine, you’ll certainly be able to start your day off on the right foot… and most importantly, keep it that way.
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This article originally appeared in Hive — the world's first democratically built productivity platform. Learn more at Hive.com.
What's your no. 1 piece of advice for starting your workday off right? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!
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